We’re back with another Top 5 Saturday! Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is: male POVs — I’m taking this to mean male only POVs

Okay wow, I didn’t think I’d struggle as much as I did to think of a list for today’s prompt! Turns out, a lot of the books I own on my TBR aren’t written from male (only) POVs 🙃 I also don’t think I ever properly paid attention to this before (oops! 🙈) but that’s pretty interesting to note! Also interesting was that when I took to Google and Goodreads (as I usually do to jog my memory for these prompts), it turns out a lot of male POV lists are either romance or YA related (or both), with little to no mention of contemporary fiction, mysteries/thrillers, adult fantasy or the sub-genres. So that wasn’t really useful… but after deep-diving into my failing memory (and my Kindle shelf!) I’ve managed to make a list of five books from mixed genres including adult fantasy, middle-grade fantasy and contemporary fiction!

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship–the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

I actually started listening to Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe on audiobook as it’s read by Lin Manuel Miranda and we all know how much I stan him 🥰 But I actually never got around to finishing it because I really have to be in the right mood for audios; but my sister let me borrow her copy so I hope to read it soon(ish)! This book has already made me emo.

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In the second fantasy set in Eerie-on-Sea, Herbert and Violet team up to solve the mystery of the Gargantis — an ancient creature of the deep with the power to create life-threatening storms.
There’s a storm brewing over Eerie-on-Sea, and the fisherfolk say a monster is the cause. Someone has woken the ancient Gargantis, who sleeps in the watery caves beneath this spooky seaside town where legends have a habit of coming to life. It seems the Gargantis is looking for something: a treasure stolen from her underwater lair. And it just might be in the Lost-and-Foundery at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, in the care of one Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder. With the help of the daring Violet Parma, ever-reliable Herbie will do his best to figure out what the Gargantis wants and who stole her treasure in the first place. In a town full of suspicious, secretive characters, it could be anyone!

We’re back with the precocious Lost-and-Founder Herbie Lemon in Gargantis, the second book of The Legends of Eerie-on-Sea series! I loved book one of the series so much more than I expected (read my review for Malamander) so when I saw this on NetGalley you can bet I swooped in for a request — never thought it’d be granted though because that literally never happens to me LOL 😂

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This is almost a love story.
Ellis and Michael are twelve when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to swim, discovering poetry, and dodging the fists of an overbearing father. And then one day this closest of friendships grows into something more.
But then we fast forward a decade or so, to find that Ellis is married to Annie, and Michael is nowhere in sight. Which leads to the question, what happened in the years between?
This is almost a love story. But it’s not as simple as that.

I first heard about Tin Man when I saw it being shared repeatedly on bookstagram towards the end of 2018 and the minute I heard about how emotional it made some of my favourite reviewers, I knew I had to get my hands on it ASAP! I’m an emotional reader so this one is bound to have me in tears and I can’t wait for the emotional wringing that I’m expecting 😂

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He can’t leave his hotel. You won’t want to.
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

I’ve had A Gentleman in Moscow on my physical shelf for quite a few years now. I bought it after randomly picking it up at the bookstore and reading its synopsis. I love historical fictions and this sounds so interesting! I’ve heard some mixed reviews but I’m looking forward to reading it 🙂

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Before the thorns taught me their sharp lessons and bled weakness from me I had but one brother, and I loved him well. But those days are gone and what is left of them lies in my mother’s tomb. Now I have many brothers, quick with knife and sword, and as evil as you please. We ride this broken empire and loot its corpse. They say these are violent times, the end of days when the dead roam and monsters haunt the night. All that’s true enough, but there’s something worse out there, in the dark. Much worse.
From being a privileged royal child, raised by a loving mother, Jorg Ancrath has become the Prince of Thorns, a charming, immoral boy leading a grim band of outlaws in a series of raids and atrocities. The world is in chaos: violence is rife, nightmares everywhere. Jorg has the ability to master the living and the dead, but there is still one thing that puts a chill in him. Returning to his father’s castle Jorg must confront horrors from his childhood and carve himself a future with all hands turned against him.

I think it’s safe to say, what with all the dead bodies on the cover, that Prince of Thorns is going to be quite the dark fantasy read! I’ve never read Lawrence before and based on what I’ve heard, his Red Sister series is more popular than this one, but this was the first I heard of him! I’m very curious about it although I’m not sure how I’ll feel about all the ‘dark stuff’.

Upcoming Schedule:

• 16 May 2020: Books by Debut Authors
• 23 May 2020: Books about Plants/Flowers (can be on the cover, in title or plot)
• 30 May 2020: Books from a male POV

I’m more than a little certain that I’ve missed a few gems so if you have any recommendations for male POVs in whatever genre, please share the titles below. I’d love to add more to my TBR! 😉