Hi! So I (35f) read a LOT but I feel like a lot of the books I read and recommend are suuuper popular- not necessarily booktok famous, but like I love Brandon Sanderson, I love Dungeon Crawler Carl and Project Hail Mary and One Dark Window and Emily Henry, I love Kristen Hannah, Taylor Jenkins Reid, etc etc, and I just feel like I want to branch out and read books that are less known and a little niche- Not books that have, like, 3 reviews on goodreads, just books that maybe aren’t displayed on the front table in every book store, you know what I mean? Here’s a list of my preferences
– I mostly read fantasy and sci fi, but I’m pretty down to read anything, except thrillers
– My favorite books are The Martian, A Man Called Ove, Carrie Soto is Back, and the Stormlight Archives (i think Words of Radiance is my favorite)
– I love historical fiction, but I don’t like books where the whole thing is sad- I need some kind of happy at some point
-I LOVE world building
-I very much judge books by their cover, which I think is what stops me from reading a lot of less popular books, so if there’s a 10/10 book that has a bad cover, I’m really gonna need it sold to me lol
– if a book is very slow paced I’m probably not going to read more than 50 pages. And yes, The Stormlight Archives was sometimes rough, but it was good enough that I pushed through lmao
So, yeah if there’s a book you think is under appreciated, please recommend it to me! TYIA
by FlightTraditional717
7 Comments
Naomi Novik’s fantasy series are excellent – the Scholomance trilogy was recently finished (think Harry Potter if the school was actively trying to kill you), but she also has older vaguely fairytale-retelling fantasies that are also pageturners.
Beneath the wide silk sky is one of my favorites
The once and future witches
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley.
It’s sci-fi(ish), super strange, and totally unlike anything else I have read, but I loved it and have read it at least 3 times
Rosewater (and the rest of the Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson. Possibly my favorite take on an alien invasion
Haha well I hope you like it then! A+ for world-building.
1. **The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri** – excellent and unique world building, many strong women, interesting mix of magic and politics
2. **A Touch of Blood by Sajni Patel -** fantasy, Persephone retelling mixed with Indian mythology (makes for cool world building), good character development
3. **Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan** – very good fantasy series with lots of world-building (several series within the same world, if you enjoy this one), fun characters, interesting plot
4. **The Red Palace by June Hur** – historical (18th century Korea), murder mystery, the setting really makes this a unique mystery story
5. **Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong** – historical (1930s Shanghai), spies and assassins, murder mystery, bit of sci-fi/fantasy
6. **I’ll Stop the World by Lauren Thoman** – time travel, YA/coming of age, mystery, angsty but interesting characters and story
I just finished the last book for the Final Architecture trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I loved it. A really cool take on the “ragtag group of people try to save the universe” genre. It has great characters, impossibly powerful foes, some really funny parts.