So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time.
I don’t even know if this title makes sense… But I decided to twist the prompt a little today, so instead of books that I wish I could read again for the first time, I decided to look at books I rated 5-stars but can’t remember much about anymore, and so if I re-read them it would be like reading them for the first time (again)! That’s a mouthful and I think the title sounds much better than what I just said (maybe)? 😂
Anyway, I feel like I harp on a lot about how bad my memory is and well, it’s true! Lol, I tend to easily forget book details, especially if I read them quickly or I don’t take the time to properly let my thoughts/feelings settle before moving onto the next book. I read most of these before I started writing reviews, so despite giving them all 5-stars, you can probably imagine just how little I remember about these titles!
I feel like I might’ve done a similar post sort of recently (perhaps in the last year?) but I can’t remember… So we’re just gonna roll with it! Without further ado…
THE NAME OF THE WIND
Told in Kvothe’s own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen.
The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.
A high-action story written with a poet’s hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.
I read this well before I even learned of the massive online book community and adult fantasy was still quite new to me, but I remember being absolutely taken in by the world and characters. I was enchanted by the magic and I loved Kvothe! It’d probably be about 85% new to me if I read it again?
The girl with all the gifts
Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.”
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.
Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.
The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.
I remember being surprised by how emotional this made me and how invested I became in Melanie’s story. This was not at all what I was expecting but I recall very little about their journey. I remember being terrified (I mean, zombies—who wouldn’t be terrified?) but on re-read this would be 98% new to me?
mistborn trilogy
What if the whole world were a dead, blasted wasteland?
Mistborn
For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.
Kelsier recruited the underworld’s elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.
But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel’s plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she’s a half-Skaa orphan, but she’s lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.
I think I read this around the same time I read Name of the Wind and I was still new to adult fantasy. I remember it being slow but the next thing I knew, I was deeply invested in the characters and loving their journeys. I read the trilogy back-to-back and now only remember minor details… It’d probably be 90% new to me on re-read!
american gods
Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.
Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You’ll be surprised by what – and who – it finds there…
I picked this up immediately after reading Neverwhere, my first and favourite Gaiman. I was living in this mad world that Neil Gaiman created and I loved it so much. That said, I have forgotten a lot of details… I feel like I’d recall details as I read but it’d still probably be 85% new to me?
under the dome
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a selectwoman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.
This was my first Stephen King book and I read it in 2010/11? I actually remember not being intimidated by this chonkster and I think I sped through it pretty quickly. It wasn’t supernatural ghost horror so that was fine but I do remember being really grossed out by some scenes. It’d be 98% new to me on re-read though!
graceling
In a world where people born with an exceptional skill, known as a Grace, are both feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing.
Feared by the court and shunned by those her own age, the darkness of her Grace casts a heavy shadow over Katsa’s life. Yet she remains defiant: when the King of Lienid’s father is kidnapped she investigates, and stumbles across a mystery. Who would want to kidnap the old man, and why? And who was the extraordinary Graced man whose fighting abilities rivalled her own?
The only thing Katsa is sure of is that she no longer wants to kill. The intrigue around this kidnapping offers her a way out – but little does she realise, when she takes it, that something insidious and dark lurks behind the mystery. Something spreading from the shadowy figure of a one-eyed king…
I honsetly didn’t even remember this book was on my Goodreads? I don’t remember a single thing about it and even the synopsis doesn’t ring any kind of bell for me. I think this would easily be a ‘new read’ for me if I decided to read it again at some point in time…
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn’t you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?
Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying of ALS – or motor neurone disease – Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final ‘class’: lessons in how to live.
I remember first coming across this book when I was in high school (I think I was a freshman) but it was one of those books that everyoen talked about having read, even if they hadn’t read it. I did read it and I remember crying over it but it would be 100% new to me if I read it now! I remember nothing 🙈
ripper
In a world where people born with an exceptional skill, known as a Grace, are both feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing.
Feared by the court and shunned by those her own age, the darkness of her Grace casts a heavy shadow over Katsa’s life. Yet she remains defiant: when the King of Lienid’s father is kidnapped she investigates, and stumbles across a mystery. Who would want to kidnap the old man, and why? And who was the extraordinary Graced man whose fighting abilities rivalled her own?
The only thing Katsa is sure of is that she no longer wants to kill. The intrigue around this kidnapping offers her a way out – but little does she realise, when she takes it, that something insidious and dark lurks behind the mystery. Something spreading from the shadowy figure of a one-eyed king…
I had no idea who Isabel Allende was when my friend leant me her copy of this book so I had no idea this book was the first in a different genre for her. I don’t remember that much about it but I do remember being sucked in and enjoying Allende’s writing. I was so impressed and I was disappointed that there weren’t more thrillers by Allende… This would probably be 98% new to me if I re-read it?
PRETTY GIRLS
Twenty years ago Claire Scott’s eldest sister, Julia, went missing. No one knew where she went – no note, no body. It was a mystery that was never solved and it tore her family apart.
Now another girl has disappeared, with chilling echoes of the past. And it seems that she might not be the only one.
Claire is convinced Julia’s disappearance is linked.
But when she begins to learn the truth about her sister, she is confronted with a shocking discovery, and nothing will ever be the same…
This was my first (and only until now) Karin Slaughter book and I was wowed. It is pretty dark and well, if you’re not good with blood, gore and other very gruesome/grisly details, this won’t be for you. What I do remember is that it was disturbingly dark and twisty but I loved every second of it. I think it’d be like 95% new to me if I re-read it.
natchez burning trilogy
Growing up in the rural Southern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned everything he knows about honor and duty from his father, Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor is accused of murdering Viola Turner, the beautiful nurse with whom he worked in the early 1960s. A fighter who has always stood for justice, Penn is determined to save his father.
The quest for answers sends Penn deep into the past—into the heart of a conspiracy of greed and murder involving the Double Eagles, a vicious KKK crew headed by one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the state. Now Penn must follow a bloody trail that stretches back forty years, to one undeniable fact: no one—black or white, young or old, brave or not—is ever truly safe.
This trilogy is actually one of my favourite mystery/thrillers but I have forgotten so many details that I feel like a fraud claiming it’s a favourite. I’m pretty sure that if I re-read this it’ll feel 90% new to me (probably). That said, I was so impressed by this series? I don’t read a lot of this genre but I do remember this being nauseatingly terrifying and heartbreaking and I had a very hard time putting it down!
I realise that most of the lasting impressions I have of these books were how they made me feel but I wish I was better at remembering details about what made me love them so much! What book(s) did you rate 5-stars but remember so little of they could be ‘first time reads’ on re-read? Or is this just me? 😂
dinipandareads 