Do I really have to choose just one?

Today's prompt is "A book you love and one you didn't" - seriously?  "A book?"  Only one?

This bookshelf sits in my home patiently holding books that are high on my to-read list, books I'm in the middle of, and books I read/refer to often enough that they need to be handy:



One thing that isn't on this shelf is my Anne of Green Gables series - I finally had to put them away because I would have just re-read them over and over, without ever reading anything else.  Rilla of Ingleside, the last in the series is probably one of my all-time favorite books.  I've read it at least twice as many times as the rest of the series.  It's just so wonderful, and though the story itself is a little too full of coincidences, it appeals to the entire range of human emotions.
Really, though?  I'm just a sucker for a good coming-of-age story.
I think I read it at just exactly the right time - I was the same age as Rilla when I first read it, and I understood literally everything she felt.  As much as it is a little bit less than believable as far as story-line goes (thanks, writing classes for knocking a tiny bit of magic out of my ability to read light fiction), everything about the teenage main character is S-P-O-T O-N, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a sweet, comfortable, feel-good story.

One Thousand Gifts is one of the few books I've ever read that I just really didn't like.  I've read blog posts by Ann Voskamp that I really enjoyed, but I just couldn't enjoy her writing style translated into book form.
I also may have read this one at the wrong time - I had just been through my own journey of learning to be grateful for the little things in life, so I really felt like the book wasn't showing me anything I didn't know.  Also, I didn't sense any real story arc going on, and I just felt very stuck in the middle while reading it.  I eventually came to a part where she spent way too much time describing rainbowy soap bubbles, and I just put the book down, feeling like there were better ways to spend my time than reading the same thoughts over and over.

It's still sitting on my shelf, though, in hopes that maybe there will come a time when I'm in the right frame of mind to pick it up again.