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Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! Today, we're talking about books that lived up to their awesome titles. Isn't it great when the insides of a book are just as good as its packaging? I picked up these 10 books because the titles grabbed my attention. Then I read them and rated them all 5 stars. Please read them! I promise they're worth your time.
Attention-Grabbing Titles
Fat Kid Rules The World by K.L. Going
Young Adult Contemporary Fiction
Troy Billings is seventeen, 296 pounds, friendless, utterly miserable, and about to step off a New York subway platform in front of an oncoming train. Until he meets Curt MacCrae, an emaciated, semi-homeless, high school dropout guitar genius, the stuff of which Lower East Side punk rock legends are made. Never mind that Troy's dad thinks Curt's a drug addict and Troy's brother thinks Troy's the biggest (literally) loser in Manhattan. Soon, Curt has recruited Troy as his new drummer, even though Troy can't play the drums. Together, Curt and Troy will change the world of punk, and Troy's own life, forever.
Why I love it: I first came across this book on a list of recommended reading for a class I took in graduate school. As soon as I saw the title and synopsis, I knew I had to read it. I was a fat teenager! I didn't know there were books about my high school self! Unfortunately, I became a book blogger instead of a rock star, but whatever. I fell in love with this novel's characters. They're deeply flawed, but the author doesn't treat them as villains or cautionary tales. They're just allowed to be themselves. It's brilliant. Buy it for the music lovers in your life.
Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
Adult Horror / Comedy
Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking.
To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.
Why I love it: There's an Ikea near my town, and I hate the thing. It's ugly, massive, and causes traffic jams. Horrorstör is a perfect way to describe it. I laughed out loud when I saw this book. It's a horror story about a haunted Ikea. The book is formatted to look like an Ikea catalog, which is hilarious. The plot is so fast-paced that I could get lost in it for hours and not think about the real world. It's everything I wanted from a comedy horror story.
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, Jim Kay & Siobhan Dowd
Middlegrade Fantasy
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It's ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth.
Why I love it: The title got my attention because it raises so many interesting questions! Is it a real monster or a metaphorical one? Why is it here? If I had to make a list of my all-time-favorite books, this one would be on it. It has stunning illustrations and doesn't lie to young readers about the struggles of caring for an ill family member. It shows that life is complicated, and sometimes if you do everything exactly right, things can still go wrong. It’s refreshing to find a book that’s so honest. I wish this story had been around when I was a kid. I needed it desperately.
My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
Adult Literary Fiction
Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa's best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.
When Elsa's grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa's greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother's letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones, but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.
Why I love it: I found this book in a grocery store and picked it up because of the title. It's another one that raises interesting questions. Why does the grandmother need to apologize? I had to find out. I love the slow way the characters develop. In the beginning of the book, Elsa lives in a fairytale world. Everything is over-the-top. Her grandmother is a manic hero who causes mayhem but somehow always manages to save the day. Elsa’s apartment building is inhabited by monsters and other fantasy creatures. As the plot progresses, the characters become more complex. Elsa uncovers their strengths, weaknesses, and histories. By the end of the book, the characters—even the minor side characters—are all very human. Everything about this novel is clever and hilarious. Read it.
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
Young Adult (?) Fantasy Composite Novel
Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined—this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice.
An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of midwinterblood?
Why I love it: I was drawn to this book because the title sound ominous. I can't pass up an ominous book! Especially because I knew about the Swedish painting "Midvinterblot," which shows a king being sacrificed to prevent a famine. I guess I can't pass up a human sacrifice either. The book has everything I want from a novel: a remote setting, a lot of death, history, elements of traditional ghost stories, unusual religions, a complex plot, excellent writing, and a whole bunch of creepy weirdness. It kept me reading all night. I couldn't put it down.
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
Adult Memoir
In Furiously Happy, a humor memoir tinged with just enough tragedy and pathos to make it worthwhile, Jenny Lawson examines her own experience with severe depression and a host of other conditions, and explains how it has led her to live life to the fullest.
