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. Click on the link for more info and to find out about future topics.
This week’s theme is: First top ten books I reviewed.
This is a bit embarrassing. My first book reviews are random thoughts penned in a hurry. At that time, my blog was more a personal blog, and my book reviews reflected that theme. I didn’t expect anyone (and nobody did) actually read those book reviews.
One thing I can say on scanning those early book reviews. They were brutally honest. I raved over some and ranted over many. Here’s the list. Click the links if you dare 🙂 .
Combined book reviews
My first book review ever was a combined one where I compared Almost Single by Advaita Kala (so-so) with one of my all-time favorite romance novels The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan.
Twilight
In this review, I ranted about how much I disliked Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. In spite of my dislike, I went on to read the rest of the books in the series, but never bothered to waste my time further writing reviews on them.
World Without End
After ages, I decided to review another book on the blog. This book was the massive chunkster World Without End by Ken Follett. I think around this time I got more comfortable writing reviews and actually started some minimal interactions with other bloggers.
Moscow Rules
I followed it up pretty quickly with another book review – Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva.
The Last Patriot
I don’t have to reread my review to remember just how much I disliked this book. This was the last Brad Thor book I read, and it reminds me how useful book blogging is for me. Reading and writing book reviews has helped me understand what books work for me and what doesn’t.
inkheart
After these thrillers, I turned to YA Fantasy, and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke was a sweet if slightly kiddish book for me.
tHE lIGHTNING tHIEF
I raved about The Lightning Thief (the first of the Percy Jackson books) on my blog, pledged to read the entire series. But sadly, I never got around to reading the rest of the books. I probably never will too, I think I’ve outgrown this genre.
The dangerous days of daniel x
Ugh! This book was just too awful. After this miserable reading experience, I approach James Patterson books with great caution.
THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD
This book was my first ebook reading experience. I ended up liking The Tales of Beedle the Bard so much that I bought the hardcover immediately on finishing the ebook and read it all over again. So much for saving money with ebooks 😀 .
THE BARTIMAEUS TRILOGY
I read all three books in the Bartimaeus trilogy back to back and reviewed the books here. Although this is my tenth review, I think this is where I actually got comfortable expressing my thoughts. Also, this is the first review which is actually worthy of being published. All my earlier book reviews are pretty sloppy in comparison.
So, now I am wondering, why do I actually retain these old book reviews that I am not proud of? I guess it’s because they reflect my blogging journey, and that’s something precious to me? How about you? How did you get into blogging, and how do you feel about your early posts?
I have yet to read any of Rick Riodan’s work, but I’d like to at some point. Here is my Top Ten Tuesday.
I don’t think I will be reading his books any more. They are good middle-grade fiction, but now his books appeal more to my daughter than me.
It was so cool to see your evolution into a book blogger. Thank you for sharing all of these links.
My TTT.
Thank you. Glad you liked it 🙂
My blog was like that at the beginning, too! I was writing reviews for myself, so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on them. Once my readership expanded, I definitely spent more time analyzing, editing, etc.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Yeah! I now cringe when I go read my old reviews. They were definitely for me only 😀