Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Picked Up Due to Glowing Recommendations or Reviews

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Books I Picked Up Due to Glowing Recommendations or Reviews.

Since I started blogging my to-read list has literally shot through the roof. Every time I see a review for a book that has five stars, describing how amazing the story, the characters, the world building is, I just have to add it to my to-read list. It’s got to the stage now where I wonder if I’m ever going to get to the bottom of it.

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Top Five Books I’ve Read

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

This was actually a book that was recommended to me by a friend before I ever started blogging. She doesn’t tend to recommend too many books to me, our reading tastes are similar enough that we do read the same genres but different enough that the things I don’t like in books she does, so I knew Red Rising was going to be good.

I very nearly DNF this book at first, as is it took me ages to finally get through it because the beginning is so slow, but by the last page I was in love with the story and couldn’t wait to see where it went next.

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Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

There was a lot of hype surrounding this book in the run-up to its release. Everyone was so excited about it but for some reason that hype seemed to pass me by. Until I saw a pre-release review by Aentee at Read at Midnight. She made it sound amazing, something I just had to pick up, and as soon as I finished reading her review Nevernight went to the top of my to-read list.

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Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

Bone Gap is the book that introduced me to magical realism, the book that made me fall in love with the genre. However I know that if I’d have never spotted a review for it on WordPress, a glowing five star review which made it sound like an unforgettable magical read reminiscent of a modern fairytale, I would have never picked it up.

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The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

This is another all-time favourite series of mine and, like with Bone Gap, I do wonder if I would have picked it up if I hadn’t seen the five star review for the first book on WordPress that caught my eye. Either way it’s now one of my favourite series and I cannot wait for the third book to be released, and the fourth, and the fifth…

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Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

Earlier this year everyone seemed to be reading Wolf by Wolf, and everyone seemed to be loving it. There were so many five star, amazing, gushing reviews popping up that of course I added it to my to-read list. I don’t read too much historical fiction but all the books I have read from that genre I’ve loved and Wolf by Wolf was no exception.

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Top Five Books Still on my TBR List

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

This was another one that I added to my to-read list because my friend read it first and loved it. She didn’t recommend it to me but when I saw she’d added this book on Goodreads and given it five stars I checked out the blurb, and it sounded like the kind of book I’d love as well. Bear in mind this was last year, but I’ve seen some amazing reviews in the meantime and I can’t wait to get started on it myself.

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The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

I’m not sure if this one is cheating a little considering it was already on my to-read list, but it was so low down it was practically falling off. However, and this is thanks to Marie at Drizzle and Hurricane Books and Stephanie at Teacher of YA’s Book Blog, the Mara Dyer trilogy has moved up my to-read list and now I am so so excited to get started on it.

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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Sci-fi is one of my favourite genres and although I don’t read as much as I would like from it I am trying to change that. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is another book I saw one amazing glowing review for and just had to add to my to-read list, although honestly the gorgeous cover didn’t hurt.

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It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

I’ve never read a Colleen Hoover books, though other people seem to love her work and I’ve seen plenty raving about the Never Never trilogy. Recently there have been plenty of reviews for It Ends With Us around WordPress and, well, if I’m going to start a new author I may as well start with a book that has so many amazing reviews on WordPress already.

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Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

This book was available on NetGalley and now, seeing all the amazing reviews it’s been getting, I’m gutted I didn’t request it as well. However it’s been released now and after seeing what everyone who’s read it has had to say about Labyrinth Lost I am definitely going to be buying y own copy to read as soon as possible.

The world building has been described as Alice in Wonderland meets Greek mythology, those are two things I love and that’s pretty much all I needed to know to know that this book is going to be a favourite of mine.

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So what do you think? Did you take part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, if so let me know what some of the books you picked up based on recommendations and reviews are.