Hello everyone! Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a Freebie and my post is actually inspired by Literary Lion‘s Top Ten Tuesday post from a while back! I absolutely loved Dani’s idea and knew I wanted to borrow it for another freebie week in the future. Alas, that day is here!

We’re never supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, but let’s all be honest: we do it anyway. I think it’s doubly disappointing when a book with a beautiful cover and an intriguing synopsis turn out to be not so good. So without further ado, here are the ten books whose covers ended up being better than the stories themselves:

1. FIERCE LIKE A FIRESTORM
The first book was so good! But this book was so…bad. Sometimes I can’t believe how much of a downhill turn this duology took. This sequel was bland, slow-moving, the characters had regressions instead of growth, and I’m not even going to touch on the horrible romance (if you can even call it that).

2. THE BEHOLDER
This cover is beautiful. I have the FairyLoot edition with rose gold foil and soft pink sprayed-edges and it’s honestly one of the prettier books I own. It’s unfortunate that I really didn’t enjoy the book itself. I was so excited for a Bachelorette meets The Odyssey story, but the setting was too disorganized and anachronistic.

3. THE HAZEL WOOD
There are not one, not two, but three beautiful covers for this book. The original cover is super pretty, the gold and green OwlCrate edition is stunning, and the blue leaves on the FairyLoot edition is amazing. However, my praise really stops there. My biggest issue with the book is the main character is pretentious, rude, and selfish which made my reading experience unpleasant.

4. HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROWS
This cover is just marvelous and I love how perfectly it fits the theme of the book. I loved the eerie, atmospheric writing, but I didn’t seem as enthralled by story as everyone else. The book at trouble holding my attention and I found the love triangle completely unnecessary and poorly done.

5. THE WICKED DEEP
Look at how beautiful this cover is! I’m obsessed with the dark blue contrasted with the sparkly silver. I was totally enamored by this story up until the end, when the big twist is revealed. The way the “romance” plays out at the end did not sit well with me at all, and I absolutely hated what happened to Penny. If you’re curious to know what I mean, you can read my full review here.

6. REIGN OF THE FALLEN
This is probably one of the prettiest covers I’ve ever seen. Not only is it a beautiful light pink–my favorite color–but it sparkles! And I love the skull wearing the crown. A picture of the cover doesn’t do it justice, it’s just so pretty in person. The romance is what killed the book for me. It was very insta-lovey and there was really zero build up at all.

7. A TREASON OF THORNS
I love this cover and how amazing the flowers popping out of the wall look! The artist is obviously very talented because it looks 3D. I only wish I had loved the story as much as its cover. The book didn’t captivate me as much as I had hoped and I thought the magic system was really underdeveloped, especially since the book centers around sentient houses and their Caretakers.

8. EVERLESS
This is such a unique and beautiful cover. Unfortunately, the book was not unique. I was super disappointed with this. It followed the same plotlines and tropes as any other Young Adult fantasy to the point that it was extremely predictable. Nothing about the story stood out to me and I honestly couldn’t tell what happened other than I vaguely remember a love triangle.

9. THE COURT OF MIRACLES
Both the US and the UK covers are absolutely stunning. Given the synopsis of the book and it being pitched as The Jungle Book meets Les Mis for those who know Eponine deserved better, I was ready to fall in love with this. However, there were a few things that kept me from really enjoying it as much as I would have liked, such as the time jumps and multiple love interests.

10. GRAVEMAIDENS
This cover is just so beautiful, and it’s even more so in person. I had high expectations of this going in because it was one of my most anticipated reads for that year, but I ended up being let down. The story was not at all what I expected and it left me less than impressed. I was also not a fan of the protagonist or the way she treated other characters really poorly in the book.