It’s tough for me to remember exactly where I first heard about many of the books I read. There are a lot of books and especially series that I end up reading because I start seeing them absolutely everywhere. I tend to actively avoid books that I think are overhyped, but usually come around to eventually reading them anyway. It makes it a bit more challenging to to pinpoint exactly who I think recommended it. For example, many of the Youtube channels I watch have recommended The Raven Cycle, but I’m not entirely sure where I first heard of it or which channel ultimately convinced me to try it. Because I do yearly reading challenges and pick the majority of my books in advance, I also don’t necessarily leave myself much room to take recommendations as they come up so I don’t actively seek them out, at least not from people I know in real life. I’d feel bad if someone suggested I read something and I didn’t end up getting to it. These are all books that I can specifically remember being recommended to me, from various times throughout my life.
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
1) Defending Jacob by William Landay (recommended by my mom) – The first year that I started doing reading challenges, I had a prompt asking for “a book your mom loves.” My mom is a huge reader too, and she has many books that she loves. I asked her to pick one for me, and I’m so glad that this is the one she chose! It’s still one of the best books that I’ve read since I started doing challenges. I haven’t watched the adaptation yet, but I’m hoping to give it a try!
2) The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin (recommended by Jodi Picoult) – This is another one that came up as part of my reading challenges, for a prompt requiring a book recommended by one of my favourite authors. I knew I wanted to pick something recommended by Jodi Picoult since she is by far my favourite, and I was excited to find a website (which I’ve unfortunately forgotten since then!) that collected lists of books that various authors have recommended. I ended up loving this one and I thought it was so similar to Jodi’s style.
3) Kill Me by Stephen White (recommended by my ex) – I probably wouldn’t have picked up this book on my own, especially because it is in the middle of a longer series featuring a psychologist named Alan Gregory. This was also for a challenge prompt requiring a book recommended by a friend, so I asked my boyfriend at the time to pick something for me. We have very different tastes in books, and I’d never even heard of this one. I liked the concept of it, but didn’t really love the writing style.
4) The Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale (recommended by my school librarian) – The only reason I found this book at all is because my school librarian literally put it into my hands during a Scholastic book fair at school. She saw my best friend and I looking around and knew that we were both huge readers, so she recommended this one. I ended up reading and loving the entire series, and I think it is so underrated! It came out a couple of years after Harry Potter, and I feel like it got completely overshadowed.
5) A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (recommended by a different school librarian) – I first heard of this series because of a different school librarian. He had been the librarian at my elementary school, and after he retired, he would come back occasionally to do “book chats” with us, where he’d read us a couple of pages of recently released books. He read us the first few pages of The Bad Beginning (as well as the first Harry Potter book), and I was instantly hooked!
6) The Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo (recommended by Sam @ Thoughts on Tomes) – The majority of my recommendations come from other blogs and vloggers. When I first started watching Sam @ ThoughtsOnTomes, I remember her frequently mentioning The Grisha trilogy, and especially The Darkling! I picked up these books specifically because of her recommendation, and although I liked the Six of Crows books better overall, I really enjoyed this series too!
7) The Flatshare (recommended by Chelsea @ChelseaDolling Reads) – I’d already had this book on my radar, but I was only mildly interested in it until I saw Chelsea’s enthusiasm for it! I expected it to be a fairly generic contemporary romance, but listening to Chelsea’s videos about them helped push this one straight to the top of my TBR. I’ve taken a lot of recommendations from Chelsea’s channel, and often end up enjoying them. This one in particular has become one of my favourite books that I read so far this year!
8) Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee (recommended by CeCe @ProblemsofaBookNerd) – This is another channel that I take a ton of recommendations from, and this is one of the books that I most distinctly remembering CeCe mentioning. I’m not sure if I would have found this book otherwise. I’ve only read the first book in the series so far, but I really enjoyed it and I’d like to eventually revisit the series and read the rest. There are currently two more books with another one due out next year. I may need to reread the first one again by the time I get back to the series, but I don’t mind!
9) The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare (recommended by Emma @EmmmaBooks) – I’d heard of this series long before I saw Emma talk about it but I was only mildly interested in it. I finally decided to pick them up, as well as The Infernal Devices, last year partly because of Emma’s frequent recommendations of it! Her excitement for these books was contagious, and I finally decided that they were worth a try. While I wouldn’t necessarily say that these are my favourite series, I definitely enjoyed them a lot more than I expected!
10) The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware (recommended by Kayla @BooksandLala) – I’m cheating a bit with this one since I haven’t read it yet, but I’m planning on getting to it very soon! BooksAndLala is my favourite channel, and I take so many recommendations from Kayla’s videos! We have a very similar taste in books, especially thrillers, and she absolutely loved this one. It jumped straight to the top of my TBR for this year because of her recommendation, and I’m really looking forward to reading it soon.
Abyssal Librarian 
The retired, visiting librarian at your school sounds like a nice guy.
My post.
LikeLike
He was! I used to be terrified of him at the time because he was a big guy with a very loud voice, and that used to really intimidate me. I was about 5 at the time when I first met him, and 12 when he came back and did the presentation.
LikeLike
The Series of Unfortunate Events wasn’t on my list this week, but I remember adoring them as a kid. One of my first writing projects as a kid was SoUE fan fiction in like… 3rd grade >.<
My TTT.
LikeLike