Scrolling through Bookstagram or BookTok, you often find that the same books are being introduced over and over again. A lot of these books, in my opinion, tend to be overrated and get way more attention than the real gems in the modern literature world. As an avid reader who loves discovering underrated reads, here are seven of my favorite underhyped books that you should check out.

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1. Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Rebel of the Sands follows the story of a gifted gunslinger, Amani, who is trapped in her town of Dustwalk, where you have only two fates: to end up dead or wed. When she meets a foreigner, Jin, in a shooting contest, Amani finds an escape route with him. This book is the first of the trilogy, and I highly recommend reading the entirety, since the third book is my favorite by far.

I have probably read it over ten times already! Rebel of the Sands combines magical elements and modern technology in its world building, and I have not read any book like it so far.

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2. Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu

Marie Lu is well known for her books like Legend and Warcross, which I love, but one of her newest books, Stars and Smoke, deserves the same recognition. While Lu has written more dystopian in the past, Stars and Smoke is a more modern genre. The book features Sydney Cossette, a highly skilled secret agent who poses as a bodyguard for Winter Young, an international pop sensation.

Sydney is tasked with infiltrating a major crime boss’s internal circle through her role as Winter’s bodyguard. I would say this book is more of a guilty pleasure read, and once you're finished, you can read the second book too.

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3. Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

A lot of people have read The Mortal Instruments series or The Infernal Devices, but I have barely encountered anyone who has read Lady Midnight or the entirety of The Dark Artifices. These books are all under Cassandra Clare’s phenomenal world of the Shadowhunters. I absolutely loved TID and did not enjoy TMI at all.

But TDA? This book series had my heart wrenching every page of the book. The series starts with Lady Midnight, set five years after the last book of TMI. Emma Carstairs, the main character of the novel, is grieving over her parents’ deaths and is trying to solve the mystery of their sudden deaths. With her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, she treads dangerous lines in the Shadowhunter world—but her heart is leading her in treacherous directions too. Lady Midnight is such a good read that you should definitely not skip!

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4. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Set in a Roman-inspired world, the Martial Empire is a brutal place where even the elite are not free. Laia is a slave, having lost her family to the Martial Empire through execution and accusations of treason against the government. When her brother is arrested, Laia chooses to bargain with rebels to help save him, except Laia has to spy on the Empire’s deadliest military academy for them.

There, she meets Elias, one of the academy’s strongest and unwilling soldiers who wants nothing but to be free. An Ember in the Ashes is the first book of the four-book series, and it is worth reading all of them! The fourth book is definitely my favorite, and it can survive so many re-reads and I will never get bored.

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5. Lovely War by Julie Berry

When I first read Lovely War, I wasn’t expecting something so creative and unique from the books I have read in the past. Julie Berry wraps the worlds of Greek mythology and World War II together in this book, where we get two intertwined sub-plots in the same book: one from the gods and goddesses of Olympus, and the other from characters that are living in the World War. I loved this book, and it has not been talked about enough! If you love historical fiction and books with mythology elements in it, like me, you will not regret reading Lovely War!

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6. Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys

Ruta Sepetys is one of my most favorite historical fiction authors of all time. Her books like Salt to the Sea and I Must Betray You are well-praised in the literary world. While those books are great reads, Fountains of Silence is the hidden gem of Sepetys works.

It uncovers the horrendous reality of Spain during its Civil War: a part of history not many of us are aware of, highlighted in the narrative of Daniel, an American, and Ana, a citizen of Madrid. Both engaging in plot and educating readers on this hidden history, Fountains of Silence has to be one of the best historical fiction novels written. Again, I have read this book so many times, and it has kept me engaged every single re-read.

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7. These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

These Violent Delights is the combination of all of the best worlds of literature. It is a retelling of Shakespeare’s classic, Romeo and Juliet, set in 1926 Shanghai before the brink of the Chinese Civil War, and intertwines elements of supernatural science fiction and modern technology. Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov are born rivals from the two major gangs with a deep blood feud that runs for decades.

But with whispers of instability and destruction ruining the faces of these gangs, Juliette and Roma must put aside their grudges and their past loves to avert this upending disaster. These Violent Delights is a part of a duology that follows Juliette and Roma’s story, but it is also a section of the Secret Shanghai series that includes other books that are set in the same world.

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Hopefully, you have found a book or series that has caught your attention. I hope that you can enjoy these novels as much as I did because these are some of my favorite books that I always recommend to people when they ask for book recommendations. Happy reading!