 Hello my darling extraterrestrials and those who are all still, you know, collecting your extra-ness. So this is my wrap-up video for January of 2018. I read 14 books this month. Part of it was because I had some weeks off for the holiday, but also there were some books towards the end of the month that I literally just powered through. Like, I could not put them down. So stick around, check it out. My Goodreads Challenge for 2018 is set to 130 books. I did 120 last year and I started late, so I thought that 130 would be a reasonable amount of books to read. And given that I read 14 books this month, like 14 times 12 is 168, so I'm on track. I really love the Goodreads Challenge, like it really pushes me to like find books that I haven't read before, or at least in the last year. And that means that I have to read a bunch of new books and I'm very much a homebody. I'm comfortable in what I know. And so I reread books a lot, but all of a sudden being pushed to read new books because a computer algorithm somewhere is like, uh-uh, you already read that book. My friend Chrissy says that I eat books. However, I maintain, do not eat books. Books are not for eating. Books are friends, not food. Okay, we're through with that. That's over. We're past it. Okay, recap. I started out this month with Book of Dust by Philip Pullman. It's book one. It's confusing because Book of Dust is a series title and it's really big on the cover and in really little words underneath it says La Belle Savage, which is the title of this specific book. But I really wish that they had, you know, flipped that because it's really confusing. Anyway, it looks like this. I'm going to put it here. It is a pure adventure set in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials universe, which is an alternate dimension in which people have demons that are essentially a section of their soul that is outside of their body and takes various human, sorry, various animal forms. They do not take human forms. That would be even creepier than it already is. There is a ton of espionage and some science that we would probably call magic, all centering around a boy, a baby, and a canoe. Number two and three were The School for Good and Evil, and The School for Good and Evil, A World Without Princes. Anyway, these are middle grade readers, so I took them with a grain of salt. But I really found them to be very disingenuous. They were falsely subversive. I'm going to do another video about these because I've got the third one, so I'm going to read the third one and then make a video. But I really, I was very disappointed with these books. I actually, midway through reading this sucker, I really got very angry, so we'll see how the third one goes. Number four was Edge of the Abyss by, I'm going to say this wrong, Emily Skrottsky? We're going to go with that because that's what I've got. But I really loved this book. This is the second book in the Abyss Surround Us series. It follows the story of Cass, a young woman tasked with raising and training genetically modified sea monsters. Let's just say things do not go as planned. She's kidnapped onto a pirate ship and forced to train an illegally obtained Wreck-n-R-Pup, and all of a while has to figure out who she wants to be. This is made more complicated by one of her captors, who is a trainee to the captain. Her name is Swift, and yeah, it's hella gay. Anyway, it's action, adventure, and politics, and pirates, and pirate politics, and it's hella gay, so check it out. Number five is called This Darkness Mind by Mindy McGinnis. Okay, I love Mindy McGinnis. I love her. She wrote Female of the Species. She wrote a book called Madness So Discreet, which has no romantic plotline whatsoever, which I adore. But This Darkness Mind goes down a rabbit hole that I didn't want to go down. Like I probably shouldn't have read this book. Like it upset me a lot. I'm very sensitive to psychological thrillers and things that mess with your mind, and this is that. This is a classic psychological thriller to the nth. Basically, a young girl starts receiving messages from the twin sister she consumed in the womb, and that sister also controls the heart that beats in her chest. Fair warning. This book is a long, dark rabbit hole, and there is no light, no love, no joy on the other side. It is brilliantly written. I mean, nothing by Mindy McGinnis isn't, but it messed me up. So I try really hard not to think about that book anymore. Excellent, excellent book. Deeply messed up. Okay. Number six is Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zapp. Yeah, I didn't know that. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna play, I didn't know that. This book tells the story of Eliza as she tirelessly turns out her webcomic called Monstrous Seed. She has remained carefully anonymous despite massive fame worldwide and an income that is slightly higher than any high schooler has any right of having. Zero social skills, though. She tries her best to be literally invisible, but when a new boy shows up for senior year and is a huge fan of Monstrous Seed, so they obviously have something to talk about, will she be able to remain anonymous? This book is a sweet, delightful romance for nerds and also takes a bit of a look at what we expect from each other as people, maybe? I don't know. Read it for yourself. You tell me. Number seven is A Countess Below Stairs by Ava Ibbitson. This is a romantic comedy, like if Downton Abbey were more ironic and utterly hilarious. When I read it before, it definitely made me feel like it