 Oh my god, Riley, don't hate me! Hi friends. I just realised I hadn't filmed the intro to this video. I'm someone who often, quite often, says, oh, I'm reading this book because of X and then there's a booktube. But I wanted to test, particularly, the booktubers I watched the most. So I am going to be reading in this video three books that I have bought on the recommendation of three different booktubers. And originally I was going to read books that they liked and stuff, whatever. But then I thought, no, I'm going to read the books that I bought directly because of that booktuber. Like, they have influence over where I spend my coin. This video is a whole ass mess. So the first book that I'm going to be reading is next year in Havana by Chanel Cleaton. I bought this on the recommendation of Riley Marie, my twin. I bought this way before I was even on booktube. Like, probably like half a year at the very least before I joined booktube. I bought it in America because I was like, oh my God, I'm so desperate to read this. And then I've just never read it. So this is about a girl who's going to Cuba. Oh, girl, she's a woman. She's going to scatter her grandmother's ashes on, like, her one of her grandmother's favourite places in Cuba. She just doesn't know where yet. But her grandmother was like, sis, you'll know. You'll know before she died, obviously. She wasn't like, she had an image of floating around at the funeral going, sis, you'll know. Anyway. And it's split timeline between her doing that and her grandmother right before she had to flee Cuba. And it's like two romances. They each have a romance in Cuba and it's very, very dramatic. The second book is Middle Game by Seanan McGuire. I bought this because of Kayla from Books and La La. And like, if you know me, you know that in most videos I'm saying I bought this because of Kayla. So like, you shouldn't be surprised. I just feel like I can trust her more than anyone. And I feel like we have quite a similar reading taste. She likes weird shit. I like weird shit. So I have read all of Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series, apart from the most recent one, which came out like a couple months ago, because I read them on audiobook, because they are expensive. Eh, yeah. I was going to swear, but we're early in the video. This is super expensive as well. It's like £25 or something in the UK. So I got it for Christmas, because I was like, you know, if someone else is spending that money, it's bearable. But it's not bearable for me. And I've been excited to read it ever since, but I've been waiting to do this video to read it. Like, it's all built up to now. I'll wait for you to see how it goes. What? And there's the following twins, Roger and Dodger, one who is an expert in math, the one who's an expert in language, and they have been made by the scientists who wants to use them to take over the world. And that's all you really know going into it. So I don't want to tell you anymore than that. I'm trying to remember what I knew about these before going into them. And then the last book I'm going to be reading is The Test by Sylvain Nouvelle. And I bought this because of Emma from Drinking By My Shell. I think I'd had my eye on it a little bit before. I think I'd heard a few other people mention it. But when Emma did, like, that was the final straw. So I went and bought it after her video. This is about a man who is sitting in the British citizenship test and it's weird and it's short. That's all I know going into it. That's really all I know going into it. Anyway, just get into the video. Let's see what happens, eh? Take your bets now on what you think I'm going to like or I'm not going to like. Okay, bye. I don't know if this book just kind of ain't it for me. We were all so happy that day. It's actually hard to even imagine how terrible things would soon become. We are essentially following Elisa in Havana in the 1950s as kind of the Cuban Revolution unfolds and her and her family have to leave. And we're following what happens before her family has to leave. I think she, we're just seeing her like kind of fall in love with this guy who is not the kind of guy her family would want her to be with essentially. And then we're following Marisol in 2017 after her grandmother has died and she's here to scatter her grandmother's ashes and her grandmother said to her, you'll know where to scatter them when you find it out. And so she's living with Elisa's best friend and I think she's falling in love with a married guy. I was ooing, I was on, I was wencing, I was LOLing quite heartily. I don't know how to feel about that yet. We'll see, we'll see what happens. This is just kind of boring. And I just don't know if it's not my kind of book, but the writing to me doesn't seem like anything special. I feel like I'm just kind of reading an average book. There's nothing that's really pulling me in and I feel like it's incredible. Hey fever. Oh my God, hey fever's horrible. Oh my God. Okay, let's move on. Right now, it