hyped tiktok books are... interesting. here's what to read instead

**Exploring Book Talk on TikTok: A Deep Dive into Hyped Books and Alternatives**

**Introduction to Book Talk on TikTok**

In recent years, the world of books has found a new vibrant home on TikTok with the emergence of "Book Talk." This niche has quickly gained popularity among book enthusiasts, much like the enduring presence of Booktube. However, the hype train on TikTok is moving at an unprecedented speed, transforming how books are discovered and discussed.

**Why the Hype?**

The explosion of book recommendations on TikTok can be attributed to several factors. One key reason is the algorithm's role in amplifying popular content. When creators discuss books that resonate with many, they receive more engagement, propelling them higher in users' feeds. This leads to a cycle where similar books are repeatedly recommended, often overshadowing less hyped titles.

Moreover, TikTok's format encourages short, engaging clips that capture the essence of a book quickly. This contrasts sharply with Booktube, which typically offers longer, more detailed discussions. The speed and visual nature of TikTok make it an ideal platform for spreading book love, albeit sometimes leading to over-hyping.

**A Nostalgic Look Back: 5-Year Cycle**

Interestingly, Book Talk seems to be retracing the steps of Booktube but at a faster pace. Books that were popular five years ago on Booktube are now gaining traction again on TikTok. This cyclical nature ensures a diverse range of books remain in the spotlight, even if they were initially overlooked.

**Hyped Books and Alternatives**

1. **The Shadows Between Us by Trisha Lehman**

- *Premise*: A morally gray Slytherin girl plots to seduce the king.

- *Creator's Take*: Despite an intriguing premise, the execution falls flat. The story lacks depth in characters and plot.

- *Alternative Recommendations*: "Cruel Beauty" by Rosamutch offers a similar dark romance with well-developed elements.

2. **Kingdom of the Wicked by Carrie Maniscalco**

- *Premise*: A girl strikes a deal with a demon to solve her sister's murder.

- *Creator's Take*: The book didn't meet expectations, with underdeveloped characters and plot inconsistencies.

- *Alternative Recommendations*: "The Invisible Life of Addy Larue" delivers a compelling story of a girl who makes a Faustian bargain.

3. **The Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas**

- *Premise*: A Beauty and the Beast retelling with fae elements.

- *Creator's Take*: While the first book is enjoyable, subsequent installments lack plot continuity and depth.

- *Alternative Recommendations*: "Wrath & Adam" by Renee offers a dark, lyrical tale with strong character development.

4. **Caraval by Stephanie Garber**

- *Premise*: A girl joins a magical circus to find her sister.

- *Creator's Take*: The book feels derivative, relying on overused tropes.

- *Alternative Recommendations*: "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern provides a fresh, imaginative take on the same concept.

**Conclusion**

Book Talk on TikTok offers a dynamic and engaging space for book lovers to connect and discover new reads. While some hyped books may not live up to expectations, there are numerous alternatives that provide equally captivating stories. As you explore this vibrant community, remember to seek out diverse recommendations and engage with the content thoughtfully.

