Tag Archives: George Orwell

Top Ten Tuesday: Standalone Books That Need a Sequel

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Last year, I wrote a (non-Top-Ten-Tuesday) post about books that need prequels. Today, I’ll be talking about some standalone books that need sequels. This list is shorter than usual because of how many authors and publishers are eager to publish sequels to stories that do well. There simply aren’t a lot of books that I wish had sequels. Hopefully, some of you will have longer lists.

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

While I loved the ending of this book, I couldn’t help but to hope we’d hear more from Starr again. The resolutions to her problems were incredibly realistic, but they also left a lot of room for speculating about how or if they might shift again in the future. What can I say? I wanted a happier ended than the one we got, and I’m still holding out home that it might happen someday. (The film is still on my to-be-watched list, so maybe it was different? Please don’t give me spoilers if they changed the ending!)

2. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda, the main character, had been through something so awful she couldn’t even talk about it. I loved getting to know her sweet, creative personality and slowly uncovering the cause of her pain. She was a lovely person, and I sure would like to see what she was like a few years or decades after this terrible time in her life.

Skip the sentence below this paragraph if you want to avoid all spoilers. Keep reading if you prefer to know about potentially triggering subject matter ahead of time .

This book is about rape and the long-term traumatic effects of that crime. I was caught off-guard by that plot twist, so I feel obligated to let other potential readers know about it.

3. Bridge to Terabithia  by Katherine Paterson

The friendship between Jess (the main character) and his neighbour, Lesie is something I still think about to this day. While the ending to this tale was well done, I’d sure like to see what life was like for the characters decades later. There’s so much room for growth here.

4. Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

Imagine what it would be like if your father tried to marry you off when you were fourteen! I was a kid when I read this book, so I knew very little about the cultural norms of the 1200s in Europe (or anywhere else for that matter). Birdy’s story is something that has stuck with me for years, and I’d love to find out what happened to her after the events of the final scenes.

5. 1984 by George Orwell

1984 was about a man living in a harsh, totalitarian society who tried to figure out a way to escape it. I had a lot of mixed feelings about the ending even though it fit the tone of this tale well. It would be so interesting to revisit this universe a few decades later to see what might have changed in it.

6. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

There were so many unanswered questions about the other flat Coraline discovered. How long has it existed? Why was it created? Will anyone else ever become endangered by it?

A sequel would be the perfect place to answer these questions.

What standalone books do you all wish would have sequels?

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Saturday Seven: Non-Human Protagonists

Saturday Seven is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

 

Raise your hand if you love xenofiction! There’s something about experiencing the world through non-human eyes that makes just about any plot more exciting to me.

I ended up coming up with so many books for this list that I’m going to have to revisit this topic on a future Saturday Seven post so I can include everything I had to leave out of this week’s list. I need to read a few books before I share part two, though, so it might be a while before I publish it.

 

Animal Farm by George Orwell

I was so young when I first read this book that I didn’t pick up on the satirical or allegorical messages in the plot at all. What I knew was that I was fascinated by the idea of animals revolting and running their own farm, and I only enjoyed the storyline more once I learned enough about world history to understand it on a deeper level.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

There are a lot of stories out there written from the perspective of dog narrators, but this is my favourite one because of how differently Enzo saw the world when compared to how a human would describe the same event. He behaved exactly how a dog would behave, and his explanations for why he did certain silly things made total sense from that point of view.

Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker

It’s been so long since I read this book that the only things I can tell you about it for sure is that the main character is incredibly brave and that I loved the plot twists in it. It was like nothing I’ve ever read before or since.

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Fair warning: this one’s a tearjerker. One of my uncles has owned at least one horse for as long as I can recall, and I remember paying closer attention to his horses after reading Black Beauty. (Don’t worry!  All of my uncle’s horses have always been looked after nicely).

The Inheritors by William Golding

This is one of those stories that made me want to jump into the plot about twenty pages into it and change how things were going. I adored the Neanderthal characters and wanted to do everything I could to help them. That’s all I can say about them without giving away spoilers.

Grendel by John Gardner

Beowulf was by far my favourite assigned read in college. Grendel told the same story as the original, but it explored this universe from the perspective of the monster instead of the hero. I loved it every bit as much as I expected to when I first found it at my local library.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Did my mom read this book to us a chapter at a time before bed, or am I mixing it up with other children’s adventure stories she read to us? I hope she’ll remember!

What is your favourite book that features a non-human main character?

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