We skipped our annual round-up of most popular FYA posts last year, since we didn’t have a website for most of 2021. But now that we’ve had a full calendar year in our spiffy new home, it’s time to crunch some numbers, figure out how to use Google Analytics (again), and countdown your favorite posts of the year! (Surprise, surprise, Booktok reigns!)
10. Book Review of I Know Your Secret by Daphne Benedis-Grab
This whodunnit combined elements of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and One of Us is Lying, but made them middle grade!
9. Book Review of Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters #2) by Tessa Bailey
The sequel to Bailey’s It Happened One Summer (also one of our most popular posts this year, but alas – it was posted late in 2021!) follows Hannah’s sister Piper and sexy fisherman Fox, and it has all the spice and dirty talk we’ve come to expect from Tessa Bailey!
8. The Official FYA Hocus Pocus Drinking Game
I had the idea for this drinking game and wrote it down on October 31, 2021 – too late to post for the year. I didn’t fully trust myself to remember to post it this year, but I’m so glad I did, because it turns out lots of you were trying to get crunk while watching Hocus Pocus!
7. Book Review of This Woven Kingdom (This Woven Kingdom #1) by Tahereh Mafi
Mafi is a heavy hitter in the YA universe, and with a new series billed as “Persian Empire Game of Thrones” I can see why the review for This Woven Kingdom would be a popular one.
6. Book Review for Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis has been huge on Booktok for a minute, so it’s no wonder that Mandy C.’s review of Hazelwood’s second novel, Love on the Brain, would be a popular one. Mandy C. loved it and so did you!
5. Spotlight on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
It’s been a weird year for Harry Potter fans, but despite less than stellar feelings for the TERF Who Shall Not Be Named, Brian reviewed the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play and you guys were curious about it too!
4. Book Review of These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows #2) by Lexi Ryan
The people were curious about this anticipated sequel to Ryan’s These Hollow Vows and came flocking to Stephanie’s review to see what she thought. Alas, reviews were mixed!
3. Book Review of The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
Amanda’s very first contributor review at FYA was for this popular Booktok romance, about two rival coworkers who attend a wedding as a pretend couple. All our fave tropes are present and accounted for: enemies to lovers, fake dating, workplace romance, forced proximity and a great slow burn romance!
2. FYA’s Grown-Up Guide to Romance Novels: Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians series
You dirty dogs! You rotten scoundrels! You guys were VIBING with this year’s Grown Up Guide to Romance reviews of the first three Ice Planet Barbarians books. And tbh, I don’t blame you? Because if you haven’t read them, you’re right to be curious. And if you have read them, you’re probably D Y I N G to talk about them.
1. Book Review of Book Lovers by Emily Henry
And without further ado, our most popular post of the year among a bunch of book lovers turned out to be…the review for Book Lovers! It totally makes sense: this book was not only one of my personal favorites of the year, and it won our Reader Poll for Best Book of 2022! Emily Henry is taking home the gold!
