Top Ten Books I Want to Re-read

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.


This is my first time participating in Top Ten Tuesday! I don’t normally do this because I normally can’t think of ten things, but I was reading Harmony from Radiant Reads’ blog and really loved today’s Top Ten!

So…I’m just going to list ten books. INDIVIDUAL books. Because if it’s a series, I can’t pick one book in a series and be done with it. I consider a series to be one book split up in several volumes. So…they are all excluded from this! (Books with companion novels don’t count the same way, so titles such as GRACELING are okay!)



1) MY SISTER’S KEEPER by Jodi Picoult
This is my favorite book EVER. I could just…read it again and again and again. Actually, wait—I have. Certain *scenes* still take me by surprise every time. I always think the book won’t go in the direction it does and I’m somehow stunned EVERY time. But to read it again for the first time? That would be amazing!

2) GRACELING by Kristin Cashore
Quite possibly my #1 Favorite Teen Novel. Um…it’s just amazing and made of WIN. I love it in so many ways and get lost in Cashore’s world every time I re-read. I think one reason GRACELING and I connected so well is because The Seven Kingdoms remind me a lot of Tortall. Tamora Pierce was my favorite author for so many years before Jodi Picoult came along and…I don’t know, I just love this writing style!

3) THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgernstern
This is a new title, I know. BUT!!! As soon as I turned the very last page, I already wanted to read this book again. I felt a hole and just…wanted more. I wasn’t ready to leave this world and wanted Le Cirque des Rêves to be real so I could buy a ticket and visit again. There are so many breath-taking scenes I would like to savor for the first time all over again!

4) HEART’S BLOOD by Juliet Marillier
Everyone else says DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST and the other SEVERWATER books are their favorites by Marillier, but HEART’S BLOOD holds my heart (um…no pun intended). This is my favorite re-telling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. I get completely caught up in Marillier’s world. This book made me LOVE her.

5) THE NEAR WITCH by Victoria Schwab
Another 2011 release, but this time, I just want to read Victoria’s beautiful descriptions again and again…for the first time. Because on a re-read, it’s still stunning, but there’s something special about that first time. Plus, I finished the book on a howling, windy day, and for those of you who have read it by now, that’s the perfect time to experience that climax for the first time. Oh, to have that day back again!

6) THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield
My third-favorite novel, behind only MY SISTER’S KEEPER and KEEPING FAITH (both by Jodi Picoult). Like with THE NEAR WITCH and THE NIGHT CIRCUS, the descriptions are gorgeous and consume me. Plus, it’s a book about, well, BOOKS. I love such novels, and this one is a throwback to classics such as JANE EYRE and THE WOMAN IN WHITE (my favorite classic).

7) TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
My favorite “school novel.” I enjoyed this so much. In fact, in the last year, I almost bought a new copy TWICE, first when the anniversary cover launched, and then again when B&N debuted the beautiful leather-bound, gold-gilded volume. But…I already have a perfectly good copy. Why do I need THREE versions of this fabulous novel? To experience the mystery of Boo Radley all over and go back for the first time would be amazing. My love for this novel is one MAJOR reason why I fell head-over-heels-in-love with Daisy Whitney’s amazing teen novel THE MOCKINGBIRDS last year!

8) THE GIVER by Lois Lowry
Another school favorite! I read this one so many times and it was the launching pad that introduced me to the dystopian genre, though I didn’t understand that term—or the fact that I loved such books until a couple of years ago (despite the fact that I’d read several classics such as 1984 and BRAVE NEW WORLD for fun growing up and loved the UGLIES series. It wasn’t until THE HUNGER GAMES that I *knew. But that’s another topic…). I’ve been really wanting to re-read this (and GATHERING BLUE and THE MESSENGER) but have yet to do so. It’s been a while this time around, so it’s ALMOST like fresh eyes, right…?

9) ELLA ENCHANTED by Gail Carson Levine
This is the only book on my Top 5 All-Time Favorites List that’s YA. Granted, most of that is nostalgia talking but still. Reading it for the first time today, I know I wouldn’t love it the same way today that I do having read it for the first time so long ago. But I want to go back to that first time, to that experience of reading a fairy tale where things were DIFFERENT. Cinderella can save the prince? They knew one another beforehand? This book (and then the movie EVER AFTER around that same time) single-handedly made me fall in love with fairy tale retellings to the point where I’m so far head-over-heels in love that I’m writing my own now. To experience that very first love and awe again for the first time would be like no other.

10) SILVER PHOENIX by Cindy Pon
I connected with this novel on so many levels. It read like a Chinese fairy tale despite being its own unique story. It’s high fantasy at its finest, with lush descriptions and mythical beings that were new to me. Plus, having lived in Japan for two years, I love so many Asian things. This story in particular had so many of my favorite elements and I was so excited when companion novel FURY OF THE PHOENIX came out so I could read more about my beloved characters for the first time…because I couldn’t re-read SILVER PHOENIX for the first time!

I would love to know what YOUR Top Ten are, so please leave me a link! I’m always up for reading an amazing novel!