Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Each week they will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers over at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join.

This week’s topic is: Top Ten Most Vivid Worlds/Settings in Books

I’m pretty good at getting sucked into a world of a book when I’m reading it. Even if I spend most of the time I’m reading either in front of the TV, computer or on the train.

But the ten most vivid for me?

1. The Harry Potter series. 

There were times when I thought I could have been there along with Harry and the gang at Hogwarts. Although I think I imagined myself more tagging behind Malfoy and his sinister Slytherins rather than one of the Gryffindor Golden Trio but regardless – this is a world that was real for me whilst reading.

 

 

 

 

2. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Okay… I may have only read these books because I thought it was cool that someone’s middle name was “Staples” but I ended up adoring them. I found myself searching the inside of my wardrobe (all I found was some stray socks) for a secret world or hoping to be swept away into a painting. This world was real to me as a child and still whenever I reread this series, it’s just as real to me as it was a decade ago.

 

 

 

3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I think the reason why I was so affected by this series is because of how real it was for me. Children Survivor with a fatal ending for most of the participants… oh my. But everytime I watch Survivor now – which is every opportunity I get… I may or may not be half in love with Jeff Probst – I get the odd Hunger Games flashback that completely shocks me.

 

 

 

4. Divergent by Veronica Roth

I loved this world too. A world where people are segregated based on their aptitudes for certain things. From the started I wanted to choose my own faction and go along with them (I’d ideally be a Dauntless but I think it’s much more likely that I’d be Candor).

 

It seems that I’ve run out of vivid words… so the next six are all worlds/books that I wish I got the chance to be in.

 

5. The Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter

I love boarding schools. I love spies. So a boarding school where they teach young women the art of being a super secret special agent? Sign me up! With a mansion (complete with a lake to hide the secret entrance) and many eccentric teachers, it seems a little like the girls of St. Trinians but much better behaved.

 

 

 

 

6. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This book seems to be on many of my top ten lists… but I really did enjoy it and I love talking about it. Because I am a book pusher. If I love a book then I want everyone I know to read and love it too…

But I really did enjoy the world that Cinder inhabits. A classic fairy tale set in a futuristic Bejing. Kind of crazy to think about but it worked so well.

 

 

7. Blood Song by Rhiannon Hart

I really enjoyed this book and the world in which it was set. A version of vampires who were different from those I’d read about in the past. And the land of Lharmell? Very odd but interesting.

I’m really struggling with this week’s top ten… My final three will be non-YA worlds that I loved.

 

 

 

8. The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs (also the Alpha & Omega series since they’re set in the same world)

These books are set in a world where there’s all kinds of supernatural creatures – werewolves, other shifters, vampires, fey. And somehow they all manage to co-exist with each other and with humans. It’s a fantastic series. I love the characters and the plots of all the books.

9. The Women of the Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong

This is one of those series where I’d HATE to be a character living in it. Why? Because everyone is so violent or crazy or just plain scary. But I love the characters in spite (or maybe it’s because) of this. And the settings are always fantastic. From Stonehaven to the facility that Elena resides in in the second book to Paige’s Massachusetts home… and to every setting in the subsequent books. I would love to be a spy on the wall and completely enjoy any chance I get to read this series and slip into their world.

 

 

10. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.

Admittedly, I’m only a third of the way into this book so it’s probably cheating to mention it as my tenth choice but since Sunday afternoon I felt like I’m there. And it’s a place I’d love to be. The book opens in Oxford, England and currently the characters are in France. I love books set in Europe and even with the cold and rain that’s been described, it’s still a book that I’d love to be able to live inside of.