T10T: Hyped Books I'm Unsure About

February 5, 2019

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly blog meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic was supposed to be about upcoming releases we’re on the fence about, but I didn’t want to put a damper on exciting upcoming releases, so instead, I decided to discuss 10 HYPED books I’m not sure if I want to read!

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1. The Girl on the Train — Paula Hawkins
I’m actually interested in a few of her other books, but this one just sounds… maybe a little too ‘domestic thriller’ for my tastes?

2. I’ll Give You the Sun — Jandy Nelson
I have owned this for ages and I feel like everyone raves about it, but the synopsis does NOTHING for me so I never end up picking it up and I’m not 100% sure I ever will.

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 3. Red Queen — Victoria Aveyard
This is another one that I bought purely for the hype, but every time I see it sitting on my shelf, I’m like, “Ehhh… do I really wanna start this series?” It gets such mixed reviews!

4. Dark Matter — Blake Crouch
This is one of those books that I think will either totally captivate me as a thriller, or bore me to tears as a sci-fi novel (because I just don’t reach for those often!).

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5. Aristotle & Dante … — Benjamin Alire Saenz
I know this is another cult favorite, but it’s never really caught my interest much. I mean, part of me really wants to read it and hopefully love it and get the hype, but I never can find the motivation to pick it up.

6. The Diviners — Libba Bray
On one hand, I LOVE me some paranormal historical fantasy. On the other hand, I’ve read some little snippets of this book and it honestly strikes me as a DNF waiting to happen, and I don’t even know why. 🙁

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7. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet — Becky Chambers
Sorry in advance because I KNOW some of y’all are gonna be mad at me for this one, but I feel like everyone loved books 1 and 2, yet almost every review I’ve seen of book 3 has been 3 stars or less. I hate picking up a series that has a bad ending, so seeing those poor reviews for book 3 is kind of off-putting for the whole thing!

8. Crazy Rich Asians — Kevin Kwan
I watched the movie and thought it was cute enough to MILDLY spark my interest in the books, but enough to actually pick them up? Eh… ?‍♀️

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9. Passenger — Alexandra Bracken
This was one of the first ebooks I EVER bought. Ever. Let that sink in. Yet… I’ve had it on my kindle for years now and have never once even considered picking it up? Sigh. I think this is one of those cases where a few bad reviews made me wary.

10. Turtles All the Way Down — John Green
Here’s the thing: I grew up on John Green just like most of the other emo kids of my age did, and I loved his angsty manic pixie dream girls, too. As an adult, though, rereading his work? I still adore TFIOS, but hate literally everything else he’s ever written. I can never seem to decide if this one is worth the risk or not!

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Which of these books have you read? Did you think they were worth the hype, or should I pass on them?

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More about Destiny @ Howling Libraries

Just a horror aficionado/geek girl trying to juggle motherhood, reading, blogging, gaming, and everyday life.

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    1. Whispers *I didn’t like CRA movie and never want to read it* ? and I didn’t know about the 3rd book for The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet ? there’s nothing worse than a series ending in disappointment!

    1. I LOVED I’ll Give You the Sun and The Diviners (the audiobook of this is amazing)! They’re definitely worthy of the hype! Also, I think Turtles All the Way Down is possibly John Green’s best work – definitely up there with TFIOS and waaay better than everything else he’s written.
      I’d love it if you visited my my TTT! <3

      1. So sorry for the late reply! I’m so happy to hear that you loved Turtles so much, especially since it sounds like you’re in the same boat as me about preferring TFIOS over his older works? I think I’ll have to give it a chance! And I’ll definitely check out your post ♥

    1. I read Girl on The Train back when it was released and I found it predictable and a bit slow. I loved the Diviners but there are parts where it kinda draws things out a bit too much so I can understand why someone might just push it away. I remember reading Passenger a time ago and loving it just the insta love is a bit too insta love for my taste but I think I should give it a re read this year because I just remember loving the adventure.
      I am on you with the John Green thing. I loved his books before but now as an adult I’m just like why? Everyone keeps telling me that TATWD was good but I don’t if I can risk it. Lol

      1. Thank you for your thoughts on all of those! (And sorry for the late reply haha) Yes to John Green, though! Like I said, I still love TFIOS, but everything else he’s written is just kind of cringe-inducing, to be frank… :/

    1. I’ll Give You the Sun, Passenger, Aristotle & Dante, and The Diviners are allll on my TBR, and I also have been on the fence about reading John Green’s Turtles All The Way Down (like, what does that title even mean???). And I’ve read – and liked – a lot of his books.
      I’ve only read Red Queen, and I can say I enjoyed the second book more than the first, but I still haven’t continued the series after that…

      1. I actually remember reading the “meaning” behind Turtles’ title, but I can’t really figure out how to explain it. ? If you ever want to look it up, though, there are some things online that explain it. It’s supposedly a really old saying but I’d never heard it in my life until the title was released!

