[Top Ten Tuesday] Books I Recommend If You Like Anime

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at The Broke and The Bookish.

This week’s post is a Freebie (means I can write about anything!). So I decided to go with a list that involves both anime and books. Since Top Ten Tuesday is (usually) about books, I thought that I’ll go think of books to recommend to anyone who watches anime. This way I can bring anime fans to enjoy books as much as I do (well at least I hope to do so).

Again, I failed to make a complete 10 books. It took me some time to finalize this list because anime and books just don’t go together that well. They have entire different styles in storytelling which I both love. Books are, of course, have more words because of all the descriptions from physical character descriptions to background descriptions. Anime, on the other hand, have a wide range of styles and it involves shows: that have lots of dialogues, may bore people at times but are quite thought-provoking; that have lots of actions, adventure, long story arcs, endless characters, but very shallow story; and a lot more plot and presentation styles.

Generally if you like adventure type of anime, I’d recommend Red Rising because of its thrilling arc-like style of storytelling. At times I can just picture it in my mind as an anime. Darrow can be voiced by someone like Miyano Mamoru and this should be produced by Production I.G or A-1 Pictures. In all seriousness, this is the most anime-like book I’ve read so far.

Another anime-like book that came to me was Altered. When I was reading Altered, I kept on telling myself: this is what reverse harem is like if it’s in a book. The stereotypical set of guys is present, there naturally is romance, and there’s a huge amount of action here. Great book, really.

Perhaps Shadow and Bone can be a pretty close to anime because of its overwhelming fantasy aspect. It’s a pretty fun book: involves magic, monster-like creatures, romance (as usual), etc. While Shadow and Bone lacks the arc-style that Red Rising has, it’s still a pretty nice book to read if you’re into fantasy-romance stuff. Really worth trying.

I stared at my dystopian books and tried to imagine them in animation. That’s when I thought I should include Legend in this little list. I was also thinking of Divergent but it’s a bit harder to imagine as an anime (but as a movie, yes, it was quite easy… and I’ve never seen the movie adaptation). Legend is a fast-paced, thrilling, dystopian novel. It’s a really great read and with all the action it has, I think it’s pretty much worth trying if you’re into anime as well.

I guess I was generally thinking of Vampire Knight when I thought about these two: Evernight Series and the Coldest Girl in Coldtown. I think Evernight leans more into Vampire Knight but both of which are pretty good reads if you’re into vampire stuff. Evernight is mostly romance (insta-love), vampires and vampire hunting, a bit action, and more romance. Then the Coldest Girl in Coldtown is the more interesting take on the vampire-issue, immortality talks, and thrilling pacing.

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How about you guys, what books do you think will appeal to anime fans? OR it can be the other way around, what anime do you think will appeal to book readers? :)