 hey guys it's Julia and welcome back to my channel and for today's video I'm going to be sharing with you guys my favorite books that I read in 2020. My reading year was kind of like like it didn't really go as planned. I think I'm still gonna meet my Goodreads challenge which is 50 so I'm happy with that but without further ado we have books in this video, poetry, graphic novels and manga. I usually do separate videos but this year I only have 16 in total so I will have timestamps down below if you want to jump around or anything like that. Starting off with books these are ones that I've talked about a lot on my channel this year so I feel like a lot of you who watch my videos will kind of recognize them. First up here we have The How and the Why by Cynthia Hand. So this is a more of a family oriented story, it is a YA contemporary, it talks about adoption and family. We follow our main character who is one like who has a good family life but she's wondering more about her birth mother where she came from and asking those questions about her identity. And the other half of this book is a teenager writing to her future daughter in what it's like to be a pregnant teen and she goes to a specific school for it and she does a lot of hardships that both of them go through and it's absolutely a phenomenal read. I would highly recommend it. Cynthia Hand is so talented like if you liked The Afterlife of Holly Chase which is super popular that book's incredible too. I highly recommend you read this the last time we say goodbye. Incredible. So I really haven't had like a negative experience with Cynthia Hand's work yet but this was honestly phenomenal. I would love to actually have like a nice hardcover of this but I was super obviously grateful to have gotten an ARC but yet. So this book I would highly recommend checking it out. It's definitely like my top one of my top novels of the year. So next up here I was debating to whether or not to put this one on the list but it's a book that has stuck with me all year and it was like a solid read so that's why I'm including it but it's called Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis. This is a wilderness survival story about a girl who catches her boyfriend cheating on her and she runs into the woods because they were on like a camping trip together and she gets lost and it's about her trying to survive. It's very similar like it gave me like the girl who loved Tom Gordon vibes by Stephen King so like if you've read that and liked it this would be fun or if you uh read this you might like the girl who loved Tom Gordon. So yeah but such like a impactful read like again it's stuck with me. I listened to the audiobook of this one and I would just highly recommend picking this up. I'm honestly so excited to read more of Mindy McGinnis' work because The Female of the Species was on my favorites list a few years ago. Now Be Not Far From Me is kind of appearing and yeah so I'm just excited to see her future work and she has a really cool book coming out next year that I'm like highly anticipating. Next up here we have a lot of these books I don't have here which is or I don't own which is kind of ironic but considering my favorites but I have Always Harm Blue and by George M. Johnson this book is phenomenal. It's a memoir. It's about sexuality, identity, toxic masculinity. It's absolutely phenomenal. I would highly recommend it. It's beautifully written. It is hard to read at times and there is some triggering topics so I will list those down below or on the screen for you guys but yes I would highly recommend that book. That was like a 4.5 star to five star read for me. Phenomenal. Next up here I have If It Bleeds by Stephen King so those of you who read this with me this year know that I quite liked it especially the story that featured Holly in it. That was like my favorite but overall I gave this like a solid four stars but the If It Bleeds story that has Holly in it amazing. I was gonna say phenomenal like again but in this collection we have four different short stories. This is his most recent short story collection. I'll have my review linked up on the screen if you're interested in it. Some of them have to do with technology and it's also set in 2021 so yeah it's it's a very good book and this third story is my favorite so. The last book that I have here to talk about is You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. This book we follow our main character who wants to run for prom queen because the prom queen gets a scholarship and she needs the money. So she tries to be prom queen but she falls in love with maybe another prom queen or someone else that's trying to uh become prom queen and that's running she falls for somebody and it's so cute. Like such a feel-good nice read if you're looking for a book that's just like fun and just yeah black joy so it's it's great. I highly recommend it. That was like such a good read this year. It's also like a release of this year. It's probably something that's gonna be in a lot of people's favorites list. Next up I have the poetry section of this video so I only have six here to talk about but first is Metamorphosis by Ovid. This book has so many trigger warnings and I will I can't list all well yeah I'll try to list all of them or at least list them down below or something but this book is all about different myths and like it's all about mythology and they're all different stories and tales and they intertwine with one another and they're very dark some of them are very brutal like all of them and it yeah it was a required