Why I love it: Who doesn't want to read a funny book? This one definitely delivers the laughs that the title promises. Furiously Happy reads more like a series of blog posts than a regular memoir. Jenny Lawson suffers from several illnesses, and each chapter talks about a different situation she found herself in while trying to live with her illnesses. Some of the chapters are deep and honest, but most of them are just hilarious. I know what a lot of you are thinking: Illnesses aren’t funny, and you’re horrible for laughing at sick people. Usually, I’d agree, but if you’ve lived every day of your life with a disease that can’t be cured, sometimes you have no choice but to laugh at it. I know this from experience. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at a book as much as I laughed at this one. Jenny has a very unusual way of looking at the world.
The Smell Of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
Young Adult Historical Fiction
Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck suddenly comes her way. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger.
Four very different lives are about to become entangled. This is a book about people who try to save each other—and how sometimes, when they least expect it, they succeed.
Why I love it: The smell of a person's house can tell you a lot about their life. I hope my house always smells like chocolate chip cookies, but honestly, it probably smells like baby diapers. Gross. Please never come to my house. Anyway, this book blew my mind. It's a short novel (240 pages), but there’s a ton of stuff packed into it. The characters are well-developed and all have their own plotlines; the setting is vivid; the book is beautifully written. If you’re a writer who wants to know how to develop setting, read this book. Alaska in the 1970s comes alive in this story. There are beautiful descriptions of the landscape, but the setting goes deeper than that. The author shows the values and lifestyles of small-town people. She also shows the cultural differences between the white characters and the native characters. It all feels very real.
The Ghosts Of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick
Young Adult (?) Science Fiction Novella Collection
A bold, genre-bending epic that chronicles madness, obsession, and creation, from the Paleolithic era through the Witch Hunts and into the space-bound future. Beginning with the cave-drawings of a young girl on the brink of creating the earliest form of writing, Sedgwick traverses history, plunging into the seventeenth century witch hunts and a 1920s insane asylum where a mad poet's obsession with spirals seems to be about to unhinge the world of the doctor trying to save him. Sedgwick moves beyond the boundaries of historical fiction and into the future in the book's final section, set upon a spaceship voyaging to settle another world for the first time.
Why I love it: The title got my attention because . . . what does it even mean? What is a Ghost of Heaven? I needed to know! The Ghosts of Heaven is a bizarre and complicated collection of novellas. Each of the four novellas centers on a different meaning of a spiral. It's completely bizarre, but I promise it works. If you have a high tolerance for weirdness, give this book a try.
Beasts Of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang
Adult Fantasy
Orphaned, raised by wolves, and the proud owner of a horned pig named Merlin, Weylyn Grey knew he wasn’t like other people. But when he single-handedly stopped that tornado on a stormy Christmas day in Oklahoma, he realized just how different he actually was.
That tornado was the first of many strange events that seem to follow Weylyn from town to town, although he doesn’t like to take credit. As amazing as these powers may appear, they tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places. From freak storms to trees that appear to grow over night, Weylyn’s unique abilities are a curiosity at best and at worst, a danger to himself and the woman he loves. But Mary doesn’t care. Since Weylyn saved her from an angry wolf on her eleventh birthday, she’s known that a relationship with him isn’t without its risks, but as anyone who’s met Weylyn will tell you, once he wanders into your life, you’ll wish he’d never leave.
Why I love it: This is another title that made me say, "What does that even mean?" I'm glad I decided to satisfy my curiosity because this book is like a hug. It's adorable! This novel is much less serious than the stuff I usually read. I had tons of fun with it. It’s definitely the kind of book you read to escape from real life. It’s funny, creative, sweet, and populated with unique characters who are easy to love. The tone reminds me of middlegrade fantasy, but with adult characters who have grownup concerns. Read it if you want to smile.
