Top 5 … books that lived up to the hype!

As you may (or may not) remember, we (that is, I) do Top 5 Tuesdays now, in an effort to blog more consistently. If you’re interested in joining, you can go check out Shanah’s post here!

This week’s theme is… top 5 books that lived up to the HYPE! We all know what hyped books are, and I’ve read my share, so this is my top 5 (not in any particular order). Also, I totally didn’t intend on them all being fantasy books… there is a bonus contemporary down the bottom!

• Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass and ACOTAR series – I’m gonna be real here and just say both of them. To be honest, I prefer the Throne of Glass series, but if you’re talking about hype, then ACOMAF is right up there (although the ending to ACOWAR was a bit much for me… I’m just not into happy endings apparently). Don’t get me wrong, they are tropes galore… but it works. Don’t ask me how or why, it just does.

• The Cruel Prince by Holly Black – yes, I know this is only book 1 of a brand new series, but this book was so hyped that I almost didn’t want to read it, and then I read the blurb and thought… ‘f*ck it’, so I read it. And it did not disappoint. In fact, this book will likely make my top 10 books I read in 2018 list. Yup, I called it in the first week of February, that’s just how good it is. It’s also why it was in the FairyLoot, OwlCrate AND YA Chronicles subscription boxes for the month of January. No, I do not regret owning multiple copies of this book.

• The Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo – I’d like you to remember that I am still yet to read the Grisha trilogy at the time of writing this, but I can still say, without a doubt, that these two books are fantastic. There is suspense, tension, sub-plot points you don’t even know are happening, and so much action there could have been 4 books. Genuinely, if you like fantasy thrillers, please go read this.

• The Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead – look, this series got a lot of hype a few years ago (they even made a movie which was pretty bad), but the books are GOOOOOOOOOD. In fact, some of the later ones are even better than the earlier ones. I know, how is this even possible? And I’m not telling you this as some VA-lover from years ago. I read the whole series for the first time at the end of 2017, and I still thought it was great. In fact, I was kind of surprised by how good it was! So, if you don’t mind some vampires, and you like some badass characters (I would marry Rose), then go read this series. Hype approved!

• The Nevernight Chronicle by Jay Kristoff – look, if you’ve been sniffing around my Instagram long enough then you’ll know by now that I don’t believe too mjuch hype is enough hype for these books. TBH, Kristoff could kill of every single character in this series in Darkdawn (likely scenario) and so long as it is written as beautifully as the first two books, I will still sing its praises until the end of time. Need a dark, blood-soaked fantasy series with some psycho teenage assassins? Look no further. You’ve hit gold my friends. Also, I don’t take commissions, I throw my own money at Jay every 6 months or however often he releases books. In fact, this series is where my fascination of multiple editions stems from, and I think I have both books in about 4 different editions. Call my crazy, but this is my hype goals.

Now, I know the topic was 5 BOOKS, but you can’t (reasonably) make me pick one book of each series (I mean, you could, it’d be Empire of Storms, The Cruel Prince, Crooked Kingdom, Blood Promise and Godsgrave), but where’s the fun in that?

Also, if you’re looking for a contemporary YA, get Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli because the hype is REAL with that book… and I’m even looking forward to the movie adaptation: Love, Simon