Predicted 5 star reads

There’s been a whole slew of these videos going around Booktube over the past few months, and I’ve always found it really fascinating to see how good or bad people are at predicting which books they think they’ll love.

It’s taken me a good long while to find ten books that I think will be 5 star reads, but I hereby present ten things (most of which are due out next year sometime) that I think I’ll absolutely love and give 5 stars to.

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
I mean…it’s Amie and Jay. I’m pretty much guaranteed to love this. It’s not due out until May of next year, but I’ve been excited about it from the second they announced it and I cannot WAIT to read this.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
I foresee this being a 5 star read for two reasons:
1. It’s Catherynne M. Valente
2. It’s basically Eurovision. In space.
I am 100% here for it, and literally the only reason why I haven’t read it yet is that the Kindle edition is $19 in Australia, which is utter madness. So I’m hoping to persuade my library to get it soon. Or that it goes on sale, because seriously – $19 for an ebook?!?!?!

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
This could literally just be Simon and Baz wandering around Ikea looking at furniture and I would still give it 5 stars. Because I am absolute trash. And I honestly screamed at my computer when I saw that the release date had been bumped up to next year. It may not have an actual release date yet, but I don’t caaaaaaaaaaaare it’s going to be amazing omg.sw

In Bloom by C.J. Skuse
This is the sequel to Sweetpea, which is one of my favourite books of this year. And I bought this before I’d even finished Sweetpea because that’s how much I loved that book. Buuuuuut I’ve been putting this off because frankly? I’m a little terrified that this won’t live up to my expectations. But if it’s even half way as good as Sweetpea, I’ll give it 5 stars because that’s how good Sweetpea was… (Note: don’t even read the blurb for it if you haven’t read Sweetpea, it contains pretty massive spoilers)

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang
This is the sequel to The Poppy War, which is honestly one of the most incredible fantasy books I’ve read in years. The combination of 20th century Chinese history and fantasy was breathtakingly good, and based on the blurb, I’m pretty damned sure this sequel is going to be just as fantastic. Again, due out in May and I NEED IT NOW.

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff
I bought this the second it came out last year. And then I never read it, simply because I wanted to reread Nevernight before I dove into this one and somehow I never felt in the right headspace to reread Nevernight. But SOON. Like, before the end of the year soon. I *WILL* read this. And I’m pretty damned sure I’m going to love it.

Undying by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
This one comes out in less than two weeks, and I’m SO EXCITED ABOUT IT. It’s the sequel to Unearthed, which I absolutely loved because, like, archaeology in space wheeeeeeeeee. I am psyched to read this and find out how things end.

Sword and Pen by Rachel Caine
This is the fifth and final book in the Great Library series, and given that I’ve rated every other book in the series 5 stars, it seems pretty damned safe that I’ll be giving this one 5 stars too. Seriously, these books are amazing and you should all read them.

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
I freaking love Becky Chambers, and I’m honestly kind of disgusted at myself for not having read this yet. But once again, I want to reread the first two books in the series before I jump into this one, even though the books in this series are…more or less standalones. Hopefully I’ll get to this one before the end of the year as well!

Becoming by Michelle Obama
I desperately need to read this, and I can’t imagine giving it anything less than 5 stars based on what I’ve heard about it so far. But again, the Kindle edition is $18 which is…many. Hopefully in a few months, it’ll go on sale and I can grab it for a slightly more reasonable price?

So, there you have it, friends. Ten books that I think I’ll give 5 stars to. I’ll check back in (in like a freaking year…) when I’ve read them all and see how well I did!

Unexpected 5 star reads

There are some books that you go into knowing that you’re going to give them five stars (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for example). There are others where you know basically from page 1 that it’s going to be a five star read (Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda). And there are others that sneak up on you. That you didn’t see coming at all. And that steal your heart or blow your mind when you’re not expecting it. So let’s talk about some of THOSE books, shall we?

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Based on the cover of this, I was expecting a typical YA book about two boys falling in love. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. This is the story of seven LGBTQIA+ boys in one small town in middle America and how their lives are changed by two of them attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest kiss.

But it’s narration that sets this book apart. It’s narrated by a Greek chorus of the dead of the AIDS generation, and it breaks my heart into a million pieces every time I read it. It’s only 200 pages long and I cried five times reading it. It’s such a beautifully told and beautifully written book and I love it so much that I can barely talk about it without crying. I may have cried a little when I met David Levithan as a result…

Harry Potter: A History of Magic by The British Library
It is honestly one of the biggest heartbreaks of my life thus far that I left London mere weeks before the Harry Potter exhibition opened at The British Library last year. Luckily, my brother bought me this for Christmas, which was almost as good as seeing the exhibition in person. I definitely didn’t expect this to be as incredible as it was, but with its combination of actual history, magical world history and literal Harry Potter history, it blew me away. Honestly, it’s an amazingly beautiful book that does a great job of demonstrating just how much real world history J.K. Rowling poured into her books, and it’s astonishing.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
I’ve always said that I’m not a big fan of 20th century classics, that I far prefer the 19th century. And this remains fairly true – I don’t like Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye. I’m meh about Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway. So when I got to this one on my Classics Club TBR, I must admit that I was left wondering why I’d bothered to include it.

But this book freaking blew me away. The writing was incredible, the characters were wonderful, and I was hooked from start to finish. Add in a shocking ending and I LOVED this book.

Refugee by Alan Gratz
This is a low YA/upper middle grade book that I talked about a few days ago in a weekly wrap up post. It’s the story of three generations of refugee kids – one Jewish in WWII, one Cuban in the 90s, and one Syrian in the present day. When I first started reading, I thought it would be a pretty standard story about children in wartime. But it blew me away. Yes, the writing is very simplistic. But it’s effective as hell.

Sweetpea by C.J. Skuse
This has to be one of my favourite books of this year. And yet when I first started reading it, I thought it was going to be a pretty generic thriller. But no. It shocked me time and time again and I loved basically everything about it. As I said the other day, I still haven’t braved the sequel, but I’ll get there soon.

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
This is a non-fiction book that I picked up on a whim at the end of last year after seeing it on the Goodreads Choice Awards list. The blurb was intriguing, but I didn’t expect it to be anything particularly special. AND YET. This is a compelling, horrifying, and heartbreaking story, while also providing me with a lot of new information about a time and place I knew very little about prior to reading this. Highly recommended. (Also, I saw this week that apparently it’s being turned into a movie starring Leonardo Dicaprio???)

Uncle’s Story by Witi Ihimaera
I’d read The Whale Rider prior to reading this book and ugly cried my way through it, so I was really looking forward to picking up another of Ihimaera’s works. And this one killed me, time and time again. It’s the story of a young Maori man, who’s having a difficult time with his family since coming out. He finds out that he had an uncle he never knew about, who fought in Vietnam and fell for an American soldier. It says so much about the relationships that soldiers forge in wartime, while also delving deep into the way LGBTQIA+ members of Indigenous groups are treated by their communities and it broke me into a million pieces.

Because of You by Pip Harry
This book was on the CBCA Book of the Year for Older Readers shortlist this year, and I remember looking at the cover and thinking that it looked like the most boring book in the world. The blurb did nothing to change that opinion. But within a handful of chapters, I was completely hooked and I desperately wanted to know how Tiny ended up homeless and whether Nola would come to accept/embrace her family situation. I loved every single second of it, and I see it being one that I reread over and over.

What are some of your unexpected 5 star reads?