Top 5 Tuesday // A to E

Lugh got born first.”

First line in Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Hi, readers. It’s time for Top 5 Tuesday which is awesomely hosted by Shanah from Bionic Book Worm. In the month of July, we’re taking a closer look at the alphabet. That means that the first book on today’s list starts with an A, the second one with a B and so on. We end on E today and continue with the alphabet next week. And yes, I’m already frantically searching for a book beginning with X.

Today, however, I managed to find a book starting with the letters A to E. Did I try to get a theme going for the 5 books? Yes! Did I accomplish that? Absolutely not. You’ll notice a similarity between the first two books but after that I just picked whatever book I wanted to talk about. They are all books that I read a long while ago and therefore tend to forget about. I hope it makes some kind of sense.  

A for Angelfall by Susan Ee

A YA dystopian I read back when that was a popular genre. From what I recall, evil angels have taken over and created havoc on earth. Our main character is Penryn whose sister has been taken by the angels and Penryn will do anything to get her back. That includes teaming up with an angel who has lost his wings.

I remember really loving this to my own giant surprise. It’s very dark and also a bit graphic when it comes to the violence. I liked that it was a bit horrifying in that aspect. Like it actually meant something whether the characters won or lost a battle. I believe I also really liked the relationship between Penryn and Raffe and how it developed.

It’s the first book in a trilogy that I never completed. It took me forever to get through the second book although I can’t remember what I didn’t like about it. I might pick up the last book now that this list has reminded me that it exists.

B for Blood Red Road by Moira Young

I remember very little about this other than I loved it! It’s a YA dystopian about a girl looking for her twin brother who’s been captured (are you sensing a theme for this list yet?). She meets some cool people along the way who might be willing to help her.

The writing will probably annoy many people because the characters speak with an accent (I’m not going to guess on which one) and it’s written that way. An example could be that “been” is spelt “bin”. I think I got used to it. I was also completely captured by the story, so it didn’t really matter.

Again, we have a first book in a trilogy but I actually DNF’d the second book. I don’t DNF books so that’s kind of a big deal. Like with Angelfall, I’m willing to try again after writing this. I can even spot my copy of Blood Red Road on my shelf, so I think that I’ll definitely give that a reread in the near future.

C for Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

I’ve read a surprisingly large number of books beginning with a C. Upon further examination I realized that half of them are Cassandra Clare books, so it makes sense to me now. I didn’t have anything particularly intelligent to say about the other books, so I chose Catching Fire.

It’s my favorite in the Hunger Games trilogy and possibly in my top 3 favorite books of all time. It just works so well. Just when you think it would be repetitive and boring to have another round of the Games, Collins just throws THAT at you. I can’t explain how much I love this book (yes, I want to reread this one too but there are just so many books!).

D for Dragonfly by Julia Golding

I read this in 2013. It was the kind of book I just randomly picked up at my library because it sounded cool enough. It turned out to be absolutely amazing. A prince and a princess are forced to marry to unite their countries against a common enemy. The only problem is that they deeply despise each other. The book focuses a lot on how these two countries are basically each other’s opposite in terms of culture, traditions, customs etc. It means that our two characters have many (!) discussions about whose country has the best way of living. I remember that it was really fascinating to read. Oh, and they also get kidnapped.

It’s a book I didn’t expect to love but the characters and their differences certainly pulled me in. I also expect it’s the kind of book that I would like if I read now as an adult.

It’s a standalone but there is a sort of companion novel to it. I’ve not read so not completely sure what it is but maybe I should figure that out by reading it.

The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer

This is on here for a more peculiar reason than the others. Again, it’s a book that I read when I was very young and please keep that in mind. When I read the synopsis for it as I was picking these books, I could have sworn that I wasn’t the same book that I’d read as a child. Apparently, my young mind missed some quite vital pieces of information. Firstly, that this story takes place in Africa, more specifically Zimbabwe. Secondly, that the year is 2194.

Seemingly, I wasn’t very invested in the story and I literally laughed out load when I noticed. I remember really loving the book even though I found it a little bit confusing. No shit when I didn’t seem to care about the setting.

This was just a fun story I thought I’d share with you. I didn’t have many books starting with an E anyway.

A list of books I’ve read starting with the letters A to E. Alternatively, a list of books I now want to reread. I’m going to be very busy by the end of July if this trend continues. Well, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe decided that you’d like to read one them too.

Happy reading,

Line