Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted for us book blogger types by the Broke and the Bookish. They provide a topic, and all of us participants post our answers on our blogs and we hop around checking out one another’s answers! This week’s topic is:
1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Not only was Chopin’s novel well known for its reputation by being banned by a number of states when it was first released in 1899 for inappropriate themes. Not only that but Chopin explored the wonderful awakening of a woman’s sexuality in the strict Creole society at that time.
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Possible unreliable narrator, tragic love story, ghosts….what more could you want?
3. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
I’m still not necessarily a huge fan of the vignette writing style, but it was impossible to not be intrigued and moved by Cisneros stories.
4. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Ah, the Modern Prometheus. This book is full of fascinating themes other than biology and the ability of man to play God. The plethora of Daddy Issues and the author inserting herself (M.S.) into the text as the recepient of Robert Walton’s letters that tell the story.
5. Animal Farm by George Orwell
Animals exemplifying Communism? Is there any other way to learn it?
6. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
This book I just really loved because it scared the crap out of me. But it was well written and kept me on my toes the whole time!
7. Atonement by Ian McEwan
As heartbreaking as this text is, it really is a testament to modern storytelling and the use of an unreliable narrator.
8. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
This is such an excellent novel, nay, Graphic Novel on the subject of modern racism.
9. King Lear by William Shakespeare
Most definitely my favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies and the literary home of my favorite Villian, Edmund.
10. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Middle grade is most definitely not normally an age that I enjoy in fiction, but Selznick really brought tears to my eyes with the phenominal story telling and the excellent graphics. Plus, that train coming out of the building? Crazy, right?
What were some of your favorite novels that you were “forced” to read?!
Moving! 