We encourage readers to share their thoughts on Book Talk or suggest other titles they've discovered through this platform. Let's continue the conversation and celebrate the richness of literature together!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi friends you guys know that i'm a little bit obsessed with tik tok right now and i know that a few weeks ago i made this video cutting down my screen time um yeah that's not going so well right now and it is a truth universally acknowledged that if there is a new social media platform a niche about books must arise because us book nerds we j we just have to scream about books somewhere of course there's also a book niche on tick tock called book talk a very interesting place to be but we'll get to that later the thing about book talk is that books get insanely hyped on there and yes i know books get hyped everywhere on the internet all the time but like it is incomparable the way that it happens on tick tock like the way we hype up books on booktube is kind of like an old steam locomotion compared to just the high speed train that is the hype train on tick tock good point that bookstores have little tables with books with a sign that says as seen on book talk it's wild so today i just wanted to go over some of these super hot book talk books and then also give you an alternative book that i think you should read instead which i guess kind of is a little bit foreshadowing of what i think of most of these books but also for the books on this list that i do like i will also give an alternative just so that there's you know something for everyone hello but first i want to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor which is skillshare whether i'm finding more effective ways to work or i'm just spending some time on my hobbies i've noticed the skillshare is like a major help in actually learning how to do the thing instead of just trying to figure it all out myself if you don't know skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for curious people where you can explore your passion whether you want to learn how to make better logos take up photography or just have that little extra nudge to get creative in your spare time skillshare has a class for everyone i've actually been watching this skillshare class by ali abdull on productivity which has been giving me some great tips on how to step over hurdles and get into the workflow better and the great thing about skillshare is that it's also incredibly affordable with less than 10 a month if you pay an annual subscription and if that hasn't convinced you yet the first 1000 people to click the link in my description will get a free trial of skillshare premium membership so you can explore your creativity it's free so why not just give it a try and click the link in my description back to the video but first i think i need to explain myself and why i think book talk is such an interesting place um there are three things actually the first thing that i noticed immediately when i first logged into tick tock and very quickly got bookish tick-tock content because the tech lords know everything about me and i have no secrets apparently anymore is that book talk is basically just booktube but like five years in the past and then i keep seeing books recommended that were like really popular five years ago like it's clear from the type of books that people are talking about that book talk is just going through the same cycle that booktube went through five years ago and i like that actually because i think it's a good thing we don't have to only hype up new releases all the time the second thing is that people mostly talk about the same books over and over again and this is the most common critique that book talk gets and i don't think that this is the people's fault i think this is a natural consequence of such an algorithm-fueled platform if you make tick-tocks talking about popular books that a lot of people like you're going to get more likes on your tick tock and that's going to boost you in the algorithm so that more people are going to end up seeing it and also the algorithm very quickly realizes what types of books you like so then also you kind of end up getting the same things recommended to you over and over again so i actually think that the tiktok algorithm plays a really big role in the hyper hype that arises on tick tock and the third thing that really struck me is the difference between books that get popular on book talk and books that get popular on booktube like for example the book daughter of the pirate king is super hyped on book talk right now but it actually came out like multiple years ago and i remember it not really doing well on booktube i never read it because it got pretty mixed reviews but now on book talk everyone is loving it and that's also exactly why i wanted to make this video to give you the youtube audience an idea if these recommendations from book talk are trustworthy or not honestly i could make like a whole video on all the interesting parts of book tick talk and like the massive influence that it's having on the publishing industry so if you have any more thoughts on book talk leave them in the comments down below and maybe i will make a video on it but today i just want to go over some of the hyped books i know i maybe have been a little bit negative about most of them but it's honestly just like a coincidence that it just happens to be that a lot of the hyped tic toc books i happen to not really like obviously if you liked any of these books no hate to you that's completely fine and maybe some of the books the alternatives that i recommended would still be books that you would really enjoy it's actually funny because