QCD sum rules approach to the X, Y and Z states

In the past decade, due to the experimental observation of many charmonium-like states, there has been a revival of hadron spectroscopy. In particular, the experimental observation of charged charmonium-like Z _c states, and bottomonium-like Z _b states, represents a challenge since they can not be accommodated within the naive quark model. These charged states are good candidates of either tetraquark or molecular states and their observation motivated a vigorous theoretical activity. This is a rapidly evolving field with enormous amounts of new experimental information. In this work, we review the current experimental progress and investigate various theoretical interpretations of these candidates of the multiquark states. The present review is written from the perspective of the QCD sum rules approach, where we present the main steps of concrete calculations and compare the results with other approaches and with experimental data. (topical review)