Ten Five Underrated Fantasy Books

Today I’m linking up with Top Ten Tuesday, which is hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish.
Today’s theme is ‘Ten Hidden Gem Books in X Genre: Pick a genre and share with us some books that have gone under the radar in that genre!’ I chose fantasy.

Yes of course I chose fantasy… I love fantasy… I don’t read anything that isn’t fantasy. Half the books I read are fantasy, and I’m having a hard enough time with this post already.

Why am I having a hard time with this post? Because I have no idea how popular most things are. I could tell you if something was really well known, but I have a harder time with underrated books. Some of these might not be underrated at all, but I’m going to name things that I haven’t seen much (or anything) about in the blogging world. And hopefully not be completely wrong about all of them.

These are in no particular order, just however they pop into my brain. Because I didn’t prepare this at all.
And I’ll try not to list only Tamora Pierce. Although nobody seems to have read her books. *Scowls*

1 – Dragon Slippers*

by Jessica Day George

Obviously, this book has dragons. And obviously, that means it’s good. No more needs to be said. But, in case that didn’t convince you,** I’ll give a bit more description.

This book is hilarious! The characters are great! I really like this series, and it never fails to make me happy. Because it is just. So. Funny.
Also the dragons are great! Not just because they’re dragons, but because they’re wonderfully done, and just great characters. And because they’re dragons.

It’s not just the characters though, they’re my favourite part, but the plot is also well done and exciting. And I really don’t have much to say about the plot. Because I don’t care about plot. Because characters are always more important to me.

*It has an alternate name, I think in the UK, but it’s similar to this one, and also a bit of a spoiler, so I’m not going to list it.

**Although I don’t know how it couldn’t.

2 – A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

I don’t care that I listed this in my last TTT post, it’s absolutely amazing, and everyone should read it.
Although I swear I don’t normally talk about it this much, it’s just on my mind right now apparently.
I’m also not sure this is actually fantasy, because I haven’t read it for a while, and I’m bad at putting things in genres. It’s paranormal, or fantasy or something. And it’s good. And you should read it. So that’s really all that matters. And I wanted to have more than, like, two books in my list.

A Curse Dark as Gold is such a great book. It’s sort of eerie,* and lovely, and I’m doing a terrible job at describing it.
Just read it. Go read the blurb if you must have more knowledge. Although really, you shouldn’t waste time doing that, when you could be reading it. Or at least getting your hands on it.

*I decided last time that this was the right word, but I’m no longer sure… maybe it’s not eerie, it’s, er, haunting? I give up.

3 & 4 – Circle of Magic & The Circle Opens

by Tamora Pierce

I said I would try not to list only Tamora Pierce, not that I wouldn’t list any.
And yes, this is two series, but they sort of go together, so I’m putting them in the same spot.*
Circle of Magic is for a bit younger, I would say technically it’s probably on the older side of MG, maybe the younger side of YA, but I think it’s one of those books where any age can enjoy it.
The Circle Opens is about the same characters, so I would highly recommend reading Circle of Magic first.** This series however, is definitely not MG. Although the characters are only fourteen, these are very dark books. When I first read these, although I liked them, I struggled through them, because the darkness was too much for me. Reading them again, I loved them, but they still seemed very dark.

As you can tell, I can spend a lot of time talking about these.

Because I love these books! So! So! SO! Much! They were the books that first introduced me to Tamora Pierce, and they are amazing!
I’m of the opinion that all of Tamora Pierce’s books are underrated, but even most of the few people I’ve talked to who like Tamora Pierce either haven’t read these, or didn’t like them as much. And I don’t get that. They are such good books, the characters are so well developed, the magic is complex, and well done, the plot is really, really interesting. I was intrigued from the first paragraph, and by the time I finished the first page I was absolutely hooked. I’m not even exaggerating.

*They’re counting as two things though, because I’m definitely not going to find ten…

**Because Circle of Magic amazing and there will be very, very large spoilers. Otherwise I think The Circle Opens stands on it’s own just fine.

5 – East

by Edith Pattou

I read this quite a while ago, and I only vaguely remember it, but I do remember really liking it.
It’s a retelling of what I think is a Norse story called East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Very few people seem to have heard of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and it’s very annoying. I can’t complain, I’d never heard of it until last year. Since then however, I have fallen in love with this story.

So obviously I’ve read as many retellings of it as I can get my hands on.
East was really interesting, and although the plot was pretty slow (I think), I didn’t find it got boring.
It wasn’t my favourite book ever, but I quite liked it, and think it’s worth a read.

Random story about this book, I wanted to read it, so I looked it up on my library’s website, and it told me it was shelved in the YA section. I hadn’t realized my library had a YA section. For some reason it just never occurred to me that there might be one… I’m not sure why.
So this is the book that, in a strange way, really got me started on YA. It wasn’t the first one I read, it wasn’t as good as some of the earlier ones even. But it was what helped me discover the YA section of my library. So yay!

So That’s My List!

I sort of failed at naming ten, but I don’t really care. The five that I listed are all great, and well worth reading. At least read the Circle ones and A Curse Dark as Gold. And Dragon Slippers. And really, I’m sure East is amazing too, I just can’t remember it as well. So basically read them all.

Have you read any of these? Are you planning to? What’s your favourite genre? Is ‘dragons’ enough to convince you to read a book, or do you need more description?