um i'm currently at my parents house and usually that means that i don't really have any books to like show you guys because i have all my books in my university room but because so many of these books are like backlist books i actually have a little pile of books that i still have here in my childhood bedroom um i think that's nice it like makes me feel a little nostalgic the first book that has been super hyped on tick tock is the shadows between us by trisha levinseller so imagine this you first hear about the premise of this book and that is about this kind of like morally gray slytherin girl that plans to seduce the king so that she can kill him and then take over the kingdom and you think oh my gosh that sounds absolutely amazing and you pre-order it before any reviews roll in and then you end up reading it and it turns out that the premise was just a front for a completely empty story that does not deliver on anything that he promises imagine that i don't know just just purely hypothetical i wouldn't do that so i think the only interesting thing about this book is its premise um but there are definitely other why a dark romances i guess you would call it that deliver way more on the romance part on the dark part on the actually developed characters and plots and world building parts um so i will recommend some for you if you were intrigued by the shadows between us because you want a why a romance fantasy that's like enemies the lovers i would recommend cruel beauty by rosamutch this is a beauty and beast retelling that has a very similar premise it's about a girl nyx that is married off to this like monster king and she also decides to try to secretly kill him while she is with him in the castle this one actually has a lot of tension i read this a long time ago but i absolutely loved it and i think that like the ya crowd of today would still really enjoy this book this book actually really focuses on the romance and the characters instead of the shadows between us that feels kind of like all over the place but if you were interested in the shadows between us because uh it's promise of kind of like dark characters and dark atmosphere um and you are willing to read something that is not way so you're okay with something that like really gets like really dark i would actually recommend another super hyped uh tik tok book which is a ninth house by leigh bardugo very different plot it's a dark academia about alex who goes to yale and people in the student societies use all sorts of dark magic and it's also a murder mystery actually this is also supposed to be a murder mystery so it actually fits better than i initially thought ninth house actually has like very very dark themes dark main characters um so that will deliver and the last one that i do want to quickly mention if you were interested in shadows between us because it was marketed and hyped up so much for having like slytherin main characters i would suggest trying out the puffy war by arf huang completely different story it's an epic fantasy about war and a main character who goes to like join the military and learn magic etc but very very much slytherin main character completely morally grey will not disappoint and also on top of that questions ideas of war that are often kind of glorified in fantasy like in this one by the way then another book that i saw being super hyped on book talk is a kingdom of the wicked by carrie maniscalco a why fantasy about a girl who finds out that her sister gets murdered and there's also this enemy celebrity's romance going on with a demon that she strikes a deal with to help find the killer this was also very disappointing to me not only because the characters were not fleshed out at all and a lot of just a lot of things in the story did not make sense to me by the way if you want like more in-depth reviews of any of these books i will like link in the corner um to the wrap-up where i talk about the book but if you were disappointed in this book like me but you do really like this premise of like a main character making a deal with some kind of demon and having some like back and forth there with some mystery elements added to it and you're okay with reading something that isn't why a i would actually recommend the invisible life of addy larue which is also very hyped on tiktok i know this sounds like a completely different book and it kind of is but it is also about this girl addie who makes a deal with the devil that means that she will live forever but as a punishment everyone she meets will forget her so it really hones in into like the interesting part of the deal and the curse and how that influences her life and it's just one of the book talk books that i do think really lives up to the hype so i would recommend this then we have i think one of the most hyped book books on tick tock and that is the court of thorns and roses series by sarah j maas this is the super hyped epic slash romance fantasy series about fae and i know that most people absolutely adore this series but i also know that not everyone does i'm one of those people who just doesn't really click with sarah j maas books so for people who don't really like this i have some recommendations uh so i just realized i barely gave my opinion on acotar so here's some context i'm filming this on my phone so the audio quality is not the best but we have to roll it i really enjoyed the first book but i never got invested enough to finish the second book in a series i personally thought everything came a little bit too easily for pharah the main character and i thought the story was too focused on beauty and looks for a book that's supposed to be a beauty and the you know beast retelling and i also thought that