Discussion: How Do You Feel About Hyped Books?

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For the most part, I've generally had good experiences with hyped books. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, for example, were all pretty intensely hyped books that completely lived up to the hype for me.

But there have also been more than a handful of hyped books that I was cautiously interested in—or even very interested in—until early reviews came out, revealing problematic elements or disappointing things that made me remove the book from my TBR. Many have gone on to continue to be successful, but the early reviews made me pause and think twice before picking them up—for which I'm glad.

But there is always the chance, of course, that the massive hype surrounding a book will inflate expectations so much that it'll be hard for the book to live up to it. I think the closest experience I've had with that is a YA book I was really looking forward to for a specific aspect of representation—until a review came out with really troubling information and I pulled the book from my TBR. But I think, in most cases, I've been able to avoid too much disappointment in that area by either only pre-ordering the books if it's from an author I've loved before or if people I trust have said they read and loved an early copy of the book. By being somewhat cautious in that sense, I've been able to cut down on some reading experiences I wouldn't have enjoyed otherwise.

So I suppose, in a sense, the same source of (much of the) hype—social media—can also serve as a buffer for disappointment if you follow the right people. So for me, when I see a book getting hyped and I see people I trust giving it a thumbs up I can pretty safely pre-order without worry of disappointment. And it's worked well so far.

How do you feel about hyped books?

Twitter-sized bite: 

How do you feel about hyped books? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)