was a romance, but I didn't grasp all of the comedy. There is some serious, heavy irony happening within, and then the final scene is just like so ridiculous. And oh my god, it's just funny. If you're looking for something that really just goes after the fundamental ideologies of the Nazi party, read this book. It sounds ridiculous, but it's so true. Oh my goodness. Okay. Moving on. Number eight is Artemis by Andy Weir. Yes, he wrote another book. No, it is not the most illiterary. I think it could have gone past the editors two or three more times for some really like deep reads, like not necessarily cuts because all of the pieces come together really well. It's the actual sentence structure that I have. I'm just, I'm taking umbrage with it, guys. I'm taking umbrage with it. And while the writing could have definitely used some more love on this one, who can resist this premise? It is a heist on the moon with like mob connections and involving the production of aluminum, like only the mind of Andy Weir. Like, I'm just going to say that only the mind of Andy Weir could have made all of these like seemingly unrelated connections. It is beautifully ridiculous when I describe it, but it is horrifyingly plausible. That is Andy Weir's true gift, horrifying plausibility. I already returned them to the library, but numbers nine and ten on my list are The Queen of Blood and The Reluctant Queen by Sarah Beth Durst. I really struggle to summarize these books, but at the core of it is the world that Sarah Beth Durst has built. Spirits, which are essential to the growth and maintenance of the forest that covers the planet that we live in, also want to destroy humans and everything that they create. And also everything that the spirits have created. Basically, they're very much wrapped up in their nature that says we must create, we must destroy. They're very driven by their id. They are id. They're id embodied if we're going to go back to Freud, which I know, but just go with me. The Queen is responsible for controlling the spirits within her domain. And just very, very interesting. Character is very interesting premise, very interesting world. I really just wanted to live in it. I don't care if my life is constantly being threatened by the spirits that embody my house. I don't care. I just really want to live there. The thing that really just drew me in and made me love it was the characters. Our two main characters, one is Delana and the other one, I'm forgetting, but both of them are just so interesting and intricate and very, very delicately created. And I really love how much went into building them and appreciating them. It very much gives the strong female characters back their true definition. A strong female character is not some girl who is physically strong. She is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but not because she can fight vampires. A strong female character is a person, and I really feel that Sarah Beth Durst has given personhood to these characters. And I think that's something to be applauded. So please read these books, tell me what you think. I'm really interested in what you guys think. But we're not done yet. Hang on, I've got this one. Number 11 is The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. The first in the Folk of the Air series. This book is the perfect storm that deposits you directly on the precipice of the next book and you fall into it so easily. Like I was drawn into this world. I wish I had the sequels already. I just, it's so, like it's, okay, okay, I'm going to describe this book. We'll see how it goes. Jude is the harsh twin, the violent twin, the dangerous twin, exactly what a childhood in fairyland would mold you into. When her parents were murdered, she and her sisters were kidnapped away to the estate of a duty-bound red cap. And it's even more complicated than that. Jude grows up and makes choices, and the axis of the folk shifts on her action. This is a story of spies and fairies and kings and king-makers. And every single one of you needs to read this book. I really enjoyed it. And 12, 13, and 14 is the Mara Dyer trilogy. Michelle Hodkin, I bow to you. They were, they were so hard to put down. These books are what I had hoped the The Stardust Mind book would be about. Deeply creepy. Yes. Psychologically baffling. Yes. But ultimately hopeful. A love story at its core. Mara Dyer is a deeply unreliable narrator, and I love that. The only survivor of a building's collapse, Mara has no memory of the events leading after her waking up in the hospital. Her family moves to help her get away from the trauma. But the trauma comes with her. First she's unreliable because she can't remember. And then she's unreliable because she doesn't believe it's really happening. And then she's unreliable because she knows it's real, but everybody else is telling her that she's crazy, and it just gets worse from there. Make sure you check the trigger warnings before you jump in, because they can be very triggering. But I'm not going to go into that now, but please take care of yourself when you are reading these books. When you're reading any books, when you're consuming any media, just check beforehand. Make sure you'll be okay. But oh my god. Yes. Just yes. Just yes. And yes, good. Yes. Good. And that is my 14th book January wrap up video. Let me know in comments what books you've read, what books you want to read, what books you've loved, what books I am totally wrong about. Come talk to me about books. Aviento. I think I just curtsied all the way out of frame.