Top Ten Tuesday: Epic Book Mashup!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. How it works is that each Tuesday the host assigns a topic and then posts their top ten list that fits the topic. Every blogger can create their own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well and link to the host’s. The topic for August 7th, 2018 is: Books You’d Mash Together. This basically means that you pick two books you think would make an epic story if combined. I have 5 exciting mashups to show you all today, so let’s get into the post.

1. The Lord of the Rings + Harry Potter = Most Epic Fantasy

We all knew this would be on top of my list, right? These are my two favourite fantasy series of all time. I want to take the amazing world-building in The Lord of the Rings and combine it with the school setting, complex characters (without being problematic) and amazing plot in Harry Potter. I also want to sprinkle in some diversity since these are older books and don’t represent the world as it is today. If there’s a book that you think fits this, please don’t hesitate to tell me in the comments section below.

2. When Dimple Met Rishi + The Nowhere Girls = Cutest Desi Feminist Contemporary

I have an interesting relationship with YA contemporaries as I’m a very mood-based reader. I either reach for the fluffiest of cutesy, feel-good ones or something intense that has me sobbing my heart out. As an Indian myself, When Dimple Met Rishi was such a welcome breath of fresh air as it is a summery, light-hearted romance with Indian-American teens. If you’ve been around the blog recently, I’ve mentioned The Nowhere Girls a lot because it’s my favourite feminist YA contemporary in the world right now. All I want is a mix of something fun and representing my culture while being the feminist YA I really need more of.

3. The Illuminae Files + The Martian = Sci-fi Genius

These are my two favourites in the sci-fi genre at the moment, so of course I want something that gives me the best of both of these worlds. I really liked the character of Mark Watney in The Martian and how well he handled himself in the most hopeless of situations. The strong points of Illuminae are that the format is quirky, the AI “character” is fantastic and has plot has twists I never could have predicted. However, I think the cast of characters was a bit too much, so by the last book in the series, we couldn’t spend a lot of time becoming attached to the new characters being introduced. I just want a YA sci-fi standalone that combines the shock factor and thrills in Illuminae with the amazing character nuances in The Martian.

4. The Fandom + Geekerella = Fanboy/Fangirl’s Ultimate Dream

Geekerella, the best YA contemporary Cinderella retelling I’ve ever read, incorporates fan culture into it extremely well. It gave me all the feels and I read it all in one sitting. The Fandom is a sort of dystopian story where the fans of a particular book with a popular movie adaptation actually somehow become part of the book’s narrative. Its execution was average at best and it didn’t live up to my expectations. I think if the same subject had been handled by Ashley Poston, the author of Geekerella, it could’ve become something truly magical.

5. Nancy Drew and Hercule Poirot series = Unputdownable Mystery

Just like everybody else out there who loves mystery stories, I’m a fan of Agatha Christie. However, the recurring characters in her books aren’t relatable on any level for me personally. Poirot is an eccentric mess whereas Miss Marple always seems to take on the face of my grandmother when I picture her in my head. On the other hand, I remember reading Nancy Drew in school and loving her character. Not only is she a fiercely independent and capable teenage girl, she’s being raised by a single parent and is curious to a fault. However, the writing style in this series is a bit juvenile and it doesn’t have the amazing plot construction that will blow me away. Combining Christie’s knack for mystery plots with good writing and a relatable young girl as the detective written by a female author would quench my thirst for a truly amazing YA mystery series.

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Which two books do you think put together would fulfil all your bookish wishes? What genres would you like to see blended in a book? Let me know in the comments section below.