Highest Rated Books on My TBR

Happy Tuesday y’all! A new month and a new Top Ten Tuesday list! This week Jana, over at That Artsy Reader Girl, is asking us to share our favorite Unlikable Characters You Can’t Help But Love. The thing is, if there’s an unlikable character, odds are I won’t like the character. Instead, I’m twisting the topic, surprise (not really!), and sharing ten of the highest rated books on my TBR.

These books all have over a 4-star rating on Goodreads and are still on my TBR. Some will be newer releases, and others will be a bit older. While there may be higher-rated books on my TBR, I wanted to highlight some that I haven’t mentioned before. The titles will take you to Goodreads.

Now, let’s look at ten of the highest-rated books that are still on my TBR.

The Dog Walkers by Michelle M. Davis

Ali Doyle, a thirty-two-year-old engineer, discovers her boyfriend – who is also the legal counsel at the suburban Philadelphia software company where she works – has no intention of marrying her. After an uncharacteristically emotional confrontation, Ali ends this two-year relationship. However, the fear of seeing her ex at work and losing all control causes her to feign an illness, self-isolating in her apartment. At first, she’s fine with the solitude, but when Ali tries to leave, she’s incapable of venturing outside.

Yet, while feeling lost and hopeless in this self-quarantined state, Ali discovers solace to her loneliness by watching dog walkers from her front window. In an effort to find human connection, she creates imaginative backstories for these strangers and their pets. Ultimately, it’s her concern for an elderly gentleman and his Golden Retriever, as well as advice from an unexpected voice inside of her head, that gives her the strength to leave her apartment building and begin her journey to wellness.

As Ali reemerges from her isolated state, she meets several of the dog walkers, learning their real names and true identities. Through this process, she forms friendships, finds guidance, and eventually falls in love. But most importantly, Ali recovers the missing pieces of herself that she had given away as she confidently learns to release boundaries, surrender control, and establish trust.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money, or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others. 

The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon

New York, 1960: For Benny Lament, music is his entire life. With his father’s deep ties to the mob, the Bronx piano man has learned that love and family can get you in trouble. So he keeps to himself, writing songs for other musicians, avoiding the spotlight until the night his father brings him to see Esther Mine sing.

Esther is a petite powerhouse with a gorgeous voice. And when Benny writes a hit song and performs it with her, their collaboration thrusts the duo onto the national stage and stirs up old issues and new scrutiny that the mob—and Benny—would rather avoid.

It would be easier to walk away. But the music and the woman are too hard for the piano man to resist. Benny’s songs and Esther’s vocals are an explosive combination, a sound that fans can’t get enough of. But though America might love the music they make together, some people aren’t ready for Benny Lament and Esther Mine on—or off—the stage. 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready, to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned toEvelyn’ss luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the’80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

Check, Please! Year One by Ngozi Ukazu

Eric Bittle—former figure skater, vlogger extraordinaire, and amateur pâtissier—is starting his freshman year playing hockey at the prestigious Samwell University. And it’s nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia. For one?

There’s checking.

It’s a story about hockey and friendship and bros and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.

The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino

When three delinquents hole up in an abandoned general store after their most recent robbery, to their great surprise, a letter drops through the mail slot in the store’s shutter. This seemingly simple request for advice sets the trio on a journey of discovery as, over the course of a single night, they step into the role of the kindhearted former shopkeeper who devoted his waning years to offering thoughtful counsel to his correspondents. Through the lens of time, they share insight with those seeking guidance, and by morning, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits, that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica, and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.

Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace, and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten.

Because history repeats what we don’t remember. 

Soft Hearts by Eric Lodin

Harriett “Ret” Swinson is trying to rebuild her life after a failed marriage when a group of Halloween trick-or-treaters discovers her neighbor, retired English professor and poet Wanda Hightower, dead on her porch, stabbed in the back and through the heart. Was her killer a random psychopath in search of blood on All Hallow’s Eve-or one of the neighbors who helped with her lawn’s makeover gone wrong? Wanda claimed to have dirt on nearly everyone in their Downtown Raleigh neighborhood, so the list of suspects is long.

Finding the killer will require Rett to reconstruct Wanda’s turbulent past while weighing her growing attraction for Homicide Detective Darryl Schmidt against a desperate need for independence-and a growing feeling that an innocent man is being singled out by the police for the murder.

Yours is the Night by Amanda Dykes

Private Matthew Petticrew arrives in France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces, an arrival which a war-weary France desperately hopes will help to end the turmoil. Having faced unthinkable things on the Front, he is captivated by the sound of a lullaby sung by a voice so pure he knows he must have imagined it. But rumors sweep through the trenches like wildfire, dubbing the voice “The Angel of Argonne,” a mysterious presence who leaves behind wreaths on unmarked graves and footprints in the war-pocked soil.

Raised wild in the depths of the Forest of Argonne, France, Mireilles finds her world rocked when war comes crashing into the idyllic home she has always known, taking much from her. When Matthew discovers Mireilles, three things are clear: She is alone in the world, she cannot stay, and he and his two unlikely companions might be the only ones who can get her to safety.

Needlework by Julia Watts

While other sixteen-year-old boys in Morgan, Kentucky, love hunting and football, Kody prefers to spend his time quilting with his grandmother “Nanny,” watching Golden Girls reruns and listening to old Dolly Parton albums. Nanny is Kody’s primary caregiver, but it takes both Nanny and Kody to take care of Kody’s mother, whose drug problem is spinning out of control. Between looking after Mommy and trying to survive in a place that doesn’t look kindly on feminine boys, Kody already has a hard time making sense of his life. But then he uncovers a family secret that will change everything in his life.

That is a list of ten of the highest-rated books on my TBR! Have you read any of these? Which one should I read first? What are some of the highest-rated books still on your TBR?

Looking for some more books to read? Check out my other bookish lists, book reviews, and monthly reading wrap-ups.