Top Ten Favorite Pre-Blogging Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Though it feels like I've been blogging forever, it's really only been the last two and a half years. Before that time, I read a whole bunch of books, including some of my favorites. You must know about them! These represent favorites from some different periods of my life before blogging.

1. Graceling/Fire by Kristin Cashore

Undoubtedly, this one surprises no one, since I talk about my love of these books almost weekly. Reviews of her books are all over the place, and even people who love one don't necessarily like another, but I loved them both so much. Though I did reread Fire after I started blogging, I still didn't review it. I read these in 2009, waited for Bitterblue impatiently, and still haven't read it.

2. Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson

As with the first, I've proclaimed my love for this series several times, and I'm going to do it again, because that's how great it is. These were my favorite books from my long chick lit-reading phase in high school. They're cute, funny, and have an adorable romance. They're amazing and not nearly well-known enough.

3. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I've read Catch-22 twice, and, though my experiences were a bit different each time, I loved it as a sophomore in high school and a senior in college. The first half is laugh-out-loud funny, and features a brand of dark humor I absolutely adore. The second half, due to the way he sold it, takes a turn for the macabre, and really conveys Heller's opinions on war.

4. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Okay, so I fell in love with the movie first, the one no one else watched where Dickon dies. However, I did eventually read the actually book when I was a child, and I reread it during library school a couple years ago. This is one where I love the book so much more as an adult, now that I can appreciate the beauty of the language. The Secret Garden is magical.

5. The Mediator series by Meg Cabot

During my teen years, I didn't read too many teen books, but I loved EVERYTHING Meg Cabot. I've read about forty of her books, and this series is by far my favorite one. I feel like too many Meg Cabot fans only know her newer stuff, not her best stuff imo, originally published under the pseudonym Jenny Carroll.

6. Watchmen by Alan Moore

A graphic novel! I've read Watchmen twice, and it's simply brilliant. The interplay of the panels, often covering two story lines at once, alternating panels. It's not a good graphic novel for someone to start with, necessarily, but, if you can handle the interplay of words and pictures, Watchmen is one of the best books there is.

7. Northanger Abbey/Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

This is cheating, but Jane Austen was the favorite of my teen years. Pride & Prejudice is, I think, her best work, but Northanger holds a very special place in my heart. I know Austen isn't for everyone, but her wit and characters make her work ever an unparalleled favorite of mine.

8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Umm, hello, it's Harry Potter. Of COURSE, this series was among my favorites. Prisoner of Azkaban was always my favorite one, and Sirius my favorite character. I really want to reread the series, so that I can revisit the later books, which I don't think I appreciated fully, too overwhelmed by the feels.

9. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Though The Witch of Blackbird Pond is set in one of my least favorite historical eras (I could hardly care less about the pilgrims), I just love this book. I've read it probably ten times, and every time it captures me.

10. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Straight up, this is one of the best-written books ever written. The wordplay in this novel is unparalleled. To this day, there are certain phrases I cannot think of without this book coming to my mind, like "jumping to conclusions" and "killing time."