Top Ten Books I Feel Differently About After Time Has Passed

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

While I don't really consider myself an emotional reader, I do get fully involved emotionally when I read. (At least, I should.) And when I rate books, this emotional response is what decides my rating. Needless to say, this gives me plenty of opportunities to look back at a book and go 'yeah, I don't agree with that rating/review anymore'.

The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen
I loved this book when I read it. I still love it now, only slightly less. You see, there's this moment in the book where the guy kind of makes a fuss over the fact that the woman he's fallen in love with is 'not a maiden.' (For those not 'in the know' means she's not a virgin.) This is historical, and, well, there was this stigma about women not being virgins. I could forgive all that. What irks me though, is it's NEVER mentioned if the guy is a virgin or not. I would tend to say not, because I think he was a sailor of some sort, and there was talk about the flirty women in various ports. So what really gets me is this hero, the guy we're all supposed to be swooning over, has such a double standard mindset. And, somehow making it worse, is the fact that this is ignored most of the time and the guy is a real gentleman except for this totally out-of-the-blue thought.

Winter by Marissa Meyer
I loved the book while I was reading it. Then I was sort of stunned after I finished it. Then the days went by. A few weeks. Then a few months and, you know what? I really don't think I should have rated this book five stars. Maybe four, but more likely, three. (With Cinder, dropping Cress to four and leaving Scarlet, without a doubt my favorite in the series, at five.) I still like the book, but there's also a lot of things that I didn't care for or was just disappointed with.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Sometimes it's not just time that can make me change my thoughts, but later books in a series. I loved this book, really, really liked the second and came very close to hating the third. So my thoughts on this book have been tainted and will forever be.

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
Much like the previous, the first three books in this series were wonderful and I loved them. Then the fourth and final book was a half-assed travesty that caused me to pull them off my shelf as soon as I finished it.

Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare
It's not so much that my opinion changed, but I'm wondering WHY I rated it five stars. I like it as much as I did when I finished it, but it's also not my favorite romance novel, but it's the only one I rated five stars. So...I busy trying to figure out why!

Seeds of Discovery by Breeana Puttroff
This book is adorable, cute and sweet. The next two books in the series push that 'adorable, cute and sweet' too much and seem to indicate this series has nothing else to offer. Then the fourth book is one of the worst that I've ever read, I hate everything about it, it's pretty much 400+ pages of how, if you're the princess/heir/queen of another land, it's totally okay to drop out of high school, cut off your mother (your only living parent), run away to this other world and marry a boy that you've known less than a year. Totally okay. Now, I can no longer think of this series without wanting to punch someone in the face.

Dragonlance: Chronicles series by Weis & Hickman
While I do still have some general affection for most of the D&D tie-ins I read back in the day, Dragonlance: Chronicles, absence does not make my heart grow fonder of you. Depression and angst and depression and 'always chaotic evil' races and, did I mention, depression? And Tanis Half-Elven. I hated you then and I hate you more now! (The only reason this tripe is still on my shelf is because of Raistlin. I loved him then and I don't doubt I'd still love him. And, considering his treatment in this and the sequel about him and his creepy brother, that would probably only serve to make me even more angry.)


You know what? I think I'm just going to stop there. No more books are leaping to my mind and I don't know how I could end on a more ticked off note than that one. So...how do your opinions change?