Happy Tuesday!! This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is a throwback freebie, so I’ve decided to talk about some of my most tumultuous years: middle school. Though I loathed my middle school years, it was also when I read some of my favorite books. The following books are ones that I loved when I was twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years old. Cue the flashback!
Did anyone else have a dreadful middle school experience? What books did you love when you were in middle school? What do you think of the books that I’ve mentioned? Let me know in the comments section below!
Yours,
HOLLY
wow, you’ve read “lord of the rings” very early! how was your experience back then? i was in my 20s reading these books and i remember them being complicated…
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I remember loving LOTR when I first read it, but I was also very confused about a lot of things in the story. For instance, the fact that Sauron was kind of just a floating eye really confused me. I couldn’t understand why people were so afraid of him. Now it makes much more sense 🙂
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haha yes, i can imagine that it was confusing!
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I really loved dystopic YA in middle schools, so divergent, Cassandra Clare, Matched, Delirium and all of those, which I’ve grown out of a bit now. I also really liked Tomorrow When the WAr Began, Gone, and the Maze Runner, so we have some in common. I found some of my favourite authors, like Garth Nix, Michelle Cooper, and Tamora Pierce in middle school too so that is good at least. I had an okay middle school experience at the time, but in retrospect I don’t think I was very happy or confident because I tried really hard to fit in and that didn’t work and I didn’t have many friends. I like to think that my life is a rollercoaster that only goes up haha. Also, how do you make your graphics? They look really good!
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I had a similar middle school experience– college is SOO much better!
Also, thank you! I use Canva.com to make my graphics. It’s really easy to use once you become familiar with it (and it’s free, which is a plus!). They have a lot of cool templates, designs, photos, and fonts that you can use. It makes making graphics so much easier! 🙂
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Who didn’t have awful middle school years? 😂 My favorite books I read then have to be the last 3 Harry Potter books, The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt, and Much Ado about Nothing. 😊
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Haha that’s so true! Middle school is ROUGH. I’ve never read The Wednesday Wars or Much Ado about Nothing, but I’ll have to check them out 🙂
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I really liked This book’s name is secret as well! If I’m not wrong, it was a series? I’m honestly not sure.
I read Lock and Key only this year, and I’m sad I didn’t like it. It’s put me off Sarah Dessen for a bit
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Yes, it’s a series! The other books are wonderful as well. Lock and Key is the first Sarah Dessen book I ever read. I was in eighth grade at the time, so I imagine I would have a different opinion of it if I read it now.
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I loved Looking For Alaska, although TFIOS will always be my favourite John Green book! I don’t have a great memory about what I read when I was 12, although I do remember reading Darcy Bussell’s autobiography, she was and still is a dancing idol of mine! ☺️
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That’s so cool that you read her autobiography! 🙂
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Looking for Alaska is one of the best school-set stories ever!
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It’s definitely one of my favorites! ❤
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I also first read The Lord of the Rings in middle school! In sixth grade, actually. It kind of confuses me when adults say they don’t understand it because I don’t remember having problems with it at the time.
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I agree! Though I definitely didn’t understand it fully back then– there are a lot of subtle details I picked up on in later readings– I still understood the basic story.
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Ohh yes, Looking for Alaska and The Maze Runner ❤ I read this years ago and loved them so much. If I'm not too fond of The Maze Runner just now, LFA is one of these books I can never forget ❤ ❤ Great post, Holly! 🙂
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I’m with you! I still enjoy the first Maze Runner book but I could do without the rest of the series. Looking for Alaska is a gem though ❤
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I cannot think of the books I enjoyed back in middle school, but that was 15-16 years ago so… I do know that I read a lot of books even back then, a large many of them were fantasy books.
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I was really into fantasy when I was younger, too! I still am, though I tend to read it less.
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I’m still a huge fantasy fan.
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Ahh Percy Jackson and Lock and Key – I LOVE those books!
I read Gone when I was 13 and I really enjoyed it. I might be meeting the author next month so I really should’ve marathoned his books before the event. XD
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Ahhh I’m so jealous that you’re meeting Michael Grant! I met him when I was in high school at a book event for BZRK and he’s so cool 🙂
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I think middle school is pretty awful for most people! But good books help with hard times- ANY hard times.
My TTT covers my teens https://franlaniado.wordpress.com/2017/09/12/top-ten-tuesday-teenage-throwback/
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I definitely agree! Thank goodness for books 🙂
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I love to read. nominated you for the Sunshine Blogger Award
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Thank you so much!! ❤ That's so nice of you!!
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You’re Welcome You deserve it
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Yep, my middle school years were dreadful. I become obsessed with Stephen King in middle school, so that was one bright spot. He had a lot of books to keep me occupied.
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TRUE: Stephen King has written SO MANY books. My mom loves his books, but I’ve only read The Gunslinger and The Shining, I think.
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I’m in the UK, so we don’t have middle school, it’s all just secondary school, from 11-16 and then we have college at 16-18 before going to Uni. I didn’t have a great experience at my first secondary school, but then I moved schools at 14, and my second school was much better! Of these I’ve read Percy Jackson and The Maze Runner, Percy Jackson I loved, The Maze Runner, I liked at the time, but I’ve read better books now.
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/12/top-ten-tuesday-124/
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I feel like that about the Maze Runner series as well! It’s definitely not something I would go back and reread. Also, that’s so interesting how your school system is set up!
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No I don’t think so either! Ah it’s just different, American school systems always confused me, you seem to have so many different stages of school!
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So many great books on this list. Tomorrow When The War Began was one of our assigned books in high school. I had to ask for more paper when writing my essay on it in our end of year exams, I just had so much to say!
We don’t really have middle school in our country, we used to have something called Intermediate School but that’s not very common anymore. So I guess the Middle School age group would be early high school (or college as we call it here). I had a pretty terrible experience, and actually ended up finishing High School via Homeschooling.
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Oh no! I’m sorry that you had such a bad experience! Middle school was the worst for me, but high school was only a bit better… college is finally great! 🙂
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I read Looking for Alaska, Percy Jackson and Maze Runner when I was fourteen-ish too haha I loved them all at the time, but I’m not sure if I’d like Looking for Alaska now, and I’m not interested in keep reading The Maze Runner 😦 I still love Percy Jackson with all my heart, though 😛
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I loved Percy Jackson when I was in middle school!! I haven’t read any of the spin-off series, though. I’m too attached to the original characters 🙂
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rick riordan’s books only keep getting better, so I think you’d love them, but I completely understand being too attached to the characters ❤ haha
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Ah, so many of these! Looking for Alaska, The Lightning Thief, and The Maze Runner I read in middle school! I also loved the Psuedonymous Bosch books, but I read those in elementary school (along with the Mysterious Benedict Society)! ❤️
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Omg the Mysterious Benedict Society! That series was amazing ❤ I loved trying to solve all of the puzzles 🙂
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