Top Ten Tuesday 8

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

This week's theme: Top Ten Books I'd Recommend To X Person

This one is a little hard, since I just posted my list of science fiction recommendations for people who don't usually read sci-fi. There are books I really love and recommend to almost everyone I meet, but those books are the ones on my favorites tab and you can find those any time. Hmmmm...

I think I'll recommend fairy tale retellings, because everyone has read and loved fairy tales at some point in their lives!

Here goes...

1. Beastly by Alex Flinn - This is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and it was pretty entertaining. Alex Flinn always manages to work in a lot of humor into her retellings, and this one also featured a main character who went through quite a transformation as the book progressed. I really enjoyed it!

2. Cinder by Marissa Meyer - This is a retelling of Cinderella and features a plague-ravaged earth, evil queen from the moon, and a cyborg Cinderella (yes, you read that right). It's amazing!

3. Spindle's End by Robin McKinley - I read this book about seven or eight years ago, so I don't really remember much about it. I do remember that it's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty that features talking animals, and I remember liking it a lot. Then again, this is my much younger self's opinion and I probably had much lower standards back then :)

4. The Looking Glass Wars trilogy by Frank Beddor - I really enjoyed the first and second books in this series, but the third was a bit of a let-down. They tell the "real" story of Alice in Wonderland, whose name is actually Alyss. I loved the re-imagined Hatter (and Molly) and the Cat. The evil queen Redd was pretty scary too - just look at that cover!

5. Ash by Malinda Lo - This retelling of Cinderella put me a little out of my comfort zone, but I really enjoyed it! I don't want to spoil anything, but this is a gorgeously written book and brings some very unexpected twists to the original fairy tale

6. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine - Yet another Cinderella retelling, and one of my favorite books from my childhood. I loved reading about Ella and how she outsmarted ogres and matched wits with the prince. Highly recommend this one!

7. The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett - This one is mostly based on the Pied Piper, but brings in elements of fairy tales and stories in general. It's incredibly witty, and one of my favorite books. Another one I highly recommend!

8. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Pride and Prejudice isn't technically a fairy tale, but it has all the fluff and happily-ever after, so it might as well count. I didn't expect to like this book very much, but it was actually very entertaining to see Elizabeth and Darcy sparring with katanas instead of words.







I can't think of any other good retellings at the moment. Have you read any of these? Do you have any other suggestions? I love reading classics with a twist, so recommend away!