    1. Um… I did the thing again.
      1. Fair
      2. Read this if you want an atmospheric story that will make you cry. The audio was good if you ever feel like going that route.
      3. On one hand I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! On the other hand it’s not necessarily because I think you’ll like it.
      4. My worry is that it’s going to be “classically” sci-fi, aka allocishet and white af.
      5. It didn’t resonate with me but it also wasn’t written for me, a white femme person. The writing was gorgeous, though.
      6. I get that, also the books are really long and the series isn’t finished yet. But I think if you love it you’ll REALLY love it. The audiobook is phenomenal and the murder mystery was the perfect kinda spooky and scary for me.
      7. Not mad. Sci-fi isn’t for everyone. <3 But if it helps at all, I love book three so far (I’m meandering through it pretty slowly because I don’t want to have to wait for the next book… slowly enough that it’s probably a dnf at this point, really, but I don’t want to get to the end!). It’s also not a continuous series. All the books are set in the same universe but they don’t follow the same characters. Both one and two can stand on their own.
      8. I’ve flopped back and forth on this one a lot. The movie looks nice, but I still haven’t seen it.
      9. I don’t know what this is about. But the cover is pretty!
      10. I didn’t care for TFIOS and haven’t read anything else of his but Turtles, which I liked okay. It was good but probably won’t reread it.
      <3

      1. Let’s do this! (sorry for the uber late reply)
        2. Hmm… I might have to try the audio in that case.
        3. LMAO
        6. I honestly keep forgetting the series hasn’t finished yet?! Maybe I’ll leave it on my TBR until it’s finished and THEN I’ll decide…
        7. Ooooh, I actually thought the 3rd book was the last one! Hmm… this makes me feel a lot more optimistic about it, tbh.
        8. The movie was cute, but not amazing, unless you generally adore rom-coms (I don’t).

    1. The only one I’ve read is Red Queen….and I didn’t get along with it. Then I wondered what was wrong with me as so many people loved it!!! But happy reading!

    1. The girl on the train was honestly so disappointing! It’s getting good near the end, but the rest was such boredom. I’ll give you the Sun is also a book you really need to push through, because the end is getting so and so much better. Red Queen was an instant DNF for me, so I shouldn’t try. I love Ari and Dante! Turtles all the way down focuses more on mental health then on having an actual plot, so I was quite disappointed. However, I still liked it enough to rate it 4 stars.

      1. Oh nooo! I’m sorry so many of them weren’t winners for you either, but I super appreciate your input because I honestly am this close to just accepting that I don’t want to read The Girl on the Train or Red Queen, and this helps! ?

    1. I liked Red Queen. The series didn’t make the top 10 that I read last year, but it was hanging out there in the 11-15 range. I’m not sure how you’d feel about it though.

    1. The Girl on the Train was one of my most disappointing reads of 2016! It wasn’t anything I hadn’t read already, which is surprising for someone who hasn’t read that many thrillers. To be honest, I was bored throughout the entirety of the novel. I did love the first two books in the Wayfarers series, but haven’t bought the third one yet! I prefer reading paperbacks, and it took a while for the paperback to come out and then it was super expensive. Should do that this year!

      1. Oh no, that is rough! 🙁 I don’t read a ton of thrillers either, but I struggle a lot with feeling like some thriller plots are overdone, so that makes me even more hesitant. I think I’ll just check out the movie, less commitment that way. ??

    1. I read Aristotle & Dante last year and it was kind of meh just because of the writing style. I think if I read it again I’ll like it a bit more. I don’t know if this helps you with your decision but yeah, it isn’t that great.

      1. Haha, it doesn’t help TOO much, but it does make me feel a little more justified over the fact that I haven’t gotten around to it despite owning it for so long! ? Maybe I’ll get around to it *eventually*…

    1. The Girl on the Train was frustratingly terrible. I loved I’ll Give You the Sun. I decided to just watch the movie Crazy, Rich Asians and was perfectly satisfied with that.

      1. I’m sorry The Girl on the Train was so bad for you! It honestly feels like the kind of book that I know in my gut I just won’t like AT ALL, so I think I’m probably not going to bother, especially after how many people commented on this post saying they disliked it! And I don’t blame you for sticking to the movie on CRA because I may honestly do the same!

        1. I try to embrace bad books as much as I can – at least they show me that my reading system isn’t too lax 😉 because I do have a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews.

      1. So sorry for the late reply! That really stinks to hear that Glass Sword was even worse than RQ. I hadn’t heard too many people say they disliked the sequel(s) in that series, but on second thought, a lot of people I know didn’t go past the first book to begin with, so maybe that’s why! I just hear so few people rave about it that I’m not sure it’s worth my time, like you said!

