Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Thought I'd Like More/Less Than I Did

This is a weekly meme hosted by the girls over at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week: Books I Thought I'd Like More/Less Than I Did

Generally, I try not to have any expectations about books/movies/TV etc so I go into it with a open mind/not expecting anything so I can give it a fair chance. However, there are always those books you hear about constantly/get buzzed about/hear lots of opinions about that sometimes...I can't help but get expectations/impressions about it. These are just some of the instances where this happened to either fail me, or help me.

Books I Thought I Would Like Less Than I Did:

1) The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling-I resisted this one as long as I could. In fact, I didn't even read it until a few months before the fourth book came out and just a little bit after it was announced there would be movies. I'm naturally suspicious of bestsellers because I've had far too many be disappointing. Luckily, HP turned out to be one of the few times the public got it right.

2) The Caster Chronicles by Kami Garcia and Margeret Stohl-Everyone kept calling this one Twilight with witches and I was all "yeah, no thanks" and that summery and the way they marketed it for Twihards particularly did not help matters. But I bought the first and read it with low expectations. Luckily it turned out to be ten times better then what people were pitching it to me as.

3) The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare-Another I had low expectations for but wound up enjoying despite the fact that I do agree it's rather cliche (and for the love of God, it needs to END) and Clare herself I don't have a particularly high opinion of (I don't detest her like I've seen some on the internet do, but I don't absolutely love her either. I'm actually rather indifferent towards her).

4) The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan-Books billed as perfect for reluctant readers can be a double-edged sword for those of us that actually like to read and while the PJ series is another that has its issues, they did surprise me with how enjoyable they managed to be even if they aren't the most difficult books in the world.

5) Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead-C'mon, with a name like Vampire Academy can you really blame me for avoiding this series? The blah Twilightish covers and comparisons to House of Night did NOT help matters either. But it wound up being much better then I thought it would and now I'm hopelessly addicted.

Books I Thought I'd Like More (aka hello, disappointment, old friend. I know you well)

6) A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness-People kept going on about this series to me and said "it's a intellectual Twilight! You'll love it!" Yeah....no. Just because something is set in Oxford and has professors doesn't mean it's intellectual. This books is an example of how to be utterly pretentious. Because yeah, the author tried to give her characters brains, but somehow they still wound up being as utterly irritating as Bella Swan and Edward Cullen but more so because they were adults and kept going on about how smart they were, while doing dumb things.

7) The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin-Basically this was a case of deja vu feeling story and unlikable characters who annoyed me too much to continue. People keep telling me to give it another chance but no, if I want to reach in and smack somebody three times and it's only chapter five...it's time to stop reading.

8) Maze Runner Trilogy books 2 and 3 by James Dashner-Maze Runner started off so well. There were some great concepts in here and I have no doubt the upcoming movie will be cool. But I'm sorry that ending was unsatisfying and kind of annoying. It answered NOTHING. It was Lost all over again but ten times more annoying then the ending of Lost because even the Lost finale sort of told you stuff and let you decide what the ending meant. This one...yeah, hardly any answers. Oh and the fact that the female character who was constantly questioning the male lead was pushed aside/killed off in favor of a more docile/whatever you want honey female side character at the end? Yeah, I loved that (yes, this is sarcasm).

9) Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black-Such a awesome concept. Could have been great. But the author was stuck in clicheville and it wound up being disappointing.

10) The Selection by Kiera Cass-Another one that could have been awesome but the author got stuck on so many tropes that it wound up being annoying instead. Sloppy world building that made no sense, did not help matters.