Don't Be Afraid of the Dork: TOP TEN TUESDAY | Books that Took Me a While to Love

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme for bloggers who like books and lists. It's awesome and is graciously hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

The topic this week allows some leeway in how to approach but I decided to go with the first suggestion, i.e. books (or in a couple of cases, book series) that started off slow but which I ended up really liking. Here's the official topic listing:

Ten Books I Struggled to Get Into But Ended Up Loving or Ten Books That Were A Chore To Get Through or Ten Books I've Most Recently Put Down (the theme is...books you had a hard time with...tweak it how ever you need)

Without further ado, here's my list:

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1) The Fairyland Series by Cathrynne M. Valente

This series is charming and delightful but it took me a while to see these qualities because it is also wildly creative, purposely odd and somewhat dream-like. It's reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with the same strange characters and topsy turvy logic and reality. These qualities are in most ways an asset however, the world-building tends to slow down the storytelling and the oddness sometimes gets in the way of getting to know the characters. Glad I persisted because the books are lovely and really worthwhile!

2) The Demon King (Seven Realms #1) by Cinda Chima Williams

It took half of this book before it really started to click for me and now I'm completely obsessed with this series! It felt like the two main characters took a bit to develop into the awesome characters they are and in fact the book started to work for me when these two characters finally meet.

3) Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith

This one bends the rules a little bit because I did like this series right from the start. However, while I didn't hate them, the two main protagonists, Cormoran and Robin, didn't endear themselves to me in the first book. As the series has gone on, they've really grown on me and now I love them and this series.

4) The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett

This series is somewhat infamous for having a first book that can be daunting for newcomers. However, persistence is richly rewarded.

5) The Passage by Justin Cronin

I had a hard time getting into both this and book 2 of the series (The Twelve) but they do both pick up and become exciting and marvelous. Marvelous, I tell you!

6) The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes

I love this series, which is a fantasy heist story with a fun and charismatic gang of characters,but the first book took a good long while to get going. This is not an uncommon complaint I have with heist stories simply because, you first have to bring the gang together before they can embark on the heisty goodness. Once the heist gets started though everything's aces!

7) Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Another fantasy heist series! And this one is unique because it was really only the first chapter that threw a road block. The chapter is just a generic set up and for some reason it really turned me off so it took me a week to get through it, simply because I'd read a little bit, get bored and drift off for a couple days, lol. Once the main characters showed up, however, I was completely addicted and zoomed through it in record time.

8) Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan

It's hard to believe now, after I have devoured this series and loved it, that I had picked up the first book previously and put it down after a couple of chapters, bored. I picked it up again and persisted because I couldn't believe that I wouldn't end up loving a book series that plays with Greek mythology. And I was right!