kind of ain't hitting it for me. But I mean, I'm going to carry on and see how it goes because usually me and Riley have very similar tastes. So it would shock me if she loved this and I don't think it's great. But at the moment it's kind of like a 3, 2.5, but we'll see if that changes. I don't know when I last checked in with you about this book but all you need to know is I don't want to read it at all. I'm really not enjoying this book. I'm so sorry Riley. I'm finishing this today or I'm DNFing it. Like I'm putting, I can't read this any longer. I'm really putting it off. I've been reading it for over a week and just nothing in me really wants to read it. But I also don't want to give up because I've allotted so much time to it. I just don't think the writing's very good. Just the way that the story is structured, I don't think it's particularly engaging. I don't think there's anything about the writing that makes me go, oh my God. Ah, it's so good. You know, it's just like, oh my God. This is exactly what I was afraid of. I just have to force myself through like three pages and then I stop. The thing is it's set in two timelines and we've got two relationships, two romances. And I just don't think it's strong enough to have those two timelines. I don't think there's a big enough difference in terms of the characters, particularly the women. I know they're related, but I don't think there's a big enough difference in them in terms of personality to warrant that. And I don't think either of the stories are engaging enough to warrant that. I would have preferred one or the other. You know what I mean? I would have preferred one romance or the other. Reading both is just really jarring going back and forth that they just feel both so stagnant and predictable. Like, I know what's going to happen. I'm sorry Riley, but I'm really not enjoying this and I'm sad about it. Oh my God, this book is a struggle. I'm not enjoying it at all. I'm forcing myself through it and I'm really struggling through it. And so I know I should kind of just DNF. It's so hard to force myself through it. I'm giving it two stars. Didn't like it. Didn't like it. There I said it. We all survived, didn't we? The only reason it's not a one star and then it's a two star is because it did make me cry at one point. Two singular tears rolled down my eyes but it was more because I was thinking like it was my brain going to myself. Imagine being in that situation rather than the power of the book. Do you know what I mean? It was more the concept than the writing or the book itself, if that makes sense. So let's talk about my issues with it. Complete insta-love in both timelines. Like they fell in love in days. Maybe there's just something with women in this family and insta-love but it meant I was not connected to either of these relationships at all. There were these literally, okay. In every scene, I am not kidding you. Every scene, the dialogue would be through these long monologues like these speeches that they would give and I understand that the topic of Cuba and the political situation in Cuba is a very kind of dramatic and personal thing but they were telling me everything rather than showing it to me. I would literally read a whole page of someone's speech every 10 pages. Like they would just go on for paragraphs and paragraphs or them giving another speech and it just was not engaging. I would just skim read it. It seemed like the author had a very particular view on what people who live in Cuba now think and what people who family fled from Cuba and there was never any nuance. It was just that perception repeated over and over and over and over again. Imagine how tired we are. Imagine how tired we are of it. Rather than finding some new interesting perspectives on the situation in Cuba, like I don't need to be told what your opinion is 5,000 times. I think it would have been a great short story with one of these relationships particularly the one in the past but having both it wasn't strong enough to carry both and to flip back and forth between both. Two stars. I'm so sorry Riley. Oh my God, Riley don't hate me. Oh, but you want to really fight. Was was not a fan. So now I'm actually really excited to start middle game. I think I'm going to love this. There's something about really complex stories, really weird stories. I just adore and so I have strong hopes for loving this. So I'm only like 27 pages in and it's already a new favorite. I've just fallen in love with it straight away. Oh my God, I'm just completely obsessed with it already. So it's been a while since I last filmed and in that time the protests in America and in the UK and around the world have started and have been taking place and I just haven't been doing a lot of reading in that time. I've been focusing my energy elsewhere trying to promote the cause and I just implore you if you haven't already to use your voice to sign petitions, to donate if you can. What we're seeing is years and years and centuries and years and years of