Wednesday Top 5- Best Suggested Books You Loved

Hello, Fellow Book Worms!
I have a lot of fun answering questions from the Goodreads group Top 5 Wednesday. It is a group created by Lainey from You Tube's GingerReadsLainey. Every Wednesday we answer a question and share our answers to the book community. You should check it out if you have not already.
I was suggested many books in my life, and I have had a pretty good success rate in loving them. Here are 5 books or book series that I have loved.

Best Suggested Books You Loved 

1. Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian- My local book store, Hickory Stick Books, had this on display as a recommended book earlier last year. I made note of the book and later in the year I purchased it. It tells the heartbreaking story of one family's survival during the Armenian Genocide of the early Twentieth Century. Spanning decades across the globe, this is an epic story of a person's will to live, and the importance of family. I cannot recommend this enough. Amazing!
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2. Star Wars: Lost Stars by Claudia Gray- Star Wars returned to the big screen last year. And to commemorate this Disney-Lucasfilm launched many events, including Force Friday. On this day stores opened at midnight to give collectors and fans first dibs on all the new merchandise. Books were released, as well, with huge promotional campaigns. But Lost Stars took a back seat to Aftermath, which was the highly anticipated read. But when Aftermath began to get bad reviews, fans started looking elsewhere for a Star Wars novel. Enter Lost Stars, a young adult novel that told the story of two star-crossed lovers spanning the entire original trilogy. It also had many clues to the Force Awakens, and featured the Battle of Jakku. Fans flocked to the store to buy up the book so fast that stores were almost always low on copies. To this date it is heralded as one of the most important Star Wars stories ever told.
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3. The Shining by Stephen King- This book was a recommendation from my mother, who had read the book after watching the Stanley Kubrick film. She told me it was nothing like the movie, and was a better story. I read it in high school, then revisited it last year, going on to read the sequel, Doctor Sleep. I love this book and its characters. When I finished it I automatically missed reading about them. Thankfully Doctor Sleep did a great job bringing me back to their story.
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4. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty- This was another family recommendation coming from my mother and grandmother. They raved about the movie and book, and said I needed to read it at least once in my life. Well, I read it twice when the fortieth anniversary edition was released. I managed to find it at a used bookstore on eBay last year. I read it for Halloween with the audio book narration from William Peter Blatty. This book is a chiller that makes you question shadows weeks after you are done reading it. Blatty's narration was chilling and very dramatic, and enhanced the book greatly.
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5. The Lucky Santangelo Series by Jackie Collins- Many of us were crushed by the death of Jackie Collins last year. She was an amazing author who knew how to create scandalous characters that either scared you or made you envious of them. Lucky Santangelo was the best characters she ever created. Sassy and totally independent, this mobster's daughter battled her family adversaries the Bonnatti family for decades. She also birthed children just as strong-willed as she was. And her father, Gino, was always at the heart of one scandal or another.  I hope that Jackie had at least one more story for us with the Santangelo family. Great stories and fun to read!

Because there is always time to read,
Xepherus3

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