Books You’ve Never Heard Of

Take this with a little salt – there’s a huge chance you’ve heard of these books before, but I personally feel like they don’t get enough hype. I know some of these might have been seriously popular in other countries or at other times or even in different schools or friendship groups, but just not for me. So sorry if I mention books you’ve heard way too much about. Here’s an incomplete list of the best under-hyped books I’ve read!

The book that inspired this post! I read Why I Loathe Sterling Lane over the past summer and LOVED it. Like it’s a 5-star read. Except I don’t think I’ve heard of or know anyone else who’s read it, and you’re all missing out! Trust me. It contains all my favourite tropes, the characters are crazy and hilarious. And the plot/structure/layout of the book is 10/10.

By Invitation Only is insanely dramatic and pretty unrealistic, but I loved it. I believe it’s a self-published e-book, so there are quite a few grammatical and structural mistakes, but if you ignore that, you face a cool location, fun romance, a bit of mystery and some very, very entertaining moments.

I read Ketchup Clouds almost 3 years ago now and it’s still stuck with me. I’m always recommending it to friends – it’s one of the best YA mysteries I’ve ever read. The plot is super unique, and though to begin with it seems the 15 year old character has been written much younger, the cast of characters on the whole are layered and well-developed.

If you read my other posts and have somehow avoided every time (many many times) I’ve mentioned how much I adore The Song of Achilles, then seriously pat yourself on the back. I’ve explained my many, many reasons for loving this book a ridiculous amount of times now, so please, for my sanity,  r e a d  t h i s  b o o k ! It’s based on some Greek mythology, but I promise you don’t have to understand any of it to like this book.

For the final book in this post, I want to mention The Foxhole Court (and all the books in the All For The Game series). I have a review on my blog for this book which explains allllll my feelings. But basically, the most insanely unique and individual plot and beautifully-crafted and precious characters. For a self-published series, I know it’s really popular in the Tumblr community, but outside of that, I haven’t ever heard much about this series. So please, order your copy off Amazon and read it asap!
*FREE EBOOK CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON AMAZON*
Thanks so much for reading! If you’ve read any of these books and have reviews or anything, let me know so we can gush together! Let me know of any books you love and no one talks about!

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller Review

I think that this book is the closest I have ever come to tearing up whilst reading, no matter how many hundreds of books I have read in my short lifetime. Greek mythology was always something I was interested in, as I always heard parts of stories from different sources, but I never researched enough for any of it to make much sense. I’m not claiming to now be a professional about this topic, as I have only what I know from this book to reference, but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and honestly don’t think I will ever forget it.

My favourite thing about the book is that you really get to know the main characters, Patroclus and Achilles. You basically live their whole lives with them, and because of this, I don’t see how anyone could not be completely and whole-heatedly invested in their well-being and relationship. Reading about them growing up is quite surreal – around 30 years are covered in one short novel, and I feel as though this is an amazing example of the skill that Madeline Miller has, to make the story not seem rushed or like key information was missed out. There are so many aspects of this book I found incredibly intriguing, particularly the events of the War but also the general everyday activities of people at the time. It is fascinating to be able to form such a picture from just one book.

If anyone is thinking of reading the book but is put off by the fact that they may not understand exactly what is going on, please just go for it! You really, truly don’t want to miss out (and it’s pretty easy to figure out once you get the names and places sorted in your head)!

Achilles and Patroclus’ story is one for the ages.

Author: Madeline Miller
Title: The Song of Achilles
Audience: Teens/Young Adults
Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Romance
Published: April 2012

Star rating: ★★★★★