Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Strangely enough, I thought I would have more for this list. But as I’m thoroughly unwilling to feature anything for Cassandra Clare in positive due to her being a bully and generally all-around awful person–which would be a tiny bit forgivable, I guess, if she genuinely felt remorse and hadn’t continued to bully others–and I won’t feature anything from a series that promotes romanticizing abuse (Shatter Me) I’m actually left with a shortage of novellas that I’ve read. I’m thinking, though, that this will have to change sometime soon.

I’m already looking into getting my hands on some new ones, but for now, I barely have enough to complete this list.

10. The Shadow Cats by Rae Carson

This is actually a pretty fantastic story from a pretty fantastic book series. It doesn’t really give you a lot of insight into much, though, and while it was definitely interesting to read it prior to reading the actual books, I feel as though it’s one hundred percent more beneficial to read the first book, at minimum, prior to picking this one up. There’s just a little bit more background knowledge if you do that which is quite helpful in knowing what’s going on in the story.

9. Hare Moon by Carrie Ryan

Zombies, a rather pretentious and awful nun, a secluded society trying to live out their lives and survive the onslaught of flesh-eating creatures that had once been human just beyond the borders of their fence, this novella is one of the few that I find myself thoroughly engrossed in. I’m not a big zombie fan myself, but something about Carrie Ryan’s writing really pulls me in. I think there’s a lot to appreciate about the insight you get into the sort of villain’s mind while reading this novella. Whereas in the novel you don’t really understand the why behind all the awful things she does, here you do. And it was fantastic.

8. The Rose of Fire by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I love everything to do with the cemetery of forgotten books. This is only a short piece included within that world, but I was so happy and thrilled to get the chance to read it. The dark, gothic nature to Zafon’s writing and the characters that I’ve known and loved for quite some time now make for a rather fascinating and happy read as far as I’m concerned. An origin story to the library that I cannot help but wish was real, this novella is definitely one I’m glad to have found.

7. Hana by Lauren Oliver

This is a really brilliant view into the mind of Hana, one that I really appreciated getting once I had finished the series as a whole. I feel, in a way, that I really needed this to fully understand her decisions and who she becomes in a way that I didn’t need with the other characters. As someone consumed by the other side of things, you don’t really get as much of a look into that particular piece of the world in the novels and I definitely enjoyed getting a small peek at it with this.

6. Carswell’s Guide to Being Lucky by Marissa Meyer

Much to my horror and dismay, this one has mysteriously disappeared from Goodreads. Admittedly, I find myself quite distressed about that fact. I mean, why on Earth would anyone remove such an amazing title from their list of books? I, frankly, feel very much as though I would like to smack them because this was just plain rude. I was very proud of having this book on myself and it seems quite ridiculous to have taken it away.

5. The Little Android by Marissa Meyer

This one was so close to the tale of The Little Mermaid that it literally breaks your heart so quickly. You get a quick glimpse at one of your most beloved characters from The Lunar Chronicles in this one, which was definitely quite exciting to see. An android that falls in love with a human follows this retelling through to the end, sending you through far more of an emotional rollercoaster than I think you would ever really expect to come from a story like this. But let me tell you, it was well worth it.

 

4. Before the Snow by Danielle Paige

An insanely marked improvement on the initial book in this series that spurned the writing of this novella, Before the Snow actually has good characters, a good plot, and a good story. Unlike Stealing Snow, I was actually happy to be reading Before the Snow. I find this thoroughly ironic considering how much I disliked the first book in the series. But there’s something quite nuanced and wonderful about this story, leaving me really invested in the characters in the strangest of ways. I like it as a standalone, really, and prefer to pretend the other book does not exist.

3. Queen Song by Victoria Aveyard

This was utterly amazing. I can’t even find the proper words to describe how impressed I was with this story. There was so much to it that just blew my mind, engrossed me in the characters and the wonder that was the intrigue and pain. I don’t want to give anything away by describing precisely what happened here, but I can tell you that it is immensely fantastic writing. Which is slightly ironic, since I didn’t love the first book in the series for this one, either. I mean, unlike the above, it was good. But it wasn’t my favorite or anything like that.

2. Tigerlilja by Erin Michelle Sky and Steven Brown

I mean, I really can’t disguise my love for this one any more than I can disguise my love for its predecessor, The Wendy. Erin Michelle Sky and Steven Brown’s Tigerlilja was a fantastic novella with one of the best reworked Peter Pan origin stories I’ve ever encountered. I’m usually pretty picky about these things, so the fact that they managed to change it so much and still left me with a story that I loved was extremely impressive. I’ve been known to get exceptionally angry at bad Peter origins, so they must be doing something right.

1. The Ice Child: A Winter Fairytale by Evangeline Denmark

It seems this one has been getting a lot of attention from me lately, but the fact of the matter was that this was the first novella I ever read that I nearly cried at learning that I couldn’t get a print copy of it. It’s one of the best retellings and general stories that I’ve ever read and I cannot help but wish that everyone would read it. And so long as it still holds a special place in my heart, I will likely always end up talking about it at one point or another.

And there you have it! Though I’m not overly fond of the freebie options for TTT, I did have quite a bit of fun with this one. I hope all of you doing TTT did as well!

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