        1. That’s okay! I do know some people who really love the whole series, but it does seem like a lot of people stopped after the first book.

    1. I DNF’d Crazy Rich Asians because it was wayyyy to many characters for me to keep up with. I love the movie though. I liked Dark Matter and I’m not into sci-fi.

      1. Oooh, I never thought about that with CRA! There were a lot of characters in the film, or it felt like that to me, and now that you mention that, it strikes me as the kind of book I might get annoyed with for how many characters it would follow. I’m super excited to hear a non-sci-fi-lover say you liked Dark Matter, though!!

    1. I read both I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN and PASSENGER. I definitely think they’re hyped, but I didn’t enjoy them as much as everyone else did.

    1. I read, and loved both The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and Crazy Rich Asians. I thought the first two books in the Becky Chambers series were wonderful. Last night, I read the third book, and was pretty disappointed with it. The good news is, you can pretend it doesn’t exist. It adds nothing to the story of the first two books, and the first two are good enough not to need the third.
      Crazy Rich Asians is a different story. All three books are strong, and reading all three just add to the story. I think it’s totally worth it. There may be a bit of a learning curve on the names and pacing, but you pick it up quickly. I read the books as they came out, and I’m envious of the people who can start the trilogy now and read them all at once. I may do a complete re-read later this year.

      1. That’s actually really reassuring, to hear you say you can just not bother with the 3rd book if you don’t like it as much! That makes me feel a lot more optimistic about the idea of checking it out. 🙂 And you’re the first person I’ve seen say they read all 3 books in the CRA trilogy, so the fact that you enjoyed them all makes me feel more interested in those, too! Thank you! <3

    1. I actually enjoyed book 3 of the wayfarers books really well. Also all three books can stand on their own, some characters just connect throughout the books. So I feel you should totally give The Long Way a try. 😉

    1. I really liked The Girl on the Train, but it was my first foray into thrillers after a long break and I’m kind of sick of the alcoholic-unreliable-narrator-who-may-just-be-crazy trope in every domestic thriller I’ve read since. So if you don’t dig that vibe, I wouldn’t read it. If you haven’t read a ton of books with that trope, it’s definitely worth a shot!
      I’ve also read a bit of Red Queen and enjoyed it, but was listening to it on audiobook and had to stop (my hold expired and I’m terrible at listening to audiobooks!). I plan to pick it up in physical format soon, so I’ll definitely let you know my thoughts on it then. 🙂

      1. Yeah, unfortunately, tropes in thrillers are the #1 reason I don’t read very many of them! I feel like thrillers are so popular with the general masses, if that makes sense, that every time a new trope becomes popular, it just gets done to death. :/ With that in mind, I feel like I’m kind of over the alcoholic-unreliable-narrator theme, so I’m not sure if it would be for me, either! And please do let me know what you think about Red Queen when you finish it!

    1. I really disliked Girl on the Train!!! I would totally say to pass that one up. The movie was actually slightly better than the book and that was because I love Emily Blunt! lol. I really like the Crazy Rich Asians series. They are fun and it’s interesting to read so much about the culture, even if it’s a bit crazy!

    1. My opinion on Red Queen is that the first book is terrible, but the sequels are really good! But I think even the sequels are really polarising and its a really subjective series? I would hesitate to recommend even though I enjoyed them. I really loved The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, though, and I don’t think it matters if you don’t finish the series because I think they are all loosely connected standalones. I could be wrong though! I found Passenger kind of boring, but I really liked Turtles All the Way Down….but I didn’t like The Fault In Our stars, so I don’t know if that is at all helpful!

      1. Hearing people say the Small Angry Planet books are just loosely connected standalones honestly makes me SO much more interested in reading them! I love when SFF series are like that and I feel like it isn’t done often enough. 🙂 and yes, the thing about Turtles is still helpful, so thank you!

    1. I felt the same way about John Green when I re-read Looking for Alaska. I freaking loved the story when I was younger, but when I read it as a 24 year old I was like UM good story, but why was this so appealing to me. I have also read Turtles All the Way Down. While I enjoyed it, I think I would’ve been way more attached as a younger adult. It was harder to connect to because I’m so distanced from HS. But as always, John Green is a talented writer.

      1. Thank you, Alexis, that’s actually really helpful! I think I might give Turtles a try and just go into it with low-ish expectations, so hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised. 🙂

    1. I’m on the fence for Turtles and Passenger as well! I had a strong desire to read them when they first released, but that spark has mostly fizzled out. Perhaps I’ll read them some day, but for now, I’ve pushed them a tad further down my tbr! Lovely post! ?

    1. Girl on the Train is just…I don’t know. It wasn’t my favorite thriller. I liked Red Queen, but the next book ruined things for me. I also liked Crazy Rich Asians, but I was more in love with the book than the movie. Hope this helps tip the scales of yes or no for you.

