We are all familiar with the endless TBR list. We add books from Instagram pages we love, from a dear friend that sends a message when a book was so worth it, from the shelves in our favourite bookstores, from the apps that help us track our reading and show us Based on books you rated x stars.
We pile book after book on that TBR and some, if not most of us, generally ignore that stack and snatch a book that somehow caught our attention right in the moment that was not even close to being on the list before. TBR pile long forgotten.
Once in a while, a miracle happens, though. We remember the TBR that we’ve been growing for years. And we browse it, we pick up a book. Afterwards that specific book finished us emotionally. we ask ourselves in tears: Why did it take so long to read this?!?!
Personally, I’ve had this experience multiple times in the past few years. One would think I had learnt my lesson since it happened for me to discover several awesome books in my 10-year-old TBR. Not even remotely. Most of my TBR is still left untouched.
That being said, I want to share several of those books that rotted on stand-by for so many years and immediately after reading them, I howled into the void in agony because I had been sleeping on treasure.
Prior to diving into the list, I want to emphasize I am aware of the following. Some, actually most, of these books are extremely popular and, in my opinion, rightly so. Part of why I put them off for a long time was exactly because of their popularity, the way they have been overly shared and recommended on all platforms I visit. However, I would like to remember that before consumerism took over, these books got popular for a very good reason.
Without further ado, in reverse chronological order of how I read them, [my] hidden gems:
Middlegame - Seanan McGuire (2024)
A thrilling, time-bending novel that follows a set of twins whose lives are not their own (check the TWs)
Beartown - Fredrik Backman (2024)
The story of a small isolated town on the verge of economical collapse whose only hope is a young boys’ hockey team (check the TWs)
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara (2023)
Four friends move to New York after graduation - the book is about their life and challenges with a heavy focus on one of them (check the trigger warnings!!!)
The Secret History - Donna Tartt (2022)
A group of elite college students struggle to keep a secret, ultimately leading to their downfall (check the TWs)
Elantris - Brandon Sanderson (2022)
The story of a ghost-town set in one of Sanderson’s Cosmere
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch (2021)
Everyone has to make a living one or way or another - Locke Lamora just happens to be a thief in a fantasy world
Prince of Thorns - Mark Lawrence (2021)
A dark fantasy book about a prince who seeks revenge after witnessing the brutal murder of family members
Uprooted - Naomi Novik (2021)
A book that reads like a classic fairytale - a young girl is sent to the Dragon as payment for him keeping the populated valley safe from the dark Wood
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafron (2021)
A novel that takes place in 1945 Barcelona, where an antiquarian book dealer's son is on a quest to find the literary works of an author that wrote a mysterious book, The Shadow of the Wind
The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden (2020)
A story rooted in Russian folklore where superstition, religion and the modern world clash into a magical winter tale.