the story had no plot continuity something i also noticed is that sergio mas has a tendency to write all her major characters to be these like epic gorgeous alpha borderline mary sue characters and i understand that a lot of people love that but i personally prefer my characters to be kind of shitty if actor interested you because it's like a beauty and the beast kind of enemies to lovers retelling i would suggest the wrath and adam by renee which is also hyped a book talk book that i 100 approve of this is also about a girl who gets kind of like abducted and taken away except not to a fake country but to like the palace of the khalif because she's gonna get killed by dawn but it's a one thousand and one nights retailing shows you know what she's gonna do she's gonna try to stay alive maybe maybe you know maybe falls in love with her enemy who knows this to me is one of those peak enemies the lover's books that just combines beautiful lyrical writing with very emotional character work and a wonderful romance so to me this book gave me everything that echotar couldn't give me but i know the wrath and dawn isn't very action or adventure based whereas akatar also has a lot of like like epic fantasy elements i want to recommend one of my favorite why a epic fantasies and that is the rebel of the sand series this is a pretty classic chosen one story about a girl who lives in this kind of like arabian inspired fantasy country that breaks away from her family and is going on this traveling journey to find like one of the big cities that she wants to live in full of adventure and fun and it actually also really subverts a bunch of common tropes um so i think this is actually a really great thing if you want like why a fun adventure fantasy and then of course aside from acotar we have the other super famous sergey ma series throne of glass which i am also personally not really a fan of i don't really want to go into my opinion on throne of glass too much because it would honestly just turn into a roast since i quite honestly didn't like anything about this book from the mary sue main character to the over focus on romance to the cliches to like a world building to the again lack of continuity throughout the series but i don't want to hate too much on a book that i know a lot of people love so in short i think the throne of glass series is a pretty standard epic high fantasy with the chosen one main character and that there are many others in the genre out there that i think are way better executed and also more interesting so i do just really want to recommend another epic fantasy series that i think anyone who likes sarah j maas would also really love and i think is a lot better is the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon this is an epic dragon fantasy where we follow multiple characters in this country where like war between the dragons and the humans and different countries is looming pretty plot heavy we follow multiple perspectives really reminded me of the way sarah j maas world builds with this very like myth heavy focused on aesthetics and culture world building but i personally think that samantha shannon did a way better job at really creating this wonderful world there's also a sephic romance at the heart of this one that i thought was very beautifully done and this book also has an actual continuous plotline so yeah i would recommend this to everyone who loves sarah j maas or everyone who was like kind of disappointed by sarah j maas but wants something similar prior to the orange tree yes i know it's 800 pages most people are kind of intimidated by the fact that this book is 800 pages but if you read sarah j maas then i know that you are already used to thick books and then a kind of a funny one we have of course the super hyped books shadow and bone because of the tv show everyone's loving them i also enjoy this series but i just want to recommend some other things that i think do it just a little bit better i have an entire video about my in-depth opinions on shadow and bone um but although i love it as a solid y fantasy there's definitely something left to be desired when it comes to interesting main characters and excitement of the plot in my opinion but i just want to recommend some other books that also have this kind of like chosen one fantasy country y a vibe first one that i would recommend is the children of blood and bone i don't understand why this book's not super hyped on tick tock it follows the exact same formula but like not in a bad way chosen one trope magical people main character finds a crew goes on a journey to save the world this one is based on nigerian culture and it is just high action why a fantasy fun and another why fantasy series that i think everyone should raise is an amber in the ashes this one is kind of inspired by like roman culture um and we follow on the one hand a lower class girl who is kind of like joining a rebellion to take down like the people that are oppressing them and on the other hand we follow kind of like a high class military guy who is really struggling with whether he wants to continue supporting the military and the oppressive government or wants to desert and it is wonderful i think this one's also hyped on book talk so i approve and then another book that was like really hyped uh on booktube like five years ago and has now seen a huge resurgence on book talk is we were liars by e lockhart i remember reading this and just like bawling my eyes out at 17 years old oh my gosh i was 17 years old yikes wait no no i read this almost exactly seven years ago now oh my god this is kind of like a mystery thriller contemporary it's one of those books where you are slowly but surely figuring out what is