Top Ten “Gateway” Books/Authors In My Reading Journey

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week they will post a new Top Ten list that one of the bloggers there at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is an interesting one, mostly because I am definitely a reader who chronicles her firsts and I also definitely have those books and/or authors that have made a huge impact on my reading history. I also find it fascinating to hear about other readers’ “firsts”, if you will, so I’m looking forward to popping by everyone’s blogs to see their lists!

Harry Potter is probably going to be on a lot of lists this week. This was the first series that really reached in and grabbed hold of me; I was all about Harry and his world for a pretty good amount of time. HP was my first fannish experience: it allowed me to get to know like-minded people from all over the world via forums, websites, mailing lists, etc. I attended my first ever fan convention thanks to HP, and had an absolute blast. So I can definitely say that this series was a life-changer; even though my love for HP has waned a bit, it will always hold a very special place in my heart.

I’ve already waxed poetically about my love for Percy Jackson, so I won’t do that here and now. Suffice it to say that I adore this character to pieces, and it was thanks to this series that I became fully invested in MG books.

I really drug my heels when it came to reading Cinder. I was just really uncertain about the entire concept, because while I love fairy tale retellings, a sci-fi retelling was something totally different. But Marissa Meyer convinced me that this is indeed a genre I can enjoy. Good thing, too, because if she hadn’t I never would have read These Broken Stars, which was one of my favorites from last year!

After Twilight, I was really rather done with vampires. But then I read The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa, and thought that perhaps I could go ahead and give them one more shot. I’m glad I did, because I liked The Eternity Cure even more, and am definitely looking forward to the final book, The Forever Song. I love the dark, grittiness of the world presented here, and am just really glad that she Kagawa did vampires right.

Contemporary was never really my go-to genre (and it still isn’t, if I’m going to be honest), but Confessions of An Angry Girl really grabbed hold of me and made me realize just what I was missing out on by continuing to turn up my nose at contemporary YA. While I will always have a huge fondness for fantasy, and it will still probably always be the genre I default to when picking books, it was thanks to these two books that I’ve started to slowly add more contemporary into my reading lists.

Upon finishing Siege and Storm last year, this series immediately shot to the top of my list whenever people asked for recommendations. I am forever touting the amazingness that is this series, and I’m sure Ruin and Rising will be no different from its predecessors. This is easily the best YA fantasy series I have ever read, and possibly the best YA series. I’m sure there aren’t too many folks out there in the blogosphere who haven’t read these books yet, but if you haven’t, you are seriously missing out!

I’m sure there are other books that I could put on this list, but these are the ones that came to mind first and have definitely had the biggest impact on my reading journey. However, I would LOVE to see which books and/or authors you chose this week, so do please link me in the comments! I will try to pop by and visit everyone over the next couple of days.