oppression and of hostility and of discrimination and of abuse and of racism. And I hope, I hope so much that this will bring about change, meaningful change. I hope it will change people's ideas and beliefs that are harmful and I hope that you are all speaking out and have been. I know I missed an upload because I didn't feel like it was right last weekend to post a video and pretend everything's fine when it's not. Do something that actually requires effort. Take 20 minutes out of your day to go and sign all the petitions on the Black Lives Matter card which I will link down below. There's, for example, petitions on there regarding Breonna Taylor who was a black woman whose police invaded her apartment on a drug arrest warrant although the person who they were looking for did not live there. They thought they were being robbed. Her boyfriend shot a shot out and police fired back and killed Breonna Taylor and her name was forgotten for months, for months, for months. I've done some research and there were no articles written about her, no news articles, no news features on TV about her in the two weeks after her death. So she was not remembered at the time. Her name was not spoken about and remembered and her story was not listened to at the time. Put out support into the world any way that you can. Call out racism in your personal life. Educate the people in your life on what is happening right now. How dangerous what is happening is for black people of colour with how police are acting towards them at the protest. How police are instigating violence. Educate yourself beyond what the media, the mainstream media is telling you. I sat down last night and I watched BBC News cover this and it is shocking how little nuance, how little depth they had. They barely scratched the surface. I know this has been a bit of an interlude in the video but I couldn't not address it. I couldn't not speak about it. Now let's talk about middle game. How many people are scared? Me too. I was really really scared. Oh, literally this close to being in my eye. I'm gladly I can say I am loving this book. I'm halfway through guys. I'm halfway through and I'm adoring it. It's my new favourite book. The feeling I get reading it is how I read when I read The Secret History when I read The Starless Sea. It's a feeling you get that is beyond a five star. I don't even know what to tell you that I'm loving about this so much just the writing is incredible. It is some of the most engaging. Oh, the writing is just perfect and I can't even tell you what it is. It's clever writing. I'm a bit of like a, I'm a bit of a hoe for like writing that knows it's clever. You know, writing that says I'm smart and this is exactly that. The characters of Roger and Dodger are some of my favourite characters I have ever read. I love their relationship in this. I love how we're jumping in time. The plot is so engaging. It's weird. Like I love weird books. I love weird books. I love books that step outside of what is normal for fiction. Like I don't want you to serve me up something I've read before. I want something that pushes the boundaries and that's what this book is. It's out here doing what no one else is. She's about to do what she's about to do and she's about to show what the girls should have given. I've never read a book like this and that's why I love it so much. Sean McGuire is a genius and if you have not read this book yet I'm only halfway through but I can already tell you it's going to be one of my favourite books of the year. It's going to be up there with things like illuminate and heart stopper. It is just incredible. I'm sad I'm not flying through it but at the same time I don't think this is ever going to be the type of book you're going to read in a day, two days. Like I think I want to take my time reading this. I want to sit with it. I want to think about it. I want to have like a big part of my life reading this. I don't want to rush it. I knew when Kayla loved it and it was Kayla's favourite book of the year that I was going to love it. There's clear hints towards what's going to happen towards what's going to be really important in the plot that we just don't know about. We're just not filled in on the goss but we know about their existence and I love when we know of things but we don't know what they are in books. Does that make sense? That's one of my favourite things. You know when people are like I love enemies to lovers? I'm like, I love when I know about something but I don't know what it is. It's really late and I should be asleep. I'm so tired but I had to finish middle game. This book is a work of art. I don't think I've ever read a book like this. I knew five pages in that this was going to be a new favourite book of all time and I just kind of got to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than trying to analyse what was going on. I'll think, oh, I'd prefer if this had happened this way. No, I was just obsessed. I love the twists and turns that the language takes. Language will