Have I Read…25 of the Top Fantasy Books on Goodreads

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since I did my last Have I Read post, which was the BBC’s 100 books to read before you die! This list made me a little irritated because it almost entirely consisted of classic literature, and while I have nothing against classics, it made me write up an entire discussion post on why classics aren’t the end-all-be-all of good literature. So after the last list made me a little heated, I decided to dial it down for this list!

This particular list came from a quick google search for best fantasy books. The second hit that came up was from a website that I’ve frequented in the past, Book Riot! They have a really great explanation on how they determined which books are the top 25 fantasy books on Goodreads so you should check out the original list, but I want to include a little blurb here to give a bit of an explanation:

“In putting together this list, I used Goodreads and looked at a variety of metrics. It’s not scientific. There’s no math involved. I considered the number of ratings, the spread of ratings, and the year of publication….I focused on single books, not boxsets. I only included one book per series (usually the first book because I know my fantasy readers and I know how hard it is for us to read out of order), and I picked only one book per author.”

They also split up the list into categories: the #1 fantasy book on Goodreads, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, middle grade, young adult and post-apocalyptic fantasy. Of course, there are far more sub genres of fantasy than these, but this is where these particular books fell on this list!

• Bold titles are books I have read
• Italic and underlined titles are books that I would like to read eventually but don’t own
• A single asterisk (*) denotes books/series I’m currently reading
• Double asterisks (**) denotes books I own and plan to read

#1 ON GOODREADS

1.Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

 

EPIC FANTASY

2. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

3. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

4. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

5. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

6. Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

7. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch*

8. Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey**

 

URBAN FANTASY

9. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

10.The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

11. Moon Called by Patricia Briggs**

12. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

 

MIDDLE GRADE

13. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

14. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

 

YOUNG ADULT

15. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare**

16. Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

17. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

18. Graceling by Kristin Cashore

19. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

20. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

21. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir**

22. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh**

23. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

 

POST-APOCALYPTIC FANTASY

24. Angelfall by Susan Ee

25. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin**

This was actually surprising to me how many of these I’ve read or planned on reading! I had never heard of the second middle grade book on this list Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, but it looks really cute! The main post also links out to other lists for each of the categories so I may be doing more lists from Book Riot in the future.

How many of these books have you read?