reading for my mythology course at university but I adored this because you learn so much and also we got to study like all of the stories and like we got to study each individual like god goddess creature whatever we got to study all the myths and go through it so I felt like I really got a lot of this book. Next I have two books by Parker Lee formerly known as Cyrus Parker so for that I have Coffee Days and Muskie Nights and Chocolates and Fashionables. These are both phenomenal. I'll pick up anything that Parker Lee writes in the future. These collections usually do with like mental health and identity and just overall just lessons about life and there's always like really nice illustrations in it but like I've never been disappointed by one of Parker Lee's works. I think their work is absolutely phenomenal so I would highly recommend checking either of these out. Next up I have Shine Your Icy Crown by Amanda Lovelace. I really really enjoyed this one. I read it not too long ago. I got an e-arc of it. It actually comes out in 2021. I loved this one. Like this one was so like Ice Princess saves the world on her own badass. I loved it. Like if you're looking for feminist poetry or just yeah anything that's just like empowers women or just empowers you in general I would definitely recommend that one. Next I have Aphrodite Made Me Do It by Tristan Mature and this one I really really enjoyed and again it has that little mythology twist in it as well of course Aphrodite but I just remember like this was I read most work by Tristan Mature. Mature? Is that how you say it? I don't know. This year, sorry if I'm saying it wrong but I read most of her work this year and Aphrodite Made Me Do It was like by far my favorite so I would highly recommend picking that up and lastly here for poetry I have Pill of Thoughts 4 which was the final one in the series by Courtney Peppernau and she writes these beautiful poems that are just like read this if you need blank or if you're struggling with blank and they all have like really nice themes they all kind of go together her books are always sectioned off beautifully so you don't even have to read the whole thing you could just read the bits that you need to read at the time and I just love her work for that and honestly the last one was like the best one in the series in my opinion so I was super happy with that so if you guys are interested in a poetry series you should definitely start that one it's pretty good. Next up here for graphic novels I have four here to talk about but I really love them so first I have Heartstopper Alice Osmond this one is a reread so like should I really include it here I don't know but this is a graphic novel but two boys falling in love and it's adorable and I would highly recommend it I reread volumes one and two this year and then I read volume three for the first time this year also volume four the cover so cute I'm so excited about it but an absolutely phenomenal read like love the art style always makes me feel like the cute fuzzy warm feeling inside so I really like that one. Next is Motor Crush such a good series I'm so excited to continue with this one and it's basically about different motorcycle races and then there's also this kind of power-up thing that you can get that makes you go faster but it's like really hard to find and it's illegal and you have like your gang of like your team or your gang or whatever and they compete in motorcycle races it's so good so good I don't even know what to say. Dew Drop by Katie O'Neill is so cute I don't even think people know this exists like I think most people talk about the teedragon society which is phenomenal I love the teedragon society too but Dew Drop is so cute it's about an axolotl like that's all you should know it's just so cute and it's about an axolotl uh I don't know I love axolotls and it's just had the cutest illustration style it's like a children's book so it's like super easy to get through but like so worth the read uh I would love to own a coffee but just because it's so beautiful. And lastly here for graphic novels we have things by Sarah Anderson I sure see this as a gift from one of my friends and I ended up really loving it it's a story between a vampire and a werewolf I think and it's like a little love story but it's kind of humorous and it's just really chill like Sarah Anderson is the one who wrote Sarah's Scribbles and those ones so those are just oh and adulthood is a myth so like those are really funny and humorous and she kind of brings that style into this graphic novel called fangs and it was really good I was really presently surprised it had like black edges beautiful book lastly here we have manga so I have dissolving classroom this is the first book or manga I mean that I read by Junju Ito Ito Junju Ito by Junju Ito Ito by this is the first manga I read by Junju Ito I don't know why I keep butchering the author's name when I try to say it also my camera sign this is really sad but this book is basically about when someone looks at you your brain just melts and it's a very weird graphic novel I'll put some pictures up but it was very interesting and I like really enjoyed it they had different stories in it that kind of intertwine together so I definitely recommend that anyways thank you guys so so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it give it a like comment down below subscribe if you do and yeah I really appreciate you guys following me throughout this year so thank you so much for all your support and yeah I love you so much and I'll talk to you guys soon bye