      1. Thank you, it does help! 🙂 Between all of these comments, I’m pretty sure my verdict is going to be to not bother with Girl on the Train. I might give Red Queen a chance but go into it pre-permitting myself to DNF if I don’t like it haha.

    1. I’ve actually read a good portion of the books on this list so I have quite a bit to say. Out of the ones I’ve read, I loved Aristotle and Dante, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and Crazy Rich Asians, but for different reasons.
      Crazy Rich Asians is pure drama, but it’s entertaining and a real pick me up for a bad day. The other two are slower and more introspective, but still so, so good!
      However, I don’t know if I recommend any of these books, the ones I liked, the ones I didn’t, and even the ones I haven’t read. I’m a big believer that you should only read what makes you happy, so unless you try a chapter or two and find yourself enjoying, I’d say to just read what you love and leave the hype behind.

      1. “I’m a big believer that you should only read what makes you happy, so unless you try a chapter or two and find yourself enjoying, I’d say to just read what you love and leave the hype behind.”
        I love this and agree 100%! Thank you!

    1. Red Queen was REALLY good….. Then I saw the author make a gross comment towards an overweight politician, who had expressed concerns about something either with soda or diabetes or something (I forget what now), and she made a comment like “who are you to talk???” and I’ve just been turned off from reading the rest of the series ever since 🙁

      1. WOW… I didn’t know about that, but YIKES. I honestly am so over how ingrained fat-shaming is in our society, and it’s kind of hard to want to support an author who participates in it! :/ Thanks for the heads-up!

    1. I actually really loved The Diviners and will definitely be re-reading it as soon as book 4 comes out. I definitely recommend the audiobook if you want to try out the story, but I can definitely see how it’s not for everyone. Maybe read some negative reviews and decided from those?
      Also, I just read The Small Angry Planet trilogy last month and wasn’t big on it. Books 1 & 2 were pretty good but I much preferred book 1 and am thinking about unhauling book 2. I recommend trying book 1 but because it’s a companion trilogy I don’t think it’s worth reading books 2 & 3.

      1. Thank you, love! I feel like enough people are commenting raving about The Diviners audiobook version that it must be awesome so I’m definitely going to at least give it a try! And thank you for the advice on Small Angry Planet! I didn’t know when writing this post that they don’t have to be read as a normal “series”, so that makes me feel a lot more optimistic if I go into it knowing I could just read book 1 and leave it alone.

        1. I totally reommend just reading book 1 of Small Angry Planet, to me the other books aren’t “worth it”.
          The Diviners audiobook is amazing and I really recommend it if you have access to it!

    1. I loved Dark Matter & The Diviners, I hope you like them if you decide to pick them up. I feel the same way about Red Queen & I’ll Give You the Sun, though. Will probably not pick them up…

    1. The only book I’ve read on this list is The Girl on the Train which I gave 3.5 stars to. Everything I heard about this book was negative so I went into it with low expectations but I enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to.

    1. I am really kind of afraid to read Dark Matter because so many people have recommended it, and it sounds like something I will LOVE. My expectations right now are just hard to meet. :/

    1. I’ll Give You the Sun is a favourite of mine! And I’m not big on YA. Hard to say if you’ll like if the plot’s never tweaked you’re interest, though. TATWD is in a way like and unlike anything else JG has written. I would risk giving it a shot.

    1. I think Turtles all the way down is worth the risk. I really enjoyed it, and I think Green wrote a female character more in line with TFIOS-less manic pixie dream girl and more teen girl facing great difficulties out of her control.
      I’d say Red Queen you can miss, there’s nothing that special about the series. I really enjoyed the first two but I’ve read so many books since then and after reading the third book I was super disappointed.
      I really liked the Girl on the Train but I think it has the potential to bore others so I can understand being hesitant to pick it up.
      If you do pick any of them up, I’ll be on the look out to see what you think!

      1. That makes me so happy about TATWD! The MPDG syndrome he’s so guilty of in his older books is *exactly* what I was worried about so I’m relieved to hear it isn’t a big issue in Turtles!
        Thank you! 🙂

    1. I loved the third Becky Chambers book but it really is a character and culture study. The plot is not the point so I see why it might not be people’s favourite. Arrr!
      x The Captain

    1. the only one i’ve read from this is passenger and meh. the finale was AWFUL and i remember the first one being too long and quite bland so,, probably wouldn’t recommend.
      i’m still eh about giving dark matter and the girl on the train too. the reviews are so off-putting! and haha, i’m putting off the diviners for literally the OPPOSITE reason! i feel like it could be a potential five-star and its intimidating me

    1. oh,,, so much same. i own two copies of strange the dreamer and i STILL haven’t read it becuase i’m so sure i’m going to love it that it’s scaring me off. why are we like this??

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