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.

So this post is late since I spent the weekend in Cologne and had no time to write it before leaving. Upon returning home, I just didn’t feel like writing a post so here it is. Today we list books that defied our expectations. This could be books you thought you would like but ended up not liking at all or the other way around and books that are a different genre from what you expected them to be. Without further ado, here is my list.

1. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden – Okay I could have known this since this ook is extremely popular, but I was disappointed. Why? It was just not really my cup of tea. Also, I think I’m not the psychological thriller type.
2. The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang – This actually took me 2 times, because I didn’t like it at first. I already was wondering whether this trilogy would be something for me and at first I thought I was proven right. So I waited several years and retried. And yes, then I loved it.
3. The Merciless Crow by Margaret Owen – Oh dear, this book…. I thought I would love it, but I was so bored and zoned out a lot. I even fell asleep several times. I thought I would love it since I loved many other books this Dutch publisher published.
4. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – Unpopular opinion time! I strongly dislike this duology. Everyone seemed to love it and back then I rated it 5 stars because that was what I was supposed to do. Right? No, wrong. I was quite a newbie in reviewing then so I followed the masses. But I actually was SO SO bored when reading this book and the sequel as well. I found out that heist books are just not for me. Also, I loved the Shadow and Bone trilogy so I was expecting this to be such an easy read as well.
5. The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas – I thought I would like this book as I liked many others in this genre. However, this book was of such poor quality that I was cringing a lot.
6. Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score – I was expecting to hate this one as it’s a Booktok hype, but I had a great time!
7. Twisted Love by Ana Huang – Same as with the previous book.
8. The Love of my Life by Rosie Walsh – In the Netherlands we have a specific feelgood genre and I was reviewing books for an official bookish platform. However, this was more of a thriller than a typical feelgood. I didn’t mind that exactly, but I was also quite bored.
9. You Need To Know by Nicola Morriarty – Actually this is the same as for the previous book in this list, but contradictory to that one is that I actually had an enjoyable time reading it.
10. In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune – I love several other books by this author, but I’m having such a hard time with this. The humor is so cringy and not funny at all! I’m about to DNF this one.

What books defied your expectations?