Book Blogger Appreciation Week – Unexpected Treasure

Book Blogger Appreciation Week continues and the buzz is building and my Google Reader is exploding.  

The daily posting theme this year is “A Treasure Chest of Infinite Books and Infinite Blogs”.  For today’s Unexpected Treasure, the topic is sharing a book or genre I tried due to the influence of another blogger.  What made me cave in to try something new and what was the experience like.

I’m not going to talk about a specific book but more about a classification and a few genres within that classification.  In the past year I’ve read far more Young Adult books than I think I read as a young adult. Most of the YA books I’ve read in the past year have been speculative fiction (dystopian, supernatural or post-apocalyptic).  

What made me cave in and try this type of book?  I can answer that question in one word: TWEERPRESSURE.  That’s what happens when a conversation among book bloggers on Twitter about a book or series makes me head to the library or Powell’s website and start browsing and adding to my To Be Read list.  

Granted not all of my ventures into Young Adult speculative fiction have been rousing successes, but I have found many enjoyable surprises.

It was actually The Hunger Games that got me started.  I read that last spring only because so many of my blogger friends read and recommended it. From there I was led to The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden which I have thoroughly enjoyed and want to get to the fourth book in that series soon .  Some of the paranormal stories have been enjoyable but not necessarily favorites (Ruined by Paula Morris and Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble).

I’ve had a few less than successful reads due to Tweerpressure. I didn’t love The Forest of Hands and Teeth nearly as much as many of my blogging friends (clearly I’m not a zombie fan).  The Uglies series showed promise (loved the first one), but I wasn’t interested in continuing after reading the second.  Beautiful Creatures was fine, but not something that has me craving the second book.

I think what I learned is that I tend to like the dystopian or post-apocalyptic stuff in the young adult classification more than the paranormal stuff, but that makes sense because I don't read that much paranormal adult fiction either.


For me, the book blogging community is truly “A Treasure Chest of Infinite Books and Infinite Blogs”.