going on and i really enjoyed this so i understand that this is hyped right now i definitely think that a lot of people would still love this book today but i still want to recommend an alternative maybe for people who read this a while ago and want something with a similar feel but is a little bit more mature and to those i would actually recommend never let me go by casual ishiguro this is contemporary fiction with like a small dystopian element to it and just like we were liars it has that thing where most of the time you're just learning about the characters and their stories but slowly but surely you are figuring out this mystery element slowly but surely you're figuring out what's actually going on so yeah same vibe and ishiguro is really good at keeping your attention and really like showing you all the little kind of like almost cringey details of every character's personality highly recommend and then the last one that i see being hyped on book talk a lot is a caravelle by stephanie garber this is a why a fantasy story that follows scarlett who joins a traveling magical circus to find her kidnapped sister there it is marketed as being this really magical spellbinding fantastical story but i would actually recommend you read the book that this is very clearly just ripped off from and that is the night circus which is a fantasy book about a traveling magical circus and the people that perform there the stories that they have and especially the two magicians that are in a contest with each other except they don't know what the contest is both of these books are described as being like really magical and beautiful caravelle feels like as if the author just took everything that is typically seen as very magical like the cliche things that are seen as magical like instruments playing themselves and potions etc basically the things of which we've already seen them a lot of times as being very magical things and therefore to me they are not magical and fantastical anymore because they're not original anymore the night circus is actually super magical and constantly create these like imaginative scenes that are so dreamlike and unlike anything i'd seen before so if you have been intrigued by caraval i would just read the night circus i know this one's y a and this one's adults but i think anyone will enjoy the night circus even if you usually enjoy y a those were some of the very high tick tock books that i've read and my thoughts on them let me know if there are any like really hype tic toc books that i should read because i've definitely seen some that i haven't read that i'm like maybe i should read that one again let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts on book tick talk in general and what you think of it like the video if you enjoyed this kind of content and subscribe if you want to make sure you don't miss any other videos you can follow me on social media at the book leo and i really hope i will see you soon in another video goodbye youhi friends you guys know that i'm a little bit obsessed with tik tok right now and i know that a few weeks ago i made this video cutting down my screen time um yeah that's not going so well right now and it is a truth universally acknowledged that if there is a new social media platform a niche about books must arise because us book nerds we j we just have to scream about books somewhere of course there's also a book niche on tick tock called book talk a very interesting place to be but we'll get to that later the thing about book talk is that books get insanely hyped on there and yes i know books get hyped everywhere on the internet all the time but like it is incomparable the way that it happens on tick tock like the way we hype up books on booktube is kind of like an old steam locomotion compared to just the high speed train that is the hype train on tick tock good point that bookstores have little tables with books with a sign that says as seen on book talk it's wild so today i just wanted to go over some of these super hot book talk books and then also give you an alternative book that i think you should read instead which i guess kind of is a little bit foreshadowing of what i think of most of these books but also for the books on this list that i do like i will also give an alternative just so that there's you know something for everyone hello but first i want to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor which is skillshare whether i'm finding more effective ways to work or i'm just spending some time on my hobbies i've noticed the skillshare is like a major help in actually learning how to do the thing instead of just trying to figure it all out myself if you don't know skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for curious people where you can explore your passion whether you want to learn how to make better logos take up photography or just have that little extra nudge to get creative in your spare time skillshare has a class for everyone i've actually been watching this skillshare class by ali abdull on productivity which has been giving me some great tips on how to step over hurdles and get into the workflow better and the great thing about skillshare is that it's also incredibly affordable with less than 10 a month if you pay an annual subscription and if that hasn't convinced you yet the first 1000 people to click the link in my description will get a free trial of skillshare premium membership so you can explore your creativity it's free so why not just give it a try and click the link in my description back to the video but first i think i need to explain myself and why i think book talk is such an interesting place um there are three things actually the first thing that