Top 5 Tuesday - Top 5... Books I'm Glad I Read

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme that explores different topics. Originally created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, it is now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. For a list of November topics you can click here. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan's blog or leave a comment on her weekly post.

In some ways I expect this will be easy. I've been reading forever, so there are lots to choose from. But, then, how can I narrow this down to just five? Here are my picks for Top 5... Books I'm Glad I Read

I was a hold out on the Harry Potter series. Just like I haven't read the Twilight series, I just don't like reading wildly popular books. Maybe I'm afraid they won't live up to my expectations. Maybe I am too impatient to invest time in a series just to have to wait for each new book to come out. 

I finally took the plunge in 2015 and discovered what the big deal is about. I read through the rest of the series that year. 

Saffron Dreams was unlike any book I had read up until that point. It features a Muslim couple in New York City happily living their lives until the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11. It provides a different perspective on how the world was changed after that day. It tells one woman's difficult journey to pick up the pieces of her shattered life in a country that has suddenly put her and an entire race under a microscope in order to make sense of a monumental tragedy.

Reading The Kensei was an accomplishment for me. I'm not much of a vampire story kind of person. This story, however, is a bit different because it takes place in Japan and has a character who is a former KGB assassin. It is fast-paced, which I love, and has tons of action and some witty banter. I also love those. 

If anyone told me I would like The Lunar Chronicles before I read Cinder and Scarlet, I would have laughed at them. I love historical fiction, not futuristic cyborgs. Cinder, the main character, drew me in right away, as did the plot of the first novel. I really need to catch up on this series. 

You really need to like reading if you're going to tackle a book that is over 1100 pages. What amazes me about The Stand is knowing I almost gave up on the book that remains my all-time favorite. Setting up all the characters and putting them in place, took time. Four hundred pages in, I really wasn't sure this was the book for me. Once I reached 600 pages, the pace picked up, the characters came together in two different places, and the storyline finally made sense. I breezed through it after that. 

I am not sure I would want to read it this year, considering it starts with a super flu that is accidentally released and kills off the majority of the population. A little too much like 2020 if you ask me. That said, I may need to read this again one day to see what my reaction is after being away from it for so long.