Top Ten Underrated Books!

I'm stealing this from Sharon, because I enjoyed reading her list so much:

Top Ten Books I Enjoyed That Have Under 2,000 Ratings on Goodreads!

First three are from my homegirl Sharon Shinn:

1) Heart of Gold. Low-key Science Fiction about racial and cultural conflicts, and a very adult-feeling romance.

2) Wrapt in Crystal. Another Science Fiction romance on another gorgeously-rendered world. This one is also a murder mystery and a story about religion and faith.

3) Quatrain. Four romance novellas that take place in four different Shinn worlds: Samaria, the Twelve Houses, the world of Castle Auburn, and the world from Heart of Gold (that one is my favorite!).

4) A Fisherman of the Inland Sea by Ursula K. LeGuin. LeGuin is my spirit animal, so I'm appalled that any book by her has less than 2,000 reviews. This is my favorite of her short story collections, and the titular novella is one of my top three pieces of LeGuin writing ever. The username I use on most of the internets is taken from a character in that novella.

5) The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor. I just read this book this spring, and I'm now excited to explore more of Okorafor's backlist. This is a science fiction story, a dystopian story, a superhero origin story, an Afrocentric story, and a coming of age story.

6) Killed At the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill. The first book of the Jimm Juree Mysteries. I love love love Cotterill's Siri Paiboun Investigations, but I think the Jimm Juree books have the potential to appeal to an audience that might be turned off by a 70something protagonist in 1970's Cambodia. Jimm is a modern Thai woman with sass to spare, and the books are hilarious.

7) The Compass Rose by Gail Dayton. This has got to be the most far-out book Harlequin ever published. Fantasy (polyamorous) Romance, featuring war, godly possession, group marriage, culture clash, and lots of doin' eet.

8) The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy. This is a great Middle Grade book that should be getting more love. The Fletcher family is all boys: two dads and four adopted sons, two of whom are of color. But gay marriage and interracial families aren't what the book is about-- in fact, other than two slightly awkward moments, everyone the Fletcher boys encounter is used to their unusual family. The story follows the boys through a year of new schools, changing friendships, and a cranky new next-door neighbor. I'm reading the sequel right now and am charmed all over again.

9) Fauna and Family by Gerald Durrell. I've posted before about my love for the My Family and Other Animals books, which I first read as a child. This is the third and final book of the trilogy, but I think it's by far the best and funniest, and since the books are episodic and skip around in time anyway, there's no reason not to start with it.

10) One Year Off by David Elliot Cohen. The memoir of a guy who turned forty, had a mid-life crisis, quit his job, and traveled around the world for a year... but he took his wife and three kids (all under 8) with him. Funny, fascinating, and inspiring.