i noticed immediately when i first logged into tick tock and very quickly got bookish tick-tock content because the tech lords know everything about me and i have no secrets apparently anymore is that book talk is basically just booktube but like five years in the past and then i keep seeing books recommended that were like really popular five years ago like it's clear from the type of books that people are talking about that book talk is just going through the same cycle that booktube went through five years ago and i like that actually because i think it's a good thing we don't have to only hype up new releases all the time the second thing is that people mostly talk about the same books over and over again and this is the most common critique that book talk gets and i don't think that this is the people's fault i think this is a natural consequence of such an algorithm-fueled platform if you make tick-tocks talking about popular books that a lot of people like you're going to get more likes on your tick tock and that's going to boost you in the algorithm so that more people are going to end up seeing it and also the algorithm very quickly realizes what types of books you like so then also you kind of end up getting the same things recommended to you over and over again so i actually think that the tiktok algorithm plays a really big role in the hyper hype that arises on tick tock and the third thing that really struck me is the difference between books that get popular on book talk and books that get popular on booktube like for example the book daughter of the pirate king is super hyped on book talk right now but it actually came out like multiple years ago and i remember it not really doing well on booktube i never read it because it got pretty mixed reviews but now on book talk everyone is loving it and that's also exactly why i wanted to make this video to give you the youtube audience an idea if these recommendations from book talk are trustworthy or not honestly i could make like a whole video on all the interesting parts of book tick talk and like the massive influence that it's having on the publishing industry so if you have any more thoughts on book talk leave them in the comments down below and maybe i will make a video on it but today i just want to go over some of the hyped books i know i maybe have been a little bit negative about most of them but it's honestly just like a coincidence that it just happens to be that a lot of the hyped tic toc books i happen to not really like obviously if you liked any of these books no hate to you that's completely fine and maybe some of the books the alternatives that i recommended would still be books that you would really enjoy it's actually funny because um i'm currently at my parents house and usually that means that i don't really have any books to like show you guys because i have all my books in my university room but because so many of these books are like backlist books i actually have a little pile of books that i still have here in my childhood bedroom um i think that's nice it like makes me feel a little nostalgic the first book that has been super hyped on tick tock is the shadows between us by trisha levinseller so imagine this you first hear about the premise of this book and that is about this kind of like morally gray slytherin girl that plans to seduce the king so that she can kill him and then take over the kingdom and you think oh my gosh that sounds absolutely amazing and you pre-order it before any reviews roll in and then you end up reading it and it turns out that the premise was just a front for a completely empty story that does not deliver on anything that he promises imagine that i don't know just just purely hypothetical i wouldn't do that so i think the only interesting thing about this book is its premise um but there are definitely other why a dark romances i guess you would call it that deliver way more on the romance part on the dark part on the actually developed characters and plots and world building parts um so i will recommend some for you if you were intrigued by the shadows between us because you want a why a romance fantasy that's like enemies the lovers i would recommend cruel beauty by rosamutch this is a beauty and beast retelling that has a very similar premise it's about a girl nyx that is married off to this like monster king and she also decides to try to secretly kill him while she is with him in the castle this one actually has a lot of tension i read this a long time ago but i absolutely loved it and i think that like the ya crowd of today would still really enjoy this book this book actually really focuses on the romance and the characters instead of the shadows between us that feels kind of like all over the place but if you were interested in the shadows between us because uh it's promise of kind of like dark characters and dark atmosphere um and you are willing to read something that is not way so you're okay with something that like really gets like really dark i would actually recommend another super hyped uh tik tok book which is a ninth house by leigh bardugo very different plot it's a dark academia about alex who goes to yale and people in the student societies use all sorts of dark magic and it's also a murder mystery actually this is also supposed to be a murder mystery so it actually fits better than i initially thought ninth house actually has like very very dark themes dark main characters um so that will deliver and the last one that i do want to quickly mention if you were interested in shadows between us because it was marketed and hyped up so much for having like slytherin main characters i would suggest trying out the puffy war by arf huang completely