 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome to the final video of 2019 Top 5 Fridays, the top 5 best books of the year that I read. I believe all of these books... No, one of them didn't. At least one of them, two of them... I'm not prepared. At least two of these books did not come out this year. I am pretty sure the other three did. Don't quote me on that. These are the best books that I read personally. This year, let's just go ahead and jump right into the list. At number 5. Okay, so at number 5 was something that came out of left field for me. I had no idea I was going to enjoy it as much as I did. It was a September 2018 book of the month choice for me, and that is Fashion Victim by Amina Akhtar. This book, I had, if nothing else, let's get rid of the allusions to American Psycho that I keep talking about, how it's a more accessible American Psycho. It's just a really fun book if you're a horror fan. I believe it's being marketed as a thriller. I don't agree with that. It feels like a horror story. That's how I feel it is. You're in the mind of a killer, and that killer is doing what that killer does best, which is murdering people. It is set in the fashion industry, which is something that has always fascinated me. I was a fan of shows like Next Top Model, all those different shows where the ladies, you really get a good glimpse into how women interact with each other. You tend, men tend to think that women are kinder to each other than men are to each other, and that's just not the case. Women are vile to one another. Just some women. I'm not going to paint a broad spectrum, but some of these women, especially in the beauty industry, can be utterly just terrible to each other, and you get a lot of that in this book. Whether or not that's just put on for the camera, like I said, I've watched those shows. I was never part of that life. I liked that fiction. I guess if there's truth in the fiction, that's fine, but I liked that fiction. So this book, after having finished this book, I will read anything that Amina Akhtar publishes. Just to let you know, I do talk to her on Twitter sometimes. We talk back and forth. We're by no means friends or best friends, and this is an unbiased review, because I love the book before I talk to her even the very first time. At number four. But at number four, we have another book that I did not expect to love as much as I did. That is The Doll Factory by Elizabeth McNeil. When Atria, my contacted Atria of Publishing, when they said, hey, would you be interested in this book, I looked up the cover and I was like, that's pretty. That's really pretty. Let me hold on to that for a minute. So they sent it to me, and I fell in love with this. The story that I will say that the street urchin, I cannot remember his name off the top of my head, but the toothless urchin is privy to the ambitions of both Iris and Silas. I like the story of Iris and Silas, but I especially liked the little boy in the story. That's what kept me reading. And then Elizabeth McNeil tore my heart out of my chest by the end of the book, and I was there for the ending. The ending was great, but after that, I was just like, okay, after she utterly destroyed me in the best possible way, that's when I was like, okay, yeah, this is easily making my book of the year. And then it ended on a terrific note also. In my review, I stated that it's kind of like the diamond. You have Gone Girl, You, Our Kind of Cruelty, and The Doll Factory, where those themes kind of how women are treated in society come full circle. You have your good women, your bad women, so on and so forth, your women in the middle on, I guess, chaotic good and chaotic bad kind of deal if you want to go fantasy with it. But you have those aspects. Each and every book really dives into the female thought process and how women are perceived by men mostly, and how the objectification of women really plays a part on society. I found the whole thing from, even though I didn't like Gone Girl, from Gone Girl to you to Our Kind of Cruelty, All the Way Back to the Doll Factory, I found it fascinating how the women are treated differently in each book, but they are all treated like possession. At number three, so at number three, we have The Nickel Boys by Coulson Whitehead. This year, I had some talk about can the tribute be better than the inspiration? I was talking about the new Child's Play reboot and how I enjoyed that far more than any of the original Child's plays. In this one, this felt a lot like Rita Hayworth in The Shawshank Redemption, or just the movie version of The Shawshank Redemption. This book felt a lot like that, but in my opinion, it's better. I think it's better. The twist is better. Everything about this book is better than that. It feels like it has improved upon the original. Another thing that I brought up was, Stephen King basically rebooting The Haunting of Hill House with The Shining. There's several different things that I talked about, as far as Shirley Jackson is concerned, where other authors had done her themes better. I think in this one, and Stephen King was one of those authors that did Jackson's themes better, but in this one, I feel Whitehead did King's themes better. Once I finished it, again, I put it down, and I was like, this easily going to be my book of the year. If you want more on these books that I'm talking about, I