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.

This week’s topic is: Books for People Who Liked Author X. I find these type of recommendations very very hard, so I decide to give the topic a different approach. My topic for the week is: Books for people who want to have a Throwback Tuesday. What this means you ask? Well, I list several backlist titles I thoroughly enjoyed, but aren’t that new anymore. Well, here we go.

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: Okay I have a confession to make here. I didn’t read this YA classic untill 2018 and actually DNF’ed it. I was listening to the Dutch audiobook and just couldn’t take it. I went to see the first movie back in 2012, without knowing anything about the story. That was a huge mistake, because I just couldn’t make sense of it. Anyway, I picked the book up again in 2020 during the pandemic and obviously that was the right time for me as I finished the entire original series within a week.
2. The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan: I vaguely heard of the Percy Jackson books before, but never picked them up untill – yes yet again – the pandemic hit and she who must not be named was all over social media with her transphobic statements. People kept recommending reading Percy Jackson instead of Harry Potter. I did too, because I wanted to know what everyone was talking about. I got myself te boxset, but have only read the first two books so far. I guess it’s time to pick up book 3 now after more than 2 years. For me, it felt right to leave such a huge time gap between te books like I always do with series.
3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: I don’t even know how I found out about this book, probably through my mom. She read it years ago though, I didn’t untill I guess 2016. I enjoyed it, but not as much as the next book on the list.
4. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: I read this book shortly after The Kite Runner and enjoyed it even more. I rated this 5 stars even.
5. Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch: I admit, this is not the best book in terms of quality. However, I’ve read it on a late summer day in the sun and that was the perfect setting for this. I flew through it like a breeze and really enjoyed it. I never expected that to happen.
6. Zac and Mia by A.J. Betts: Another book I flew through in a breeze, despite its heavy themes. I’ve watched the tv show too, but I wasn’t a fan of that. I liked the book better in terms of emotional depth. Of course the ending isn’t that likeable, but that’s life unfortunately.
7. The Selection by Kiera Cass: My guilty pleasure. Okay I won’t rate it 5 stars now as I did back then, but I still believe it’s this authors’ best work.
8. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara: This book sounds and looks a little intimidating. It’s huge! At the start I actually felt intimidated because I struggled to get through it. However, once the story picks up, it was hard for me to put the book down. It’s trigger heavy, but I don’t mind that. To me, these give deeper layers and more depth to a story. I rated it 5 stars in the end.
9. Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover: Colleen Hoover is all over Booktok nowadays, but with just a few of her books. Mostly It Ends With Us and It Starts With Us, but she wrote so many more hidden gems. Personally, Maybe Someday is one of them. It’s respectful, yet romantic. Also, the banter between the characters is great. If you love music, you definitely should check it out.
10. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi: This one is actually quite special since this was my first review copy ever. I read the Dutch version as Adeyemi was attending YALFest overhere. Also, I was blogging solely in Dutch at the time (early 2018), so reading the English book wouldn’t make much sense. Anyway, I really love dthis book as it was my first book inspired on African folklore and mythology I’ve ever read. The YA market wasn’t as diverse back then as it is now. Especially the Dutch YA market. Unfortunately, as good as the first book is, the second one really disappointed me.

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Have you read any of these books? And what is your blast from the past?