This summer I wanted to share with you a collection of posts to feature a few books that I just absolutely have to recommend to you for fantastic summer reads a well as books I plan on reading this summer myself! Summertime is a fantastic time of year for so many different kinds of books. I don’t know how many people out there are mood readers or even “season readers” but I feel like summer is the great time for epic books, cute contemps, and emotional roller coasters — basically any book you can totally and completely get lost in. Enter: feature.
THE BLOCKBUSTERS
One of my favorite types of books to read in the summer are those epic “blockbusters”. These are the major series, the epic fantastics, the best books you’ve ever read in your life. Typically what I would consider a blockbuster is something that really has it all: action, adventure, romance, danger, intrigue, and of course, the fan-base and anticipation of being THAT BIG BOOK that will take the reading community by storm!
I have quite a few favorite “blockbuster” books and series. Some of them will come as no surprise, but nevertheless, I HAVE to recommend them because I KNOW there are people who haven’t started them yet. Well, my lovelies. SUMMER IS THE TIME!
Full Length Novels: Shadow and Bone (#1) // Siege and Storm (#2) // Ruin and Rising (#3)
Novellas + Extras: The Witch of Duva (#0.5) // The Taylor (#1.5) // The Too-Clever Fox (#2.5) // Little Knife (#2.6)
With the RUIN AND RISING — the conclusion of the series — having just dropped, fans are all about The Grisha trilogy! And right they are. I was not a big fantasy fan at all when I first read SHADOW AND BONE, but Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy instantly took me by storm. I fell in love with this amazing fantasy world that she creates and how she incorporates the most wonderful ties to czarist Russia while still creating a world that is uniquely her own and fabulously detailed. I love everything about this trilogy — the world building (of course), the characters, the plot, the twists, the relationships, the magic… Everything is just perfect. If you haven’t started The Grisha trilogy yet, now is the time! All of the books have now been released and you can spend your whole summer catching up!
Full Length Novels: Cinder (#1) // Scarlet (#2) // Cress (#3)
Novellas + Extras: Glitches (#0.5) // The Queen’s Army (#1.5) // The Little Android (#2.5)
Future Releases: Fairest (#0.1) // Winter (#4)
The Lunar Chronicles is one of my favorite series OF ALL TIME. I honestly, truly compared it to Harry Potter. My love for it is of Harry Potter proportions, so that’s really saying a lot! For those of you who haven’t read it… I know, I know. A cyborg Cinderella? That’s too sci-fi. Can’t possibly be good. Right? NO. WRONG. This is amazing! CINDER was so great but the series honestly just gets better from there too. More amazing characters, incredibly plotting, fantastic action, and OH, the swoons! FAIREST, although a prequel, is actually a full-length novel coming out in January 2015 and WINTER is closing out the series late 2015 and that will be a long wait, but well worth it!
Dangerous Girls
Future Releases: Dangerous Boys (not a series but titles are related)
I read DANGEROUS GIRLS from start to finish in one day. I left for BEA and started it in the airport in Chicago. I read it all through the plane right and couldn’t believe I had to stop reading it when I got to NYC. But then I was waiting for Alyssa’s train to get in and I managed to finish! YES! This was not at all what I expected. I had heard plenty about how amazing this book was but for some reason I still haven’t believed it. I honestly think it was because of the super poor original cover, actually. It made it look so cheesy. But this was honestly fantastic, you guys. It was how YA mystery-thrillers should written. It was realistic. It was terrifying. And it totally knocked my socks off.
The 5th Wave (#1)
Future Releases: The Infinite Sea (#2) // Untitled (#3)
Surprisingly enough, THE 5TH WAVE was another book I read in one sitting. I was so enthralled that I just sat in my apartment and read it from cover to cover. I am really, really not a fan of aliens. But THE 5TH WAVE was so much more than aliens. It was really exciting with so much action, suspense, and a really great twist as well! I know that movie news is starting to pop up so if you plan on reading the book and haven’t yet, I highly advise avoiding the movie news and hunkering down with this book ASAP!