have reviewed each and every one of these books on this channel. Just go check out those reviews on this channel. Number three is The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. At number two, we have The Institute by Stephen King. This is a book that I have talked about in length. I've done Thursday Theorist. I have done a review. I've done spoiler review. I've done all that stuff for it, so I'm not going to take up too much more of your time with this being at the number two spot. There's only one book that I read this year that beats it, but that book wasn't published this year. It is coming up next on this list, but this is easily the best book of the year for me. I didn't read anything that came close to it. Once again, it felt like Stephen King back on form. I'm pretty sure this book was either finished or was close to finish before Elevation came out. It's probably finished way before Elevation came out. Elevation was a huge massive letdown last year, and maybe it was this year. I can't even remember when that book came out. I'm trying to block it from my memory, but it was a huge letdown. It pissed a lot of people off, especially me, and you worry. Ever since The Trilogy of Trash, you worry that a new Stephen King book, after a really, really bad Stephen King book, you worry that he's going to get into that cycle again because he does have that cycle nature where he will stumble down stairs constantly until finally writing himself. You have three terrible books back to back. Dream Catcher from a Buick Eight and Cell, what I call The Trilogy of Trash, but even when Stephen King is terrible, he is good unless it's Elevation. I can finish Dream Catcher from a Buick Eight and Cell. I've read them multiple times. I never want to read Elevation ever again, and the book is a novella, very, very short. So when the Institute came out, I took a huge breath of relief those first 70 pages because I fell in love with the story and I was going to follow it anywhere. Where Elevation came from, I don't know, and I hate that I'm talking about that more than this one, but when the Institute came out, I was worried. I was honestly concerned. Everybody was. Huge fans, friends of mine that are Stephen King fans are like, I don't know, man. It sounds like, I don't know, man. It just sounds like The X-Men. Oh, I don't know, man. It sounds like this, that, or the other. Even to this day, if you go over to my review of the book, there's a whole list of people going, hey, this is just like that. Everything is like everything. I don't care. The book is not like anything else that I have read before. You can call it The X-Men. You can call it whatever. But the book is not like anything else I have read before. Yes, it has the same themes that King always uses. You have your psychics. You have your horror elements. You have all these things that King is known for, but it's not Dean Coons's Golden Retrievers, if you get what I'm saying. Number one. And at number one, we have Donna Tarts, The Goldfinch. I have talked this book up over and over and over again. This is a fantastic book. This is the book that has taken over Stephen King's, its place, maybe as my favorite book of all time. It is also the book that I am rereading over and over again. It has replaced Stephen King's It. I think I made it to 18 rereads of Stephen King's It before I finally decided to switch to another book, and that's because this book came along. This is a 776 page masterpiece. In my opinion, 771. My apologies. I am right now currently on my third reread of the book. As soon as I finished the first read, I started another one with the audiobook. This time, I'm having the audiobook and the, I'm reading along with the audiobook. I'm reading a paperback along with it. The themes of Coming of Age in here, I think this is the best Coming of Age novel ever written. I don't care. It's leaps and bounds above what most other people pick, and that's Boy's Life or Rubber, McCammon, which is a fantastic book, but it's leagues above that. The writing alone makes it a better novel than McCammon's. There's nothing wrong with McCammon's book. This is just insanely better. It's better than The Body. It's better than any number, like Dan Simmons' Summer of Night. Any book that you put on this list, this book would be above it, I feel. And that's a personal bias. That's subjectivity speaking, because a lot of my own childhood is in this book. Now it's not about me, of course, but I see a lot of myself in the main character. And like I said, I have talked about this book over and over and over again. That's one of the reasons why I was kind of worried about doing best and worst of lists, because it just felt like I was harping on things. And it's kind of how, what I feel like I'm doing now is just harping on how fantastic this book is. If you have not, hello, Doggo. Dog's barking in the background. If you have not read it, I highly suggest you do. And it is easily, easily the best book that I read this year, The Goldfinch by Donatar. So those are my favorite reads of 2019. Please do let me know down there in the doobly-doo. If any of these books are on your list, if you want to tell me your own list, if you want to link me to your best of lists, please do. But until next time, I have been Ian, you have been you. This has been Top 5 Friday. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!