often take itself off on these tangents that are just like chef's kiss. The plot feels so solid and so fluid at the same time which I sound like I'm not quite with it but I understand what I mean. It's the way that time is examined in this and is played with and experimented with is so good. You don't come beyond camera? Miko's having a bit of a habit at the moment of he isn't like being cuddled either at the moment. I was staying outdoors until midnight and you actually came in tonight, didn't you? You're still naughty. I don't even know what genre to put this in. I don't really know what genre it would be classed sci-fi? Like sci-fi? Maybe? What's awesome about you? I'm high and I'm funny. I'm a skinny legend. Skinny legend? I'm a skinny legend. It's just perfect in every way. I am going to go to sleep now and I love this. So obviously I can trust Kayla's recommendations but I was never in any doubt that I could trust her recommendations because like I've read a lot of her recommendations and I've loved them all. But middle game, I am actually in shock. Like this book, I'm not worthy of describing this book to you and of getting you to read it. So well thought out, so complex, so original, never been done before, so unique, just amazing. So if you haven't picked up yet, please do. Hello, I am here. I'm just trying to walk around. So I'm about to go out for a run which you can probably tell by my attire. Let me pretend I care. Okay, I'm done. I just wanted to check in because I'm about halfway through the test and obviously it's tiny. If you remember, this is the book I was reading on Emma's recommendation. And the first chapter, I'm like, why is this weird? Everyone says this is weird. I don't understand. And then once you get to the second chapter, you go, oh, I don't think I'm going to know what rating I'm going to give this until the end. I've seen a lot of people give this five stars. For me, it's probably like about a four, but I like the direction it went in that was completely unexpected. You know going into it that it's a guy taking the British citizenship test, which is like loads of pointless questions they ask you about history of Britain. Then it has a twist. And I don't want to say what it is because it's obviously a big spoiler. And I'm just excited for more, but now I'm about to force myself to go for a run. I really don't want to, but oh my God, it's actually going to weat down. It's going to rain so hard. I want to. So I just finished the test and I am in my onesie. This is a strange book. This is a weird as book. And I kind of don't know how I feel about it. I think I'm going to give it like a four on Goodreads, but I think it's like a 3.5. I wasn't in love with it. Like it wasn't a five star, but I think in some ways that's to do with the length. Like it's really short. And sometimes I struggle with shorter books to really get into it enough. As much as I don't like how long it takes me to read longer books, shut up. As much as I don't like how long it takes me to read longer books, I do typically prefer the time we get to spend with the characters and stuff, whereas this is so short. Like it's really, it's a short story really. I loved the premise. I loved the idea. Sometimes with the writing, I felt like it was a bit off. And I don't know why. I was expecting to love the writing in this, but sometimes I just felt like the writing was a bit, eh, just things not reading nicely. And also I felt like the ending was really, really, really rushed. The first 60 pages were really in-depth and then like the last 50 were just way, way too rushed. I would have liked them to be longer. Like I didn't understand why certain things happened, why certain characters acted the way they did. It was, it's not quite at the height that Emma gave it and I've seen a few other people give it, but I still liked it. And I would still recommend it if you're looking for a short book because like I've read a whole book this evening and like that's great. But at the same time, it wasn't groundbreaking to me. It wasn't anything that shook me to my core, if you will. I'm not gagging. But at the same time, I am glad that I have read it because it makes me feel like I can get out of a slump because I've been filming this video for 10 years. I liked through how it took the idea of the citizenship test and like flipped it on its head and really played with it. And it was just, it was just a cool idea. And I love, I love and I have to respect cool ideas. Like I love things that push the boundaries. I love it for that. So even though this video has probably been like all over the place, I hope you have enjoyed it. Let me know down below what some of your favorite booktubers are. What sort of your, they're not objects Megan, who are some of your favorite booktubers are and whether you've got any books on there, like what's the word, recommendation and whether you enjoyed them or not if you've read them. Again, thank you so much for watching. I will see you very soon with another video. Bye.