Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Were Totally Deceiving

The Broke and the Bookish host this list-mania meme dedicated to sharing read lists. We love it! This week is Top Ten Books That WereTotally Deceiving-- Someof theses titles and covers seem to have been free-associated, and others were not what we were expecting (sometimes to good effect, other times, not so much).

The Cover Works Against the Book

1. The Fallen Series by Lauren Kate. Is Luce lost on some forested island where all she has is a suitcase of goth prom dresses!?! How does this relate to anything even remotely related to angels!?!

2. The Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand. Girl in a Dress is not my favorite genre. But these books are, happily, much better than their covers.The second book Hallowed in particular was moving story about loss and family, and you have no idea looking at the cover.

3. Jealousy from the Strange Angels series by Lili St. Crow. PEOPLE you need to read these books. Dru is so kick-ass it is not even funny. People get beat up, betrayed, hunted by zombies and vampires, etc. But this title, and the picture for the third book in the series. Blech. It looks like some third-rate romance novel. 

(Honorable Mentions, previously reviewed: The Girl of Fire and Thorns and The Name of the Star. YAF and WS, overcoming bad covers to read good books, one step at a time.)

Expecting a Zig and Getting a Zag

4. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I thought this book was going to be a bit too young and preciousfor my taste, but was I wrong. It is sweet, smart, and touching. I nearly choked up at the end! Whoknew, coming from a kid's book that starts with a triple-homicide.

5. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. I thought this was going to be a send-up,since the author had also written Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which looked beyond silly. But I was  scared.GULP.

6. Swamplanda! by Karen Russell. (review!) Goosie Mama,expecting YA fiction, was surprised by the tone and subject matter of this book. The cute cartoon and exclamation mark would draw me to the wrong conclusions as well.

Books I Put On Hold at the Library But Have Waited So Long For I Can't Remember What They Are About and Thus Am Off-Base in What I Expect* (*This is an ebook issue because of a lack of book blurbs).

7. Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher. I thought,for some reason, there would be more romance involved in this. 30 pages in, I actually used the search capability of my Nook for 'kiss'. Embarrassing?Yes. Then when no kisses turned up, I was all "WHAAATTT" and stopped reading. I wanted some romance--so sue me!**

What is on your TT this week?

** PS Google Image Search Incarceron. Some pretty great fan art featuring Taylor Lautner is involved.