Top 5 Tuesday: Books I Read Because of the Hype... and Liked!

 

This week I decided to switch back over and participate in Top 5 Tuesday, originally hosted by BionicBookworm, now hosted by MeeghanReads!

This week's topic is: Books I Read Because of the Hype... and Liked!

I decided to join up with Top 5 Tuesday this week because I loved the idea of the topic. There are a lot of books I've read because of the hype and been disappointed with, so it felt like a nice change to highlight a few that I actually really loved/liked!

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
This is one of those books that is almost always being recommended as a great fantasy read and seems to be largely considered a classic in the genre. I read this a number of years ago, but the reason I picked it up was likely largely because of how often I saw people raving about it and loving it–and of course the concept sounded amazing. This is now one of my favorite fantasy series!

A Little Life by Hana Yanagihara
I had a casual interest in this book for a while, but it wasn't until I kept seeing people ranting about how much they both loved it and how much it destroyed them that I realized I needed to try it out for myself. It also completely broke me, but it was completely worth it. I think.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Although I didn't love this first book in the series the most, I definitely picked it up because I constantly heard people talking about how much they loved the series. And I've also thoroughly enjoyed this series!

House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) by Sarah J. Maas
I've read and liked Maas' Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses series (which seems to be an unpopular thing to say these days for some reason??), but I wasn't sure or all that interested in her new series for some reason. But I kept hearing how much people actually really liked it and how much fun it was, so I decided to give it a shot. I was weirdly surprised by how much fun I ended up having with it! It's not the best fantasy ever and certainly has some issues, but it was a good time and I look forward to continuing the series.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
Like many people, I was a bit intimidated by the size of this book and whether or not I really wanted to commit to such a big book with a new author I hadn't read anything from yet (even though I know her other series is hugely popular). This also isn't what I would call my favorite, but it was a really solid, well-written, and unique story that I'm glad I read. 

Have you read any of these books? What books have you read because of the hype and liked?