Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly feature over at Bionic Book Worm.

This week’s topic is top 5 books that exceeded our expectations. This was actually quite a hard list to narrow down to 5 choices. I feel like I haven’t read as many five star books as I used to so my expectations are pretty middle of the lane. It’s not often I’m absolutely sure that a book is going to be great. But I’m so happy when it is. And then I usually talk about it 800 times so everyone else knows about it. Spread the positivity, right?

1. A Bad Breed by Kat Ross
I had 3 star expectations going into this. The premise wasn’t really something I had read before, but it sounded decent so I signed up for the blog tour. Turns out I absolutely loved it! And the two books that have come after also received 5 stars.

2. Normal People by Sally Rooney
I received this as a Christmas present and I was a little apprehensive because I don’t often read general fiction. But the thought behind the gift and who it came from was the absolute sweetest thing that still makes my heart happy to this day so I picked it up. My god, what a novel. I have never read something that hit me in the feels so hard. There were so SO many tears shed. I can’t recommend this one enough.

3. Her One Mistake by Heidi Perks
Wow. This was something. I’m always drawn to psychological thrillers and hope they’re good but this was just damn. The twists and turns will keep you flipping through the pages at lightning speed until you reach the gripping conclusion.

4. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
I can’t even begin to tell you how apprehensive I was about this one. I really didn’t like the Summer Trilogy so my expectations were set at ground level for this. I never had plans on picking this one up, but then I saw the movie and loved it so I needed to read the book. It was so good. Sorry I doubted you, Jenny Han.

5. One Dark Throne by Kendare Blake
Three Dark Crowns was pretty average for me. The first 75% was slow and then all of a sudden it sped up and with the way it ended I knew I needed to pick up the second one. But I was definitely a little scared to. So many fantasies go through second book syndrome and I didn’t want a repeat of the boring aspects of the first. Yeah, I didn’t need to worry. I LOVED One Dark Throne and can’t wait to get to the third book in the series.