different story it's an epic fantasy about war and a main character who goes to like join the military and learn magic etc but very very much slytherin main character completely morally grey will not disappoint and also on top of that questions ideas of war that are often kind of glorified in fantasy like in this one by the way then another book that i saw being super hyped on book talk is a kingdom of the wicked by carrie maniscalco a why fantasy about a girl who finds out that her sister gets murdered and there's also this enemy celebrity's romance going on with a demon that she strikes a deal with to help find the killer this was also very disappointing to me not only because the characters were not fleshed out at all and a lot of just a lot of things in the story did not make sense to me by the way if you want like more in-depth reviews of any of these books i will like link in the corner um to the wrap-up where i talk about the book but if you were disappointed in this book like me but you do really like this premise of like a main character making a deal with some kind of demon and having some like back and forth there with some mystery elements added to it and you're okay with reading something that isn't why a i would actually recommend the invisible life of addy larue which is also very hyped on tiktok i know this sounds like a completely different book and it kind of is but it is also about this girl addie who makes a deal with the devil that means that she will live forever but as a punishment everyone she meets will forget her so it really hones in into like the interesting part of the deal and the curse and how that influences her life and it's just one of the book talk books that i do think really lives up to the hype so i would recommend this then we have i think one of the most hyped book books on tick tock and that is the court of thorns and roses series by sarah j maas this is the super hyped epic slash romance fantasy series about fae and i know that most people absolutely adore this series but i also know that not everyone does i'm one of those people who just doesn't really click with sarah j maas books so for people who don't really like this i have some recommendations uh so i just realized i barely gave my opinion on acotar so here's some context i'm filming this on my phone so the audio quality is not the best but we have to roll it i really enjoyed the first book but i never got invested enough to finish the second book in a series i personally thought everything came a little bit too easily for pharah the main character and i thought the story was too focused on beauty and looks for a book that's supposed to be a beauty and the you know beast retelling and i also thought that the story had no plot continuity something i also noticed is that sergio mas has a tendency to write all her major characters to be these like epic gorgeous alpha borderline mary sue characters and i understand that a lot of people love that but i personally prefer my characters to be kind of shitty if actor interested you because it's like a beauty and the beast kind of enemies to lovers retelling i would suggest the wrath and adam by renee which is also hyped a book talk book that i 100 approve of this is also about a girl who gets kind of like abducted and taken away except not to a fake country but to like the palace of the khalif because she's gonna get killed by dawn but it's a one thousand and one nights retailing shows you know what she's gonna do she's gonna try to stay alive maybe maybe you know maybe falls in love with her enemy who knows this to me is one of those peak enemies the lover's books that just combines beautiful lyrical writing with very emotional character work and a wonderful romance so to me this book gave me everything that echotar couldn't give me but i know the wrath and dawn isn't very action or adventure based whereas akatar also has a lot of like like epic fantasy elements i want to recommend one of my favorite why a epic fantasies and that is the rebel of the sand series this is a pretty classic chosen one story about a girl who lives in this kind of like arabian inspired fantasy country that breaks away from her family and is going on this traveling journey to find like one of the big cities that she wants to live in full of adventure and fun and it actually also really subverts a bunch of common tropes um so i think this is actually a really great thing if you want like why a fun adventure fantasy and then of course aside from acotar we have the other super famous sergey ma series throne of glass which i am also personally not really a fan of i don't really want to go into my opinion on throne of glass too much because it would honestly just turn into a roast since i quite honestly didn't like anything about this book from the mary sue main character to the over focus on romance to the cliches to like a world building to the again lack of continuity throughout the series but i don't want to hate too much on a book that i know a lot of people love so in short i think the throne of glass series is a pretty standard epic high fantasy with the chosen one main character and that there are many others in the genre out there that i think are way better executed and also more interesting so i do just really want to recommend another epic fantasy series that i think anyone who likes sarah j maas would also really love and i think is a lot better is the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon this is an epic dragon fantasy where we follow multiple characters in this country where like war between the dragons and the humans and different countries is looming pretty plot heavy we follow multiple perspectives really reminded me