Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

This week’s topic: Hidden Gems (which books haven’t been talked about as much or haven’t been marketed as strongly that you think deserve some recognition?). Here are my top ten books/authors that didn’t get the recognition they deserve.

1. The Memory Book, Lara Avery. This book is super sad and emotional but also funny and even sort of hopeful. I sobbed my way through this in the most worth it way.

2.  The Last Thing You Said, Sara Biren. This one only has 800 ratings on Goodreads and I honestly don’t understand how. It was one of my favorites in 2017, and I can’t wait for the author’s upcoming release in March.

3. What She Left Behind, Tracey Bilen. This book had me so on edge the whole time, but I couldn’t get to the end fast enough to find out what happened. This was in like 2012 and the author hasn’t published anything since then and WHY??

4. Now Is Everything, Amy Giles. You guys know that I love Amy Giles, and I think her work is totally underrated. I adored her debut in 2017, it was one of my top reads of the year, and I was crazy lucky enough to get an ARC of her upcoming book from her publisher and it’s just as incredible! Everyone needs to read her books. As an added bonus, Amy is a super nice person, and always takes time to talk to me on Twitter!

5. Not After Everything, Michelle Levy. Okay so this is the third book in a row that deals with parental abuse but honestly this one is also amazing. In 2015 it was one of my favorite books, but the author hasn’t written anything else which makes me so sad because I REALLY WANT MORE!!

6. The Year We Fell Apart, Emily Martin. Another of my favorites, another author with only one book and WHY?? This one was so good, why no more??

7. Lovely, Dark and Deep, Amy McNamara. I fell in love with this gorgeous little book years ago, and checked often to see when the author was going to write something else. For SIX YEARS the answer was nothing, but this year we were finally rewarded with a second book, A Flicker in the Clarity.

8. The Sea of Tranquility, Katja Millay. This book ends up on a ton of my top ten lists because it’s so good and I love it so much, it has over 72,000 ratings on Goodreads, and yet I still don’t hear it talked about that much. Yet another author with only one book, yet another that makes me so sad.

9. A List of Cages, Robin Roe. God, this book is the biggest emotional knife to the gut. It’s incredibly moving and heavy and more people need to be reading it.

10. The Impossibility of Us, Katy Upperman. Katy’s debut, Kissing Max Holden, remains one of my favorite books, and I wish it got more publicity. I loved her second book just as much, and how does it only have 207 ratings? It just came out at the end of July so I hope it will continue to rise, but come on guys, get on this one!! Katy writes the slow burn in this one SO well, and the cultural differences are on point. On a personal note, Katy is one of my favorite people, she chats with me all over social media and often reads my blog book reviews which is SO NICE!!!

BONUS:

Starry Eyes, Jenn Bennett.
I wavered on including Jenn because she, and specifically this book, are very widely talked about (at least in my Twitter circles), but I just had to. She is the queen of swoony chemistry, and you guys, she also has a pug and sometimes we chat about all of their various snorts and shedding and nails on Twitter!

So guys, what’s on your list of hidden gems? I want to know!