Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Was “Forced” to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish where we feature top ten books or book related stuff according to each week’s topic.

This week’s topic, the top 10 books I was “forced” to read. Most are books I was required to read for school or those that my friends thought I simply had to read. They aren’t necessarily bad, but like many people, I usually dislike anything I’m ‘forced’ to do, or in this case, read. (That was referring to school books, not friend recommendations) I guess these books are ranked by how strongly I feel about them (both positively and negatively).

Without further ado,

Top 10 Books I Was ‘Forced’ to Read:

1. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

This was a book my school made us read for English Literature back when I was 14. Although many of my friends liked it, I couldn’t stand it. Ponyboy annoyed the crap out of me and it simply just wasn’t my sort of book.

2. Saffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay

Another book required to read by my school. This one back when I was 13. It was a complete bore filled with yawns and snores. Moreover, I couldn’t stand Saffy’s childishness even though, yes, she was just a kid because at that time, so was I.

3. Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

When I was 10, my teacher gave this to me as a gift for achieving the 3rd position in class for my mid-year examinations. I felt kind of obliged to read it since it had been a gift and found it ok. It wasn’t extraordinary to my 10-year-old self, neither was it bad. Right now, I can’t remember much from the story though. Apart from the train carriage classrooms and the part where her dog almost bit her ear off.

4. Ransom My Heart by Meg Cabot as Mia Thermopolis

I read this because I was a huge fan of The Princess Diaries series when I was 11/12 years old. Little did I know this was kind of an adult novel. But I did fairly enjoy it because the characters were pretty darn witty!

5. Marked by P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast

One of my best friends when I was 13 recommended it to me. And by recommend, I mean bug me to read it every time we saw each other. I actually did enjoy this book and the following House of Night novels. But as the series wore on, the plot got boring and overstretched, ultimately leading to me dropping it.

6. Splintered by A.G. Howard

As all of you might know, JZ completely ADORED this read so I felt I had to read it too. Plus, her incessant recommendations worked. ;) Although I did not enjoy it nearly as much as her, I did really like the world it as set in. Check out JZ’s review here and mine here.

7. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

My classmates bugged me nonstop about this one but I really didn’t like it. Want to see how much I couldn’t stand it? Check out my review.

8. Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Pretty much the same story of how I came to read Hush, Hush and once again, didn’t like this at all.

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Right now, those are the only 8 books I can remember being “forced” to read. Were there any books you were coerced into reading? If so, did you enjoy them? Comment away!

Adel