of the way sarah j maas world builds with this very like myth heavy focused on aesthetics and culture world building but i personally think that samantha shannon did a way better job at really creating this wonderful world there's also a sephic romance at the heart of this one that i thought was very beautifully done and this book also has an actual continuous plotline so yeah i would recommend this to everyone who loves sarah j maas or everyone who was like kind of disappointed by sarah j maas but wants something similar prior to the orange tree yes i know it's 800 pages most people are kind of intimidated by the fact that this book is 800 pages but if you read sarah j maas then i know that you are already used to thick books and then a kind of a funny one we have of course the super hyped books shadow and bone because of the tv show everyone's loving them i also enjoy this series but i just want to recommend some other things that i think do it just a little bit better i have an entire video about my in-depth opinions on shadow and bone um but although i love it as a solid y fantasy there's definitely something left to be desired when it comes to interesting main characters and excitement of the plot in my opinion but i just want to recommend some other books that also have this kind of like chosen one fantasy country y a vibe first one that i would recommend is the children of blood and bone i don't understand why this book's not super hyped on tick tock it follows the exact same formula but like not in a bad way chosen one trope magical people main character finds a crew goes on a journey to save the world this one is based on nigerian culture and it is just high action why a fantasy fun and another why fantasy series that i think everyone should raise is an amber in the ashes this one is kind of inspired by like roman culture um and we follow on the one hand a lower class girl who is kind of like joining a rebellion to take down like the people that are oppressing them and on the other hand we follow kind of like a high class military guy who is really struggling with whether he wants to continue supporting the military and the oppressive government or wants to desert and it is wonderful i think this one's also hyped on book talk so i approve and then another book that was like really hyped uh on booktube like five years ago and has now seen a huge resurgence on book talk is we were liars by e lockhart i remember reading this and just like bawling my eyes out at 17 years old oh my gosh i was 17 years old yikes wait no no i read this almost exactly seven years ago now oh my god this is kind of like a mystery thriller contemporary it's one of those books where you are slowly but surely figuring out what is going on and i really enjoyed this so i understand that this is hyped right now i definitely think that a lot of people would still love this book today but i still want to recommend an alternative maybe for people who read this a while ago and want something with a similar feel but is a little bit more mature and to those i would actually recommend never let me go by casual ishiguro this is contemporary fiction with like a small dystopian element to it and just like we were liars it has that thing where most of the time you're just learning about the characters and their stories but slowly but surely you are figuring out this mystery element slowly but surely you're figuring out what's actually going on so yeah same vibe and ishiguro is really good at keeping your attention and really like showing you all the little kind of like almost cringey details of every character's personality highly recommend and then the last one that i see being hyped on book talk a lot is a caravelle by stephanie garber this is a why a fantasy story that follows scarlett who joins a traveling magical circus to find her kidnapped sister there it is marketed as being this really magical spellbinding fantastical story but i would actually recommend you read the book that this is very clearly just ripped off from and that is the night circus which is a fantasy book about a traveling magical circus and the people that perform there the stories that they have and especially the two magicians that are in a contest with each other except they don't know what the contest is both of these books are described as being like really magical and beautiful caravelle feels like as if the author just took everything that is typically seen as very magical like the cliche things that are seen as magical like instruments playing themselves and potions etc basically the things of which we've already seen them a lot of times as being very magical things and therefore to me they are not magical and fantastical anymore because they're not original anymore the night circus is actually super magical and constantly create these like imaginative scenes that are so dreamlike and unlike anything i'd seen before so if you have been intrigued by caraval i would just read the night circus i know this one's y a and this one's adults but i think anyone will enjoy the night circus even if you usually enjoy y a those were some of the very high tick tock books that i've read and my thoughts on them let me know if there are any like really hype tic toc books that i should read because i've definitely seen some that i haven't read that i'm like maybe i should read that one again let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts on book tick talk in general and what you think of it like the video if you enjoyed this kind of content and subscribe if you want to make sure you don't miss any other videos you can follow me on social media at the book leo and i really hope i will see you soon in another video goodbye you\n"