Top Ten Tuesday: REWIND!

So firstly, an apology. I missed the Bible Project on Sunday. I actually am a little behind, and haven't finished Numbers yet. But I had good reason to miss. It was a decision between reading Numbers and writing the post - or writing a scholarship essay for Grammarly on how reading has influenced my writing and possibly getting $1000 for it. I hope you understand. :-)
So I'll add Numbers to the post next Sunday.

Anyway, on to today's Top Ten Tuesday!

As always: hosted by the wonderful ladies at The Broke and the Bookish.
Today's topic is - nonexistant! We get to go back into the TTT anals and choose one that we haven't done. So... I'm doing: Top Ten Books I had VERY Strong Emotions About... Prepare for a lot of CAPS and italics!

1. The Rope Trick by Lloyd Alexander. Emotions: Confusion, Lack of Satisfaction

Granted, I haven't read this book since I was ten, but I remember absolutely hating the ending. I hated it so much that when I finished reading it I renamed it "Lidi with the Bad Ending" (Lidi was the MC). I had to look up what the real title was so I could put it on this list.
Don't get me wrong, I love Lloyd Alexander. (That reminds me - I haven't read one of his books in ages - gotta go to the library!) But he occasionally has a way of breaking his own magical boundaries. Yes, it's fantasy. Fantasy has magic. But it has to be believable magic (a bit of a paradox, I know.) Alexander tosses in some magic that isn't explainable - that is different from the magic in the rest of the book - that just somehow doesn't work - and it's a convenient deus ex machina and wraps the book up in a neat little bow. (He does this in The Book of Three as well... it's when Gwydion escapes from imprisonment.)
The Rope Trick (as I remember it) just left me going, "Huh? So that's how it ends?" It didn't follow at all, and answered no questions.

2. Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant. Emotions: Disgust, Lack of Satisfaction

I love Guy de Maupassant's short story The Necklace but I hate Bel Ami. Ugh.
C. S. Lewis said it best:

Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let the villains be soundly killed at the end of the book.

Well, they don't have to be killed, but there has to be some sort of retribution for actions that harmed other people. And the reason why I don't like Bel Ami is because George Duroy (our Main Character) gets off scot free in the end with practically ANYTHING. So, Duroy is married and has a mistress as well (one with a husband). So far, not too bad, because his wife is a little conniving too, and also has a guy on the side (I wonder why...). But then, Duroy decides that he should marry his boss's daughter (the sweetest thing who just wants her knight in shining armor), so first he has to make up an excuse to divorce his current wife. He exposes her adultery, (he himself, of course, remaining the blameless honest Parisian citizen). He then elopes with the boss's daughter. Oh wait, I forgot to tell you - he slept with his boss's WIFE because he thought it would be fun. It wasn't, but now she's devotedly attached to him and is JEALOUS of her daughter. So the boss's wife goes into hysterics, because her case is lost - Duroy is about to be married to her daughter (poor girl). The book ends with their wedding - but after they are married and Duroy is leaving with his innocent bride, he catches sight of his mistress, and all he's thinking about is how he's going to go see her soon and how her hair looks when she gets out of bed in the morning.
Oh for heaven's sake! All the poor women who's lives were ruined and who's hearts were broken by Duroy! I especially feel sorry for his poor, naive, unsuspecting second wife. She thought she was getting an honorable man who would worship and respect her (Duroy can pretend to be very honorable if he wants). Ugh Ugh Ugh. I've considered writing a sequel where a woman comes in that isn't AT ALL charmed by Duroy and breaks HIS heart for a change.
Okay, that was a long one. But I'm very vehement about this book. Ugh.

3. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. Emotions: Utter disbelief and despair.

Now, unlike the last one, I did not hate this book. I did not even dislike it. In fact - I really enjoyed it. But the ending made me depressed for a couple days. So depressed, that I decided to take a break from HP - and I ended up being caught up in other things and I still haven't read Deathly Hallows. (I will soon, I promise...)
My reaction on finishing this book can be summed up neatly in a few words:
Dumbledore! SNAPE!? DUMBLEDORE!!!!













4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Emotions: Pity, Love, Indignance, Anger, ALL THE FEELS.



This book is FILLED TO BURSTING with emotions. We pity Fantine, Cosette, and Eponine, feel anger at the Thenardiers, "awww" at Cosette and Marius - and Jean Valjean just makes our heart burst with joy when we read about his gradual attempt at redemption. Ohhhhhh my heart! This is a book that raises you up and makes you feel EVERY HUMAN EMOTION POSSIBLE. Gosh, I should have saved this one for last. Oh and you can read my four part post on Les Miz here, here, here, and here.

5. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Emotions: Nostalgia, Thrill, Joy



This book is the ultimate nostalgia book. It is - and always will be - my absolute favorite work of literature. The simple fact that it is a read for ALL AGES astonishes me, and I love revisiting all the memories of my childhood, as well as discovering new gems within Lewis's writing that I hadn't noticed before. I've read it - well, I stopped counting at seven times. Gah I love C.S. Lewis.

6. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Emotions: Thrill, Being Overwhelmed



These books amaze me every time. The expansiveness, the world-building, the intricateness. GAH

7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Emotions: Love, Perturbation, Contentment



Jane is such a spectacular character, you can't help cheering her on through her struggles. When she refuses Rochester for the first time, I wondered, but deep inside my heart did a fist pump for strong women who stick to their values. When she refuses St. John, my heart did a fist pump for strong women who do what they love, and not just what society asks of them. Jane's story makes me so happy - she is a character that we can all strive to emulate!

8. The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. Emotions: Profound Revelation of Wisdom, as well as a good dose of "Awwww...."



You wouldn't believe how profound these little "trifles for the young" are, as Milne put it. These are amazingly heartwarming and deep at the same time. And purely adorable. It makes me so excited to have kids! This was the book that my father was reading to me when he figured out that I was reading along with him. I was three years old. Yup.

9. The Giver by Lois Lowry. Emotions: Contemplation, Despair, Disbelief, Amazement, Relative Contentment



THIS BOOK. It is amazing. It was my first dystopian-style novel that I ever read, and it gave me such conflicting thoughts and emotions. I felt like giving everyone hugs and stealing them away to live with me. THEY ALL DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER.

10. Carry On Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham. Emotions: Inspiration, Grief, Approbation.




What I mean by "approbation" is that throughout the entire book, I was cheering Nat on. Isn't that what it's all about? "Carry on, Mr. Bowditch, you can do it!" It's such an inspirational book: "Sail by ash breeze - go by your own hard work." And I totally connected with Nat on the nerdy side of things! He's on my list of literary crushes... :-P

Okay, that's it for today!

What books made you have very strong emotions? The kind that made you want to TELL someone about the book AT THAT MOMENT? Let me know!


~Sophia