Best Fantasy Books for Beginners || Reviews & Recommendations

Hey Booktube, time to share some beginner friendly fantasy books! Would love to hear some of your reviews and recommendations on the best fantasy books we should all read!

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[BookswithEmilyFox]

What beginner friendly books would you recommend?

[dailycarolina.]

Piranesi was excellent, unique and so engaging for me. Definitely one of my best reads of 2024 !!

[kurlykaitlyn]

I find your book reviews so interesting because they are pretty diverse and unpredictable. I like that. People often give similar reviews to everything they read, especially their niche genres, but I see your reviews on goodreads pop up and I’ll caught off by your negative and sometimes positive reviews. Keeps things interesting 😅

[amandahamilton]

Warbreaker was my first Brandy Sandy book and I read it because of you. Loved it, so good!

[zachreads]

I'll add "The Mermaid the Witch and the Sea" by Maggie Tokuda‐Hall, "The Witch's Heart" by Genevieve Gornichec, and "A Thousand Steps Into Night" by Traci Chee. All are beginner friendly standalones and great!

Into the Drowning Deep does have a prequel called Rolling in the Deep

[marubii.]

Hi Emily! Thank you for this video❤ This is a little unrelated but i wanted to let you know that I Who Have Never Known Men just got translated to italian, and when i saw it in the bookshop I immediately thought of you 😂. I cannot wait to read it!!😊

[msellenandrea]

Great list! :D I read a lot of low fantasy and quite beginner friendly high fantasy, so here's some I've loved :)
- The undertaking of hart and mercy (easy high fantasy, romcom)
- The ex hex (low fantasy, romcom)
- Sorcery of thorns (YA high fantasy, feels historical)
- The invisible life of addie larue (low fantasy, partly historical)
- Evocation (low fantasy, witchy)
- The book of doors (low fantasy, time stuff)
- The invocations (YA fantasy with horror elements)
- A far wilder magic (YA high fantasy, feels historical)
- The nature of witches (YA low fantasy)
- This poison heart (YA low fantasy)

[MusicalPepsi]

I would also add, the Graphic AUDIObook for Warbreaker is FANTASTIC!!!

[lef]

Highly recommend The Green Rider series. It’s medieval as a setting but has a great female protagonist and I liked the writing. There are quite a few books in the series ❤
Also loooove The Bear and the Nightingale series! It’s like a Russian fairy tale. So unique - again a female protagonist and fabulous writing.

[Lillyjoy]

Thank you for saying Blood Over Bright Haven already grips you in the beginning of the book, I have been getting so frustrated with picking up only books that take forever to get good. I will probably read that one :) And I appreciate you explaining why you think its good to start with Warbreaker rather than Mistborn, I did want to start with Mistborn but am intimidated by the sizes of the books and I’m more in the mood for shorter fast paced books.

[thiadesg]

I would like to recommend A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. Female Darwin going around the world studying dragons, do I need to say more? For people who want a strong female main character that isn't a warrior. Completed series of 5 books and one companion novel (do NOT read Turning Darkness Into Light first, it will spoil everything).

[mimishimaineko]

Excellent recommendations! Though, I fondly remember reading "The Hobbit" as a pre-teen.🧡

[AndreaMGC]

1. I gave TSSOIW a 3 star. It was cute but the constant trauma dumping/bonding was so much. It would have been better as one scene rather than like the 6 scenes they had. But otherwise cute.
2. I feel like i'm the only one who didn't really like Legends and Lattes. Which is fine! I'd never fault anyone from loving it! It's cute. But it felt somehow lacking to me.
3. I listened to Piranesi as an audiobook narrated by Ejiofor Chiwetel and it was SO good. Loved it. It's such a weird combination of sinister/eerie and comforting.
4. His Dark Material had a profound effect on me growing up. Still an absolute favourite of mine.
I've ready so many amazing books because of you. So I always look forward to your recommendations. I will be checking out some of the ones you mentioned here.

[nrblough]

I read Blood Over Bright Haven at the end of April and absolutely loved everything about it. Easiest 5 star in a long time. It put me in a book slump though bc nothing else is as good! 😂 I’ve read and loved most of the rest you mentioned, but the ones I haven’t are on my tbr.

[taraminter]

Thanks Emily. I’d recommend The Monsters We Defy (Leslye Penelope), Kindred and Wild Seed (Octavia E Butler) for people interested in fantasy.

[harrietsbookcorner]

I’ve been reading fantasy for years but I’ve added lots of these to my TBR, thanks for the wonderful video 💕

[amyschmelzer]

I’m not a big fantasy reader. I found the Green Rider series by Kristen Britain to be very approachable. My library didn’t have all the books so I’m not sure about the later books, but the first few are good.

[roserobb]

My husband always recommends the novella The Emperor's Soul for starting Sanderson, and while it's not my personal recommendation, I see how that could also hook people! PS - yet another commenter whp got hooked on Sanderson through Warbreaker via your videos!

[megm]

I loved the His Dark Materials trilogy and I remember all the controversy at the the time. I heard people saying the books were "killing God" and thought it was typical moral panic hyperbole and then I read them and was like ohhhh....oh. Love them.

[muskaan]

I loved A Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, one of my favorites of the year so far. The romance wasn't the best but I loved the found family aspect and witchy vibes. Emily, don't know if you've read it, but I think you'll love Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries!

I love cosy fantasy but didn't like Legends and Lattes, it bored me to tears lol. Also felt lukewarm about Piranesi. The writing was gorgeous but didn't care about the characters or plot.