I’m super excited to participate in a new weekly post – top 5 Saturday!

Top 5 Saturday is a weekly post that is hosted by Mandy at Devouring Books.

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.

I was tagged by Mandy, which is awesome, because I had actually been considering adding another weekly post to my lineup, and this one totally fits the bill!

This week’s topic is hyped books.

I struggle with hyped books. I hear all this great stuff about them, and then I get all psyched up to read them and then I worry that they won’t live up to the hype and then I’ll be disappointed. You know the feeling? Maybe that’s why I’m such a huge fan of series, because if I already love the first book, I’m most likely going to love the next.

Anyway, I’m going to talk about some of the hyped books that came out recently that actually exceeded my expectations and turned out to be UNDERHYPED!

1.You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

OK, so I’m not going to lie, the cover totally grabbed me. I also liked the description, and it was blowing up all over book twitter. However, I absolutely fell in love with the whole story! You can read my glowing review here.

2. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

This was the first time I ever read a book in verse, and I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed it. I loved how richly the characters were portrayed, and it was such a deep and moving story. It’s not the first book I read by Elizabeth Acevedo, but it showed how versatile and talented she is. Here’s my review for this one.

3. A Song Below Water by Brittany C. Morrow

This book was absolutely incredible. It wove together contemporary issues with mythology seamlessly, and integrated elements of misogyny and racism in a way that was incredibly relatable. I can’t say enough about this book, other than read it! However, you can check out my review here.

4. Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert

I was absolutely thrilled to get approved for an ARC of this book, and I had incredibly high hopes for it after reading the first book in the series. I wasn’t sure it could possibly be better than Get a Life, Chloe Brown, but IT WAS EVEN BETTER! The characters are wonderfully flawed and hard not to love, the writing was perfect and had me laughing out loud, and there were some seriously steamy scenes. Talia Hibbert is definitely becoming one of my instant buy authors. Here’s my review.

5. The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant

This was a really cool book that I thoroughly enjoyed. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, since it’s based on Les Misérables (which I’ve never read/watched). However, the characters, setting, and story grabbed my attention early and didn’t let me go. In fact, it inspired me to even try watching a movie adaptation of Les Miz, although I realized that I hate musicals and couldn’t do it, even with encouragement from Kester Grant herself. At least I tried, right? You can find my review of the book here.

So I’m going to tag the following peeps to join me:

• Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads
• Lindsi @ Do You Dog-Ear
• Simone @ Leafing Through Time
• Rhonda @ Rhonda With A Book
• Kristy @ Caffeinated Fae