Hello everyone!

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bionic Bookworm! If you’re interested in participating, check out her wonderful blog to get the details and the prompts for each week!

This week’s Top 5 Tuesday topic is books that weren’t what I expected, and I wasn’t expecting this topic to be so difficult to write about. There were a few books that came to mind immediately when I started to brainstorm this week’s post, but the rest of the books were a struggle to think of.

Frankly in Love by David Yoon: This is the first book that came to mind when I saw this week’s prompt. When I picked up this book, I was expecting a cutesy rom-com because the advertising and marketing for the book made it seem like that’s what this was going to be. Unfortunately, this book was not a cutesy rom-com, and it didn’t have that much romance in it at all. If you want to read my full review, where I go into some more detail about why this book was a letdown, you can check it out here.

When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald: This was the second book that came to mind almost right away when I saw this prompt. I don’t exactly know what I was expecting with this book, but there were a few scenes in this book that caught me completely off guard. Based on the description of this book, I wasn’t expecting to run into gun violence, attempted rape, and gang activity. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this content, and I just wish there would have been some sort of warning or indication that it was coming.

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne: I decided to include this book on the list because it was the first romance book that I read, and it completely changed my perspective on the genre. Before I read this book, I had the cliché and totally incorrect idea that romance was the harlequin novels with half-naked men that you see at the drug store. This introduction to the genre was nothing like what I expected, and now I’m completely hooked on the genre.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: I’ve known that Agatha Christie is the Queen of Mystery for years now, but it wasn’t until I read this book that I realized why she so rightfully deserves this title. Before I read this book, I had read a handful of Poirot books, and I enjoyed them, but I didn’t find them mind-blowing. This book though, was full of so many twists and turns, and I still find the ending to be mind-boggling.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman: I included this book on the list because this book ended up being about so much more than a small-town hockey team. I read this book a few years ago, and I don’t remember all of the details, but I remember being blown away by how deep this book got, and the serious subject matter that it tackled.

The Toothless bookmark featured in today’s photos is from Creative Chaotics!