Discussion: 30 Books That Have Affected Me The Most

This weeks discussion was inspired/clearly stolen from the awesome Cait over at Notebook Sisters. After seeing Epic Reads list of the 30 books that had changed their view of the world, Cait decided to do her own and you can find that here. I then decided that I would love to share my own list with you all, mainly because it combines two great loves of my life - books and lists. 

Now I have changed mine to books that have affected me the most because that one was easier to explain than the ones that have changed my view on the world. That's mainly because I also wanted to include books I didn't love and that affected me in a negative way rather than a positive.

Be warned, this posts shall have gifs aplenty because, let's be honest, I'm a little obsessed with the moving lil' buggers.

I am not going to explain all my picks because there are 30 of them and, well...

Now onto the pretties! 

Narrowing this list down to just 30 books was actually really hard. I had a list of 56 books that I wanted to put on here but wanted to keep my list to a nicer, more manageable 30 books. So, how do you pick between them. Some were ones I wanted on here because I loved them so much, others because I loathed them so much that I wanted to throw them out my window and some because they made me a sobbing wreck. So, how do you even begin to narrow them down. Well, head tried to think about it logically and choose a nice selection of books that covered all those things. My heart... well when asked to choose it mostly did this:

I respected my heart for this, the heart knew that all the books should be on here. Brain was just being a spoilsport and making me choose, be decisive and what not. I suck at that! So me and brain had a falling out, me and heart agreed and smugly sat with our list of 56 books for a while, feeling like we'd won. Brain celebrated twenty minutes later when I decided I couldn't be bothered to hunt down all 56 covers. Brain: 1 Heart: 0 

I wouldn't just show you my 30 books without giving you an explanation for at least some of them. So here we go. 

It made the list 

Come on, does it even need an explanation. It's Harry Potter!!! This was a life changing book, life changing series, life changing characters and everything else. These books were such a huge part of my childhood and I can't even imagine my childhood without these in it. How dull would that childhood have been? So dull I would probably have died from boredom. This was The Book, The Series, The World & The Characters. It was everything and more. These books will always be my favourites, no other book or series could ever provide me with the magical experience that I got from reading these. I had to be at the midnight release of all the books because I had to stay up all night reading them so I could find out what happened. I don't think I've come across fictional characters that I have cared more for than the selection in this. Their deaths actually felt like I had lost someone I loved. Seriously, I cried more at some of the deaths in HP than I have at actual peoples deaths in my actual life. Don't judge me. Okay, you can judge me but please do it quietly. 

What Deathly Hallows did to me:

The Cat in the Hat is a book that I always remember being read to me as a child. This was the book I remember learning to read with. I loved the story so much that I made my mum read it over and over again. Eventually, I had learnt the whole book off by heart and could recite it on the way home from playgroup without needing the book. Once I started learning to read this became ridiculously useful and this became one of the first books I could read entirely on my own, with no help. You've got to love Dr Seuss. 

All these books:

I am a complete sucker for a good book series but there are only a few series that I have completely fallen in love with. The Hunger Games started my absolute love for dystopian novels. As soon as I had finished the first book I began hunting down as many dystopians as I could find and started reading them all. His Dark Materials is unbelievable, I remember how amazed I was by Northern Lights when I got to the end of the book. It had such a unique story and this book made me so sad that daemons don't exist, I need a daemon in my life. Noughts and Crosses is a series I wish was more widely known because it's truly an exceptional book series. I am so excited by the prospect that their is a 5th book in the works; I might actually die of happiness if that happens. 

Yup, I am one of those people who love books who can reduce me to gross, uncontrollable tears. That is a sign of a good book to me because I know it made me care. I have to really care about a book for it to get those kind of tears from me. I feel like I should probably have just felt intense anger and have the sense that I had been cheated by the end of My Sister's Keeper, but I sobbed like crazy. I was angry and I did feel cheated but no book had made me such a sobbing wreck before other than Harry Potter. Forbidden is a book that feels completely unique. It's the first time I have come across a young adult book that deals with the taboo storyline of a brother and sister who fall in love. People always look at me strange when I recommend this to them but, until you read it, you can't understand how superbly written and strangely beautiful this book is. Oh, and did I mention that it's completely soul destroying? The Time Traveller's Wife... I can't even start on that book. Heart = irreparably broken. 

These are the books that I just wanted to throw out my bedroom window. I found them all to be hugely disappointing and if I could turn back time and never read them then I would. Fangirl was a book that I was expecting to love because it had a ridiculous hype surrounding it. It did not live up to it at all. I didn't like the characters, the story(what story?) made me want to fall asleep and the fanfiction parts were utterly pointless. Not. A. Fan! How I Live Now put me off ever reading anything else by the author. Allegiant  was rage inducing because it was the most disappointing ending to a book series that I have EVER read. It was just dull from beginning to end, with so many plot holes and aspects that just made 0 sense. I could not handle that book at all. 

 

Those endings!

These two books both blew my mind because I did NOT see those endings coming. Even in Dangerous Girls, where I had my suspicions, the author cast suspicion onto everybody and it was hard to not suspect everybody. We Were Liars was just a beautiful, amazing, extraordinary book and the ending had me sobbing at work and trying to figure out what I had missed while reading. Loved both, two of my favourite reads of the year so far. 

What books would make your list? Would any of mine?

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