MY SUMMER 2014 BLOCKBUSTER READ
Full Length Novels: Throne of Glass (#1) // Crown of Midnight (#2) // Heir of Fire (#3)
Novellas + Extras: The Assassin and the Pirate Lord (#0.1) // The Assassin and the Healer (#0.2) // The Assassin and the Desert (#0.3) // The Assassin and the Underworld (#0.4) // The Assassin and the Empire (#0.5) // The Assassin and the Princess (#1.1) // The Assassin and the Captain (#1.2)
Future Releases: Untited (#4) // Untitled (#5) // Untitled #6)
This summer I’m reading Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series! I actually started THRONE OF GLASS (let’s be accurate here and check Goodreads…) back in September of 2012. I made it just over 80 pages into the book but really was having a hard time with it and my allotted time was up with the library copy so back to the library it went. Even back in 2012 there was already a lot of hype for this series so I think I was intimidated by that and that I wasn’t really reading fantasy yet as much so I really think it just wasn’t the right time. I decided it was finally time to pick this series back up again and then two wonderful things happened: Bloomsbury announced that they were doing a series read along (slash, re-read along) and they’ll start discussing THRONE OF GLASS in mid-July and I had tweeted about re-starting this series on Twitter and Nikki from There Were Books Involved told me that she read all of the novellas first and it really helped her enjoyment of THRONE OF GLASS (A LOT)! Since I already felt like I had struggled with it the first time, I decided to take Nikki’s advice.
I am happy to report that I just read the first novella and I LOVED it. It made me really, really excited to continue reading the novellas and hopefully I’ll make it through all five of them (FIVE!!!) before it’s time to start the official read along with Bloomsbury! I’m so excited to be starting a series that so many of you have loved and I can’t wait to enjoy it just as much as you do! (Although if I fall in love with it, I may have issues since I bought the paperback of ToG, gave away my ARC of CoM, and have an egalley of HoF… We’ll see!)
8 thoughts on “Summer Showcase: Blockbusters”
Love this post! You’ve listed some of my favorites here! The only book I haven’t read on this list is Dangerous Girls and I might try to read that this summer! I really hope you love the ToG series. Whatever you do, stick with it because CoM is EPIC and HoF has a lot of feels too (but more character-driven).
What an awesome post! I love this! The Lunar Chronicles is one of my favorite series, too, and totally fits that epic blockbuster feel. I highly recommend the Lumatere Chronicles if you haven’t read it! The big series I want to read this year is Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I just received the first book in a book swap, so I’m excited to start it!
So, I have the first book of ALL of these, and haven’t gotten to them yet! I’m planning on Grisha, like, immediately. Cannot wait. 🙂 Such a great list!
I’m super excited for Heir of Fire, but I kind of don’t want to read it because I don’t think I could deal with the wait for the next books in the series. I’m also planning to hopefully read the grisha series this summer!
I am loving this post! Totally agree with you on The Grisha Trilogy, The Lunar Chronicles and Throne of Glass series, since I am obsessed with them ALL! There’s something so magical about a book or series that you can get completely swept away in…I’m a huge fan of fantasy because of that. So excited to get to The 5th Wave and Dangerous Girls, especially after reading your overviews of them!
I love this feature! The ones I have read I couldn’t agree with more for checking out this summer. The ones I haven’t read yet I’m hoping to get finally read this summer, too! Great post! Can’t wait to see what other’s you have picked for the next ones!
Yay, yay, yay! Throne of Glass!!!! Omg I can’t wait for you to read!!! I haven’t even read the novellas yet, though I do own the pretty hardcover bound version of them all. I think I’m going to read them soon. I have my Heir of Fire galley from BEA, but once I read it then I have to wait longer and I don’t know if I’m prepared for that… But I also don’t know if I can wait much longer to read it. haha, double-edged sword right?
I’m planning on reading the Grisha trilogy this summer as soon as I buy Ruin and Rising! I’m just going to binge read them back to back I think. Yay! So both of us are going to have some epically awesome fantasy in our summer. 🙂
So many of these books I second you on. Dangerous Girls OMG YES! I adored that book in every way possible. Lunar Chronicles, a new favourite of mine, wish I had my own copies. Throne of Glass I’ve just started too, like, two nights ago, and it’s surprised me in a few ways, I was scared of the hype too, so you’re not alone, and Shadow and Bone, I’m just waiting to see if I can reserve it at the library now, I’ve been convinced by your review a week or two ago, so thank you! 🙂 Nice to get some Summer recommendations that aren’t contemporary too, we need more fantasy and dystopian reads in that time.