Darius The Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
Young Adult Contemporary Fiction
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's about to take his first-ever trip to Iran, and it's pretty overwhelming—especially when he's also dealing with clinical depression, a disapproving dad, and a chronically anemic social life. In Iran, he gets to know his ailing but still formidable grandfather, his loving grandmother, and the rest of his mom's family for the first time. And he meets Sohrab, the boy next door who changes everything.
Sohrab makes sure people speak English so Darius can understand what's going on. He gets Darius an Iranian National Football Team jersey that makes him feel like a True Persian for the first time. And he understands that sometimes, best friends don't have to talk. Darius has never had a true friend before, but now he's spending his days with Sohrab playing soccer, eating rosewater ice cream, and sitting together for hours in their special place, a rooftop overlooking the Yazdi skyline.
Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab. When it's time to go home to America, he'll have to find a way to be Darioush on his own.
Why I love it: First, Darius The Great is an awesome name for a character. Second, I wanted to know why he's not okay. I was so interested in the title and synopsis that I accidentally read this book. Yes, I accidentally read a 300-page book. It showed up in the mail, and I had insomnia, so I decided to read a few pages. Then it was suddenly morning, and I’d finished the thing. It’s so good! Darius travels to Iran to meet his grandparents for the first time ever. While he’s there, he makes friends, discovers a talent for soccer, and reevaluates his relationship with his parents. There’s no romance. I loved it. It’s quiet and nerdy. Please pick it up if you like contemporary YA.
Talk to me about books that live up to their awesome titles!
The cover for Furiously Happy is also epic!
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: https://geekygalaxy.co.uk/10-august-2021-book-releases-with-gorgeous-covers/
HORRORSTÖR grabbed my attention because the title and cover seemed so out of synch. I have not read it, but I did bother to find out more about it after just a glance.
ReplyDeleteDarius the Great sounds interesting, but maybe since I have just spent time reading a bunch of commentaries on Daniel (in the Old Testament) where we encounter Darius as a leader in Persia
ReplyDeleteI've only read Mindwinterblood, but these do have some awesome titles!
ReplyDeleteLauren
www.shootingstarsmag.net
I love seeing the books with great covers that lived up their promise. Thanks for sharing these.
ReplyDeleteThese are really good titles. The only one I read and liked is 'My grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry' by Fredrik Backman but I like the other title a little better: 'My grandmother sends her regards & apologies."
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely day.
Some of these I've read, and some of these are already on my TBR! I'm looking forward to reading them even more now, after your mini-reviews. Thanks for sharing. Here's my list this week.
ReplyDeleteI love it when a book title is evocative of something, even if it doesn't match the story within. My favorite on your list is The Smell of Other People's Houses.
ReplyDeleteFat Kid Rules The World has me so intrigued now. Especially for the music. The sedgwick book has me super curious now too- it sounds so different!
ReplyDeleteI saw the film of The Monster Calls and really enjoyed it, definitely have to read the book someday!
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/03/top-ten-tuesday-327/
THE SMELL OF OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES is such a great title! I've loved it since I first heard it. Now I just need to read the book.
ReplyDeleteHappy TTT!
What a great list of books. All of those titles are attention grabbing!
ReplyDeleteWhen you get the chance, I hope you come over and check out my post: http://readbakecreate.com/15-book-covers-that-scream-summer/
Horrorstor is one of my favorites - everything from Hendrix has been pretty great. :)
ReplyDeleteLauren @ Always Me
There are some intriguing and inviting titles there, good choice. "The Smell of Other People's Houses" sounds interesting. I never thought about that but, yes, every house has a certain smell.
ReplyDeleteMy TTT.
I love this list -- these titles are just so good! I have to say, Horrorstor is a standout though -- you'll know rightaway what the title is (even if you're not familiar with the language) and then the cover! so unexpected a combo!
ReplyDeleteFuriously Happy is the one I'd want to read as these past two years have been hard on everyone! Great choices!
ReplyDelete