Top 5 Hyped Books I Want to Read

This Top 5 series started back in October 2018 and I kind of lost motivation for making it every week. But it’s back! This is a series of books that I want to read that all have a common theme. Previously on the blog I have focused on witches, werewolves, thrillers, faeries, fairy tale re-tellings, high fantasy and many more. I am going to try and bring this series back for every Saturday.

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The Upcoming Top 5 Saturday Schedule Is:

6/27/20 —  Books with Morally Grey Characters

7/4/20 — Coming of Age

7/11/20 — Hyped Books

7/18/20 — Books you Own

7/25/20 — #OwnVoices Books

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Rules!

• Share your top 5 books of the current topic– these can be books that you want to read, have read and loved, have read and hated, you can do it any way you want.
• Tag the original post (This one!)
• Tag 5 people

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Hyped Books

As part of the bookish community I have to admit that hype affects my reading. Of course I have my own preferences, but when everyone around me is excited for a book or has raved about a book I have to admit that I am intrigued. I also get really excited myself over certain releases, but for this post I’m going to talk about books that I’m interested in because of the hype. These are books that my friends rave about, have been recommended to me or maybe I just keep seeing these titles on bookstagram. There are SO many books that I could put on this list, but these are the ones that I’m actually hyped about myself and really want to read!

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Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her … but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead … quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Okay, so the hype around this series and the A Court of Thorns and Roses series is unreal. It’s basically a cult fan club. I read A Court of Thorns and Roses because of the hype. But I have to admit, I read it right when one of the sequels came out and my Goodreads feed was FILLED with reviews. I read tons of positive and negative reviews, and I really believe that my opinion was heavily swayed. Every negative thing that I read in those reviews was suddenly glaring to me and I did not enjoy A Court of Thorns and Roses. So I haven’t actually read any reviews for Throne of Glass, and it is certainly much more my style with an assassin main character. I want to give it an honest shot and I want to see what all the hype is all about!

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The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

This book wound up on my TBR because I saw that this series won the Hugo award 3 years in a row. For a while that is all that I knew about it, but it was enough to get me to buy a copy. But then I started working at a bookstore, and every single one of my co-workers seems to have read this book series and raves about it. I actually have no idea what this book is even about, but so many people that I know loved this series that I’m willing to give it a shot and see what all the hype is about!

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A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you know that Schwab’s books have been haunting my TBR for years. This book series was actually recommended to me by a friend before I even was in the bookish community. So it’s been on my TBR for a LONG time. But since then this series has been recommended to me over and over again, and based on what I know about the world it sounds like a book I will absolutely love. So why haven’t I read it yet? Honestly, it’s because I’ve hyped this series up too much in my mind. I need to lower my expectations a little bit before actually reading it. But I did finally buy myself a copy, so hopefully this one won’t be haunting my TBR for too much longer.

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King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.

Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal.

Okay so I got to fall in love with all the Grishaverse books before I was a part of the bookish community. I got Six of Crows as a gift very shortly after it came out and absolutely loved all of the characters and the world. Six of Crows opened my eyes to morally grey characters and heavily influenced my reading preferences for years after I first read it. But I am SO happy I got to love the books without all the hype. I mean, I love that everyone loves the Grishaverse too, but I got to enjoy these books without outside expectations influencing my opinion. So even though I bought King of Scars right after it came out, I still haven’t read it. I have avoided reviews though, so maybe the hype won’t influence me too much for this one.

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The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow

Publication Date: October 13th, 2020

In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.

But when the Eastwood sisters–James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna–join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.

This book is one that I was hyped for myself. I have been looking forward to this book ever since I heard about it being pitched. The Ten Thousand Doors of January was one of my favorite reads of last year, it was so incredibly magical and it just felt so REAL. I’ve stalked this release from the very beginning, I participated in a Q & A with Alix E Harrow and I got to hear her read some short excerpts. This is one of the releases that I’m most excited for this fall and I have my fingers crossed that it lives up to the hype!

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Tagged! — Join us this week or next week!

Elizabeth @ Elizabeth Reads Books

Mayu @ Bookshelf Life

Kaya @ A Fictional Bookworm

Jennzah & Erin @ The Book Nut

Katrin @ Read with Katrin

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Check out other book blogger’s Top 5!

Blair @ Feed the Crime —-|Books Worth The Hype… Top 5 Saturday|-

Susan @ Novel Lives —Double Your Fun! Top 5 Saturday: Hyped Books I Have And Want To Read… Five Of Each- TEN- Because I’m Feeling Generous!

Becky @ Becky’s Book Blog — Top 5 Books I’m Hyped For– Top 5 Saturday

Jill @ Jill’s Book Blog — Top 5 Saturday– Hyped Books That are Worth the Hype

Dani @ My Heart is Booked — Top 5 Saturday: Hyped Books

Leah @ Leah’s Book Reviews and Recipes —Top 5 Saturday – Hyped Books

Our Book Boyfriends — Top 5 Saturday: Hyped Books

Bayz Book Blog — Top 5 Saturday — Top 5 Hyped Books

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Let’s Chat!

What hyped books do you want to read? How does hype influence your reading choices? Have reviews ever influenced your opinion on a book? What books did you pick up because of the hype? Have you read any of the books I listed above? Did they live up to the hype? Make sure to comment below so we can chat about hyped books!