Top Ten Tuesday: Books I loved more than I expected

Happy Top Ten Tuesday!  I actually forgot to post this last week, and I even had everything all ready to go!  Luckily for me, this week is a TTT hiatus, so I have another chance to post it.

Anyway, this topic is all about books that I loved more than I thought I would.  There was an option to do books that I disliked, but I figured I’ve talked about those enough!  I tried to go back in time since I feel like I’m always raving about the same few books.  I went way back to 2013 for this one, so I hope you enjoy!

Please feel free to send me any books that you’ve enjoyed more than expected and I’ll add them to my TBR!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett: I have a documented problem with bestsellers.

Margot by Jillian Cantor: Historical fiction about the Holocaust, however important it may be, is not my favorite topic.

In the Blood by Lisa Unger: I don’t read a lot of thrillers and I really like kids, so I don’t generally enjoy books about creepy children.

Stiff by BB Hamel: This was the first stepbrother romance I ever read and I honestly did not expect to like it even one bit.

Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan: If I’m honest, I don’t generally love memoirs. Especially memoirs from people I’ve never even heard of before. But this was surprisingly good and it read like fiction, which helped a lot.

Marie Antoinette’s Head by Will Bashor: Although I was a huge fan of Sofia Coppola’s film about her life, Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser does not top my list of interests.

Lust is the Thorn by Jen McLaughlin: I really just requested this book for kicks, but even though I went to thirteen years of Catholic school and have never thought of a priest sexually before, this book was HOT!

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane: As a rule, I’m generally skeptical of anything from Kindle First, but this book was honestly really great.

Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman: I only read this book because I needed something published in 1990 for 2015’s reading challenge and it was enchanting.

The Void Series by Peter F. Hamilton: I don’t read a lot of epic fantasy – like the real kind that spans universes and millennia – but Hamilton is one of my boyfriend’s favorite authors and I can clearly see why.

Title: Margot
Author: Jillian Cantor
Obtained via: free ARC from author/publisher
Stars: ★★★★☆

I wasn’t expecting to like the book as much as I did. Don’t get me wrong – I thought it sounded interesting and I knew I’d like it. I just didn’t know how much. I went in without much knowledge of Anne Frank’s life. Of course, I knew the basics, the hiding, the annex, the camps. But I’d never read her diary, never seen the movie. It didn’t matter. I was attached to Margot, to Margie, by page two. She jumped off the page as a fully developed, living, breathing character.

Spoilers after the break–

Her struggles at work, hiding her Jewishness while working for Jewish lawyers, felt real, as did her constant efforts to convince herself that burning the Shabbat candle was purely routine and not at all religious. I could feel her longing for Peter and her desire to be closer to Joshua. I breathed a sigh of relief when we found out that P. Pelt was not in fact Peter, married to an American woman, but Petra Pelt, a divorcee trying to raise a child on her own. But then I was crushed when Margie (and I) realized that meant Peter was most likely dead. I was on edge, just as Margie was, when Bryda came into the office and made her thinly veiled accusations that Margie might not be who she says she is. And I almost cried from happiness and relief for Margot when she finally decided to reveal her true self to Joshua – and he accepted her as she was. 

Margot is an exceptionally well-written piece of historical fiction.

[Also posted here.]