Top Ten Tuesday (7): Top Nine Things On My Reading Wishlist

Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly blog meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish that allows readers to share their lists and opinions on a number of subjects from their top ten book covers to their top ten villains.

This week's topic for January 21st is:

Top Nine Things On My Reading Wishlist
(If you could make authors write about these things you would.)
1. Epic Fantasy Standalones
I am a huge fan of epic fantasy, of heroes and heroines going on impossible quests to save their loved ones, but most epic fantasy books seem to be part of a series. Most of the time, the series format works since I get to be immersed in the fantasy world even longer, but I do hate waiting years for a story to be complete.

2. Messy Unrequited Love
It always bothered me how the couples in books just conveniently fall in love with each other at the same time. I kind of want to see more drama. Where are the unrequited loves? The messiness? Why not have a main protagonist on the losing end of a love triangle? I think it'd be pretty interesting to read.

3. Platonic Love
On the flip side, I'd also like to see more friendships between girls and guys that are just that. Friendships. Unlike what some people may say, boys and girls can just be friends without one falling in love with the other. I'd love to see more boys and girls just being best friends (like Harry and Hermione) and kicking ass without one of them being relegated as a minor character.


(GIF credit to n-ibble)
4. Two Female BFFs Kicking Ass
We can also just forgo the romance altogether. Can we just have two female best friends as the main characters? This might be more common in contemporary, but I rarely see it in action, fantasy, or science fiction series. :(

5. More Fairy Tale Retellings: The Snow Queen
With the success of Disney's Frozen, it's the most opportune time for a retelling of The Snow Queen to come out. While I love the twists and cuteness of Frozen, I'd also love to see a more faithful retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, especially if it includes the little robber girl.


(Original Frozen Concept Art from It's Art Mag)

6. Better Well-Written Male Romantic Interests
I don't know about you, but I'm kind of sick of the stalker boyfriends, nice guys ™, and/or bad boys. Every time I come across one of these archetypes I have to wonder where all the decent men in their world went.

7. Around the World Travelling
At first, I thought a book where a group of friends went on a road trip would be fun, but why not think of it on a bigger scale? It'd be pretty cool if the characters went on a trip all across the globe either for a mission or just fun. Imagine the disagreements, the fights along the way. Someone gets lost in a country where they're unfamiliar with the language. The descriptions of the cities in great deal. Sigh, maybe it's just me and my wanderlust.

8. Author Crossover Anthology
This will probably never happen, but what if certain authors came together to write short stories using the characters and worlds of another for an anthology? It's always super cute to see authors on twitter fangirl/boy over each other's book, so it'd be interesting to see what ideas that they come up with.

9. More Contemporaries with Less Tragic Pasts
I have a confession to make: When I read the summary of a book and it talks about the main character coming back to his/her hometown for the first time in forever after a tragic incident (usually someone's death), my interest in that book plummets. It's not that all stories with this setup is bad, but I see it so often as the premise of dark contemporaries that I wonder if it's the default.

Aaaaand I can't come up with the tenth item on my reading wishlist, so I leave you all with just nine items. If you have a book recommendation that fits any of these, please let me know in the comments!