YA and Beyond discussion

This week is 5 books that surprised you, it can be books that were suprisingly good or suprisingly bad. As long as they have an element of suprise connected with youre reading experience of it.

Mine:
- it suprised me how good this series was and how it NEVER got boring or predictable
- just everything about this book.
- such a suprisignly well done representation of life.
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good-surprised
- I was not expecting this to be as in-your-face as it was, and it was refreshing.
- For whatever reason I wasn't expecting a lot due to this being a translation. My bad. This blew me away.
- I ignored it for years because of the hype. Fantastic story.
- Yet again, ignored it due to hype. Forever kicking myself.
- This one absolutely floored me.

bad-surprised
- Severely disappointed because the premise was good.
- I was SO excited for this one and DNF'd.
- Another one where I heard so many good things but it was just blah.
- This DNF was painful because I really liked Wolf by Wolf.
- This felt like one I should love, but it was just flat.

@Ashley - Uprooted and Throne of Glass were both big disappointments for me, too. And yes A Monster Calls is amazing!! That one wasn't really a surprise for me though because ... Patrick Ness. :D

It was the first Ness book I'd ever read (still the first one - I've got KONLG at home though!) and it just blew me away.

Ok I'm going to do the same thing Ashley did and divide mine into Good-Surprised/Bad-Surprised. :)

Good-Surprised:

- I had read all of Maggie Stiefvater's other books and enjoyed them, but The Raven Boys really blew me away. I never expected to love this series the way I do now!

- I had literally only seen one review of this book, but the premise intrigued me so much that I decided to pick it up anyway. And that was a good decision, because I totally loved it!

- I knew next to nothing about this book when I got it out of the library, but it drew me in right away and I was glued to the page from start to finish.

- This one surprised me for a bunch of reasons! I was already a big Andrew Smith fan when I read it, but it really solidified him as one of my favorite authors. It was just so different from his other books, and I got much more attached to the characters/story than I thought I would. And I really didn't see that ending coming.

- I can still remember when I first saw ads for this book on Goodreads and I was like "lol cyborg Cinderella?? That sounds totally stupid." But then a friend told me it was actually great––and luckily, I gave it a try. And now it's one of my favorite series. ;)

Bad-Surprised:

- Man I had SUCH high hopes for this book. I thought it sounded so badass and it had such glowing reviews ... but it just did not do it for me. It was fun starting out, but then there was all this insta-love/love triangle stuff, not to mention a lot of gross victim-blaming ... and it just totally lost me.

- Agreed with Ashley on this one. I'd seen nothing but positive reviews for it and I was so excited to read it. Unfortunately it just didn't hold my interest very much, and I found the "romance" abusive so it was hard for me to read the whole thing.

- Another one that I'd seen nothing but glowing reviews for––and I just did not care for it. I thought it would be really intense and unique, but I felt like it was just a combination of a bunch of other dystopias/fantasy I'd already read.

- Ugh this one was one of the biggest disappointments for me like, ever. I never would've guessed it was written by Scott Westerfeld; he's one of my absolute favorite authors and has written some brilliant books. But this one just fell totally flat for me.

- I was super excited for this one, especially because there was an early review that compared it to Markus Zusak and Patrick Ness. So I had really high expectations, but I just could not get into it. I found the plot confusing and I didn't feel much of a connection to any of the characters.

@Brigid Ember in the Ashes was the one I left off the list, but I definitely agree about that one too. Tahir has immense potential as a writer and I'll definitely look into the next series she writes, but I'm not continuing with this one.

Ashley *Hufflepuff Kitten* wrote: "@Brigid Ember in the Ashes was the one I left off the list, but I definitely agree about that one too. Tahir has immense potential as a writer and I'll definitely look into the next series she writ..."

I felt the same way. There was definitely some potential in there, but it fell prey to too many tropes for me.

Cinder and Winger were both good surprises for me too!

The Help was also a good surprise.

A couple of good surprises for me were:


I bought it at a book sale & hadn't heard anything about it at the time.


My first Maggie Stiefvater book. I still haven't read the Raven Boys yet. Hoping to get to that series soon. Scorpio Races started off not so good for me but I loved the second half of the book. That surprised me after the rocky start.

I was disappointed with:

The first 2 were so great for me & then I felt like the third one just wasn't up to the same caliber. This was also my first sign that dystopians aren't really for me & that I should lower my expectations going into them.

False Prince and Scorpio Races were also pleasant surprises for me, Becky! And I also found Mockingjay disappointing, although honestly I wasn't a huge fan of the first two books either.

Hunger Games turned me completely off of the whole love triangle and I cringe every time a book even hints at one.

Ugh, same here. :P