For today's Top 5 Wednesday topic I'll be talking about something I'm sure we've all had first-hand experience with, and that is 'Books You've Read Because of Booktube/Bookblogs'. I have been suckered into reading a hyped book on more than one occasion and it hasn't always worked out well, so below I'll be sharing some of these books with you.
BOOKS:
I read this in 2015, around the time it was published, for a booktube book club I participated in at the time. This was a dystopian/historical fiction retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel (which I've never read) and is set in a version of France that has experienced a new revolution and is being controlled by a religious sect. I don't remember much of this now, but I know at the time, I really liked this and gave it 4 or 5 stars. This is a book I hope to reread eventually and after I've read The Scarlet Pimpernel first.
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
This was soooo hyped up on booktube around the time of its release. Like many other people, I fell into the trap and bought and read this just because a bunch of people online told me to. I read this in one sitting and absolutely loved it after. However, in the three years since reading this, I still haven't continued with the sequel and no longer necessarily plan to. The world was fairly interesting but fell into quite a few of the YA dystopian/fantasy tropes that were common at the time. Since reading this, I no longer feel this is a 5 star read, and honestly don't know how much I'd like it if I reread this now.
Bitch Planet Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
Bitch Planet is a comic book series where unruly women or women who do not fit the idea of femininity are sent to, and imprisoned on, another planet for their crimes. I was so excited to start this when I first got it. The idea of women committing a crime by not being what men want them to be was such a cool idea, and I was sure I was going to love it. The artwork was well done, and the story was interesting, but it did have a few issues. I felt that parts of the story were confusing or poorly explained, and it seemed to jump around a bit too much and covered too many things and characters for it to be considered a 5 star read. I know other people have noticed these same issues, and although I haven't read the next volume in this, these issues may or may not be resolved in the continuations.
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
I saw this recommended quite a bit on youtube between various booktubers. I know the Sookie Stackhouse series is fairly popular and spawned an even more popular show, but I did not understand the hype for this. I liked the first book enough to read it, but the concept as a whole felt pretty basic and I have absolutely no intention of continuing with this series. If you like generic characters and plots this is the book for you. If not, I would say pass on this.
Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige
This series follows our main character, Amy Gumm, as she is thrown into Oz and finds herself joining an organization working to dethrone the now-evil Dorothy. This series did not disappoint me. I really enjoyed reading about a version of Oz I've never seen before. In this, Oz has been twisted into something darker than the world presented to us in the original series and movie, good is wicked and wicked is good, and I found the concept to be creative and interestingly done. This is a series I continued reading and I highly recommend this to anyone who might be interested.
✿ Have you read any of these? What are some books you read because they were hyped up on booktube or in the book blogging community? Comment below, or subscribe to BookSass. Thanks for reading!
I think the Sookie Stackhouse series are popular because it is one of the old ones, before the market became saturated with it :D I also didn't plan to continue Red Queen, it's just pointless and I hate the main character.
ReplyDeleteTasya // The Literary Huntress
I completely agree. The more I think about Red Queen now, the more I wonder what I liked about it to begin with.
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