Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Hello hype! I haven’t actually gotten around to reading a bunch of books that have been hyped up despite having  added them to my TBR super quickly. Of the hyped up books, however, the ones who actually deserved it are listed below.

10. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I heard so many good things about this book before I read it. In fact, they were making a movie of it at the time and I had that to look forward to. Naturally, when I enjoy a trailer for something, I have to go read the book. There’s actually another book on this list where that happened to me. And I loved this one. It was all the right mixtures of adorable, romantic, fascinating, adventurous, and tragic all at once and it will forever hold a special place in my heart.

9. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Around the time when John Green and David Levithan got big, they published a book together. Naturally these authors were being talked about constantly for a lot of their other works and so this book happened to come up a lot. I was surprisingly blown away by this book. It was pretty typical at first, good but not amazing and resultingly underwhelming. And then I got to the ending, and man that ending. It had me in complete tears, bawling my eyes out like I’d never stop. And that’s pretty damn impressive.

8. Geekerella by Ashley Poston

Not the sort of book I would ever expect to like, I picked up Geekerella merely by virtue of the fact that I had run out of things to read that week and it was available. And dear skies, I’m glad it was. This book was all sorts of adorable and realistic and wonderful. I just couldn’t put it down. I’m still utterly in love with it just as much as I was the first time I read it. From the uniqueness of it’s pumpkin and fairy godmother, to the exciting story surrounding Prince Charming. It’s an adorable must read in my book.

7. A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo [and Jill Twiss]

My all time favorite children’s book, made popular via John Oliver and his amazing ability to just be an all around wonderful human being. The book was initially done as a joke to irritate the Vice President, Mike Pence, who is a disgusting homophobe and it basically insinuates that his bunny is gay through telling the amazingly adorable and important story of boy bunnies falling in love. This book is beautifully illustrated and has an amazing audiobook narrated by Jim Parsons. Everything about it is wonderful.

6. This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

I love this book so much. It’s actually the first Sarah Dessen I ever read and owned and it genuinely means the world to me. This was obviously several years ago, but everyone I knew was talking about This Lullaby when it came to good books to read. No one ever really cited any of Dessen’s other books, but this one was a must read back when I was a teenager. And so, naturally, I picked it up. And I fell in love for the rest of forever.

5. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

This book was wonderful. I adored every second of reading it and to this day I consistently think about the snake that ate the elephant. Perspectives are such wonderful things, aren’t they? I think it goes without saying that I was especially in love with the fox. I mean, I’m sure that much about me was obvious. But the story itself is also just quite poinant and special. You’re really missing out if you haven’t read this one.

4. Fairest by Marissa Meyer

I love, love, love, love, loved Fairest. Levana’s backstory could not have been more perfect. Meyer brings you through the truth of the villian’s past and pulls readers into the warped mind of a very broken and psychotic woman. Even in spite of her clearly traumatic upbringing, Levana is still not the sort of character you can pity or justify. She’s still quite destructive and horrifying, even in her early years. And I think that’s the amazing thing about her as a villain. She genuinely is incapable of seeing how messed up a person she is. And it makes for a great antagonist. This is hands down the best villain story I’ve ever read or seen.

3. Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

My life would not be complete without this book. It was heartbreaking and inspiring all at once. I loved the characters and the story and frankly have refused to read any of the sequels since as I’m positive it will simply ruin how perfect this book was. I’m thoroughly content to just leave it where it is. But this book means a lot to me and it definitely deserved all the attetion and the subsequent brilliant movie deal that it got.

2. The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

This book blew up all over my news feed when it first came out and with good reason. The Belles is a fantastic book that has a number of important things to say to the world. From commentaries on slavery to commentaries on the beauty industry, this book tears down the things we consistently ignore in favor of sugar and sweetens. It deserved the hype it got, one hundred percent. I honestly couldn’t think of a more deserving book. Everything abou it was magnificent and impressive in ways that a lot of fiction just hasn’t been.

1. The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

I read this in a day and I could not have more wonderful things to say about this amazing graphic novel. The artwork itself was fantastic but my lord, the story was beyond brilliant. I don’t exactly have the words to express how amazing this book was. If you haven’t read it yet, you need to get yourself a copy RIGHT this VERY moment because you are MISSING OUT.

And that’s all for now! Happy reading, everyone!

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