Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Struggled to Get into but Ended up Loving

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Books I Struggled to Get into but Ended up Loving.

When it comes down to it there are two main reasons why I struggle to get into certain books; one is that what I’ve picked up isn’t something I’m in the mood to read, and two is that the world building is so heavy it takes me a while to get past that and into the story. These books below are a mixture of both reasons, with a few extra ones added in.

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Prodigy by Marie Lu

This book took me the longest time to get through, and that’s because the first time I picked up Prodigy I was in the middle of a huge reading slump. I started this book back in 2014 and only finished it earlier this year. Now I’ve read all three books the Legend trilogy is one of my favourite dystopian series.

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A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland

Although I ended up loving this book by the time I finished it when I first picked up A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares I wasn’t in the mood to read it. I can’t say why so what I did was pick up another book I was in the mood to read, then once I finished that I was ready to jump back into a story that would become one of my favourite contemporary reads of the year.

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Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Laini Taylor is one of my favourite authors and one of my auto-buy authors. I was beyond thrilled when I heard she had a new duology being released and Strange the Dreamer went to the very top of my to-read list. The world building was incredibly heavy though so it took me a while before I could fully immerse myself in the story and in Lazlo’s adventures.

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Red Rising by Pierce Brown

The beginning of this book was so slow. It was recommended to me by a friend and for a while I was considering DNF-ing it because there was nothing that was grabbing me. I stuck with Red Rising though, because my friend rarely recommended books to me and I knew this would be a good read, and I’m glad I did because when the story finally got started it was incredible.

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The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani  Chokshi

Like with Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer The Star-Touched Queen was very heavy on the world building. Don’t get me wrong I loved it. Parts of this book reminded me of the magic I experienced reading The Night Circus, but it meant it took me longer to get into the story than you would have thought given this is an all-time favourite of mine.

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Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

The beginning of this book confused me a little. The time jumps that seemed to happen every other paragraph in chapter one confused me, but the first sentence had me hooked so even when the story was slow, when the world building was heavy as Mia navigated the Red Church, I was always interested in what would happen next.

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The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

This was another emotionally heavy book. I knew what was coming at the end. Even though I hadn’t read the original story I knew how things would go for Achilles and Patroclus, and part of me wanted to avoid that ending for them by avoiding the ending of this book. I couldn’t, and the end of The Song of Achilles broke my heart as much as I knew it would.

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Gilded Cage by Vic James

I’ve said this before but dystopian books are never going to be a favourite of mine, Gilded Cage is one of the rare exceptions. The world building is heavy; despite being set in a version of England there are new and complicated politics surrounding the Equals to get your head around, but the story and the characters, especially Luke, grabbed me from the start.

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History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

The mistake I made with this book was in trying to binge read Adam Silvera’s releases. I finished More Happy Than Not, loved it, and then tried to read History is All You Left Me straight away. Adam Silvera’s books are very emotionally heavy so it took me ages to get through this one just because after More Happy Than Not I needed something less heavy.

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The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus is an ultimate all-time favourite of mine, but the first time I read it it was slow going. The constant time jumps that didn’t have any kind of order and all the characters I was introduced to made for a confusing read, but this isn’t my all-time favourite for no reason. The world building had me hooked and I slowly fell in love with The Night Circus.

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So what do you think? Did you take part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, if so let me know what some of the books you loved but struggled to get into are.