A few months ago, I took part in the tag-like challenge started by Mercedes, in which you pick out five books from your TBR that you think will be five-star reads for you. Having since read the books I picked out, I thought it was time for an update. For each book I’ve linked to my Goodreads review so you can see my full thoughts.

My five-star read predictions
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden – ⭐ ⭐
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell – ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill – ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Trumpet by Jackie Kay – ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Little Nothing by Marisa Silver – ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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As you can see, in terms of actual five-star reads, I wasn’t all that successful in my predictions, with only one, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, fully living up to expectations, but I have to say that Trumpet also came very close, and it was more than worth it for these two books alone.
It was definitely interesting to properly track the difference between expectation and reality in some of my most anticipated reads of the year, though I have to say that for me personally, amping up the self-inflicted hype may have played a part in some of them proving to be a little disappointing. I’ve known for a while that I don’t do well with the strict nature of a set TBR, and I think this was perhaps a bit too close to that in my head, in that I felt like I had to get to these reads sooner rather than later and wanted to absolutely love them, rather than picking them up as and when I wanted and going in more casually and open-minded.
Then again, maybe I’m just rubbish at predicting five-star reads. This isn’t strictly a tag per se, but if anyone else wants to take up the challenge, I’d love to see how you get on.
Oh wow, two stars to The Bear and the Nightingale!! That’s too bad! I was hoping to get to that one soon, I recently bought the e-book and I’d heard nothing but good things. I’ll have to check out your review. I think I’ll do this challenge, it looks like fun but also kind of tricky!
No one was more surprised than me that I didn’t love it. It does have very good reviews though, so hopefully I’m the oddity and you’ll enjoy it.
Admittedly after reading your review I’m a little concerned….. I also don’t love fantasy and had been hoping for a fairy tale-esque realist story 😦 Fingers crossed though, maybe I’ll be able to adjust my expectations ahead of time?!
Hopefully! I think a big part of the problem for me was my own high expectations, so maybe if you go in a little more reserved you’ll be won round like most people seem to have been.
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I have one five-star prediction in Nora Roberts “Year One”, though it may be that long before I can get to it in my TBR.
Maybe the anticipation will tempt me to go out of order to see one of my all-time favorite authors take on the extinction level event genre.
I will share when I finally do read it.
Are you marking any new five-star predictions?
I hope it doesn’t disappoint for you! 😊
I may decide to give it another go. There are, of course, lots of books that I’m really excited about and hope I’ll love, but I’m still pondering whether putting too much pressure on myself proved a little counterintuitive.
I wonder if that was the case also. Time will tell, right?
Indeed! 😊
🙂
That’s great you got one 5-star read at least! I just did a post like this and it will be so interesting to see whether any will actually be a 5-star read 🙂
That’s very true – and a great one it was at that too! I hope you uncover some great reads 🙂