Top Ten Tuesdays with Books That Were Recommended To Me

Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is Books I Never Would Have Read if They Weren't Recommended to Me. Now since I very, very rarely read books based on direct recommendations, I'm also including books that were gifts and books I had to read for school.

1. Delirium by Lauren Oliver was recommended to me by a co-worker, Brooke. When friends tell me to read books, I usually don't because I already have so many books I want to read. But Brooke let me borrow it, and I totally trusted her book judgment because she is nothing but awesome. And I'm so glad I read this one. I read mostly contemporary YA, but this dystopian story was uh-mazing. Period.

2. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick was given to me as a birthday present by my BFF Genevieve. She knew I loved YA and she picked it out because of the gorgeous cover. Again, I'm not hugely into paranormal, but this one at least wasn't about vampires. It was about fallen angels. Now, of course, angels are the hot trend in YA, but I think this book may have started that.

3. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling was suggested by my friend Dorey waaaaay back in middle school. Of course, I'm sure I would have heard about this eventually since I wasn't living under a rock. But this was back when only the first one was out. I can still remember sitting in her room the day she handed the first book to me. When she said it was about a wizard boy, I was skeptical, but obviously I don't need to say how fabulous it turned out to be.

4. My Antonia by Willa Cather was assigned in my American Lit class during my first semester at CCSU by one of my all time favorite professors, Adam Golaski. Before I transferred to this school for my undergrad, I hardly ever actual read a book assigned to me in school. But this time I was ready to get serious about school. And it didn't hurt that I loved Adam and wanted to do good in his class. So this was the first time I can remember reading a book for school where I actually read ahead of the schedule. Willa Cather's writing was beautiful, and now I make it a habit to look for her other books whenever I'm in a used book store.

5. If I Stay by Gayle Forman was recommended by practically the entire YA blogosphere. I just did a post about why I was reluctant to read this one, but since it was getting soooo much buzz, I figured I had to give it a chance. It was amazing, and its sequel Where She Went which just came out was even more amazing.

6. The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich was recommended to me by two moms (my then-boyfriend's and my friend Nicole's). At first I didn't want to listen to the recommendation of someone so much older than me, but by the second recommendation I decided I needed to give it a try. And I've been obsessed with this series (which is now up to 16 books) ever since.

7. Emma by Jane Austen was assigned in my Jane Austen class during my last semester at CCSU by Jacqueline Gellar. This professor was intimidating because she expected such a high level of intelligence from her students. I wouldn't dare not do the reading for this class, and I read Pride and Prejudice my freshman year of high school and liked it, but knew I probably hadn't understood it as much as I would now. So I got to re-read that and read Emma, along with all of Austen's other completed novels. Now I really understand her writing and I looooove it.

8. Wicked by Gregory Maguire was a book I only heard about because my high school's drama club was taking a field trip to broadway and we were going to see the new (at the time) musical version. Since I'm a nerd and The Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie, I had to read the book first.

9. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress was assigned in my Science Fiction as Cautionary Tales class during my last semester at CCSU by Heather Urbanski, one of the coolest professors ever. I'm not into sci-fi at all, but I took the class because Heather was also my advisor and I knew she was awesome. I didn't really like most of the stuff we had to read, but still this was my favorite and most challenging class I ever took at CCSU. And this book totally sucked me in despite my aversion to sci-fi.

10. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain was assigned in my Mark Twain class at CCSU. I took the class because I always cited The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as one of my favorite books and I'd only actually read it once. We read a ton of Twain's work, and while I wasn't a huge fan of the short stories, I loved the novels. This one really made me recognize Twain's frickin incredible talent for satire.

Leave a link to your Top Ten list or leave it in the comments!