Hiya readers! I saw this prompt on Hammock of Books‘ blog for her ‘Top 10 Tuesday’ (her website is so cute by the way), and I thought it was brilliant! Please do go check out her blog post on this prompt as the books she listed are ones I most definitely already agree with. There’s also plenty of other great reads on her website which I find very inspiring and creative as a new blogger! I will list 5 fictional texts (she listed 10) since that seemed to be a common book class in her post.
If others decide they would like to use this prompt as well please tag and credit her in the post!
Books get hyped, like most things do. There is a large abundance of popular, well-known, fiction pieces out there such as the infamous: Harry Potter, Hunger Games, To Kill A Mockingbird, Percy Jackson, 1984…do I need to keep going? Some of these I find to live up to their hype (most definitely To Kill A Mockingbird), and some of these—not so much. Reminder that I have not read these books, so my opinions and why I’m deciding to disregard them are based off their synopsis’. Lets begin!
1. Matched Series by Ally Condie
Synopsis:
In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.
Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.
“Matched” is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic.
This romance/dystopian fiction series is one I’ve seen on shelves for quite awhile. In fact, it was recommended to me by several colleagues because of the romance, which is my one of my most beloved book genres. However I find that in dystopian fiction particularly, romance tends to be dull and foreseeable. I read a snippet of this first book at the library and I found my observations to be true. I feel I will read more for the romance, since the overall world Ally Condie has built doesn’t grab my attention too much; and the love story I would look forward to just isn’t there!
2. The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare
Synopsis:
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know…
Boy, have I seen plenty of this. Mortal Instruments has become a very popular series; enough to have it’s own TV show: Shadowhunters. When the series was still ongoing, I saw it everywhere. Everyone was talking about it; and usually I’d try out a book to see what the hype is about, but I just never did―and I never plan to. It doesn’t clicked the way other books I read do when I read the synopsis, or see the characters for the first time.
3. The Girl of Fire and Thorns Series by Rae Carson
Synopsis:
Elisa is the chosen one.
But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can’t see how she ever will.
Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.
And he’s not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies, seething with dark magic, are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could save his people. And he looks at her in a way no man has ever looked at her before.
Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.
Most of the chosen do.
Not much to say about this series and my disinterest in it other than how it never really struck me as something I could keep reading and emotionally connect to. I’ve seen the tropes this series presents thousands of times. Needless to say, it’s not something I would enjoy and have a memorable experience reading.
4. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Synopsis:
Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”, she speaks many languages – not all of them human – and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
Star-crossed love is a romantic trope I don’t mind; but as far as I’m concerned, it isn’t a trope that can be often used in a fresh and creative way. With star-crossed love one can easily see what there is to come, story wise. I am definitely one for the unexpected, so stating the romance trope in the synopsis didn’t do it for me. After all, I am a romance-fiend. Surprise me!
5. Illuminae Series by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Synopsis:
This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded.
The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.
But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.
I read till around one quarter of this book at the library, and I found the page format/design to be really distracting. I couldn’t focus on the story, which is unquestionably the most important part of a fictional book! I appreciate the creativity both Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff put into making such a unique series, but for me it isn’t something I can follow through with.
That’s it! There are countless of books I’ve read that were hyped and weren’t found enjoyable, however I managed to complete all of them so it didn’t seem fit to add those to this list. Tons more of hyped books I won’t read could also be listed here, but these were the ones that came to my mind first! Maybe I will continue this prompt another time to complete the original list of ten Kay came up with!
Remember to credit ‘Hammock of Books’ if this prompt is inspired-from and used from her or my blog post!
Happy reading!
xoxo Byunzie
Byunzie Reads 