Top 5 hyped books on my TBR

Hello bookworms!! Welcome to Top 5 Tuesday!! This week’s topic is top 5 hyped books on my TBR.

Honestly I could have done a top 20 today. I have so many hyped books on my TBR because as soon as they become “hyped” they also go onto my “I’m now scared to read this pile” because I have been burned by hyped books in the past. I mean, can you imagine identifying as a fantasy reader and not liking Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings?? Two series I may or may not have DNFed every time I’ve tried to read them… But we can talk more about those in another fortnight!!

If you missed the July-September topics post (yes, we’re doing them in bulk now!!), please click here. Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, and is now being hosted here @ Meeghan reads.

top 5 hyped books on my TBR

The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas

Please don’t hate me, because I am mortified to be admitting this. But my terrified factor of “what if I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t like this book” is borderline anxiety. I’m sure I will love The Hate U Give, especially based on what I know about it, but I’m scared all the same.

Blurb:

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does — or does not — say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Caraval – Stephanie Garber

Hello trilogy of hardcover matching books sitting so nicely on my bookshelf. That I have all but ignored for several years now. Even though one of my friends periodically screams at me to read them. (She does it so nicely.)

But also, that’s a lot of expectation to be setting up for!! Knowing that your friends absolutely adore a series can be a turn off. I inwardly cringe every time Caraval is brought up because I feel that heavy expectation to have read it!! But honestly, I haven’t read this for the same reason that I haven’t read The Night Circus… I don’t really care for circuses.

Blurb:

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.

But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Sorcery of Thorns – Margaret Rogerson

I don’t actually know why I haven’t read Sorcery of Thorns yet. I did start it once, and I got about 4 pages in, but then a shiny ARC turned up, and it went back on the shelf. And by all accounts, it’s amazing. But I also feel like one of my friends didn’t like An Enchantment of Ravens, so this one has taken the fall for it. Oops?!!

Blurb:

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery — magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.

Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

Strange the Dreamer – Laini Taylor

I know exactly why I haven’t read the Strange the Dreamer duology yet. It’s because I loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone too much. So much that I feel like Lazlo and Sarai will never live up to my ridiculously high expectations. Nothing Laini writes could possibly ever top what I felt for DoSaB, so why even bother trying? I know that I should read this eventually, but I almost need to reread DoSaB to convince myself it wasn’t as good as I remember…

Blurb:

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around — and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries — including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Circe – Madeline Miller

Greek mythology and retellings are my jam!! So… why haven’t I read Circe?? Who knows. It is on my list of things I want to watch really soon. It just happens that that particular list is about 100 books long. Which is also not my fault because there are so many great books being published, and honestly not enough time to read them all.

Blurb:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child – not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power – the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Please don’t forget to link to one of my posts (not my homepage or a category, as I won’t get the pingback), or comment your link below, and I will link back to all of your posts as soon as I can!!

PARTICIPANTS

Reading At Teatime
Camillea Reads
The Punk Theory
Dreamed Worlds
A Fictional Bookworm
My Book Throne
Zezee with Books
DB’s Guide to the Galaxy
Hanna Reads
Reading Buffs

What are 5 hyped books on your TBR?