 It's video time! I'm shaking booktube, my name's Cam, and welcome back to another video. Another day, another egg in the pocket, that's what I always say. Recently, I went through a couple of books. I absorbed them into my consciousness. And let me tell you, one was really good, and the other one, it was just awful. It was bad. I'm talking poop man in a cyclone bad. Oh shit! Get it? Shit! I'll tell you about them, I'll tell you about those two, and I'll also tell you what I'm planning on reading next. I guess you could say this video is a bit of a wrap up in a TBR, if we're gonna be down with the lingo. How do you do, my fellow booktubers? Okay, so first, the first book I read was the last book in the Nevernight Chronicles, the Nevernight series, Dark Dawn, Gentle Friends, by Jake Christoff. And don't worry, I'm not gonna give any spoilers for this series, I'll tell you what I didn't like and what I liked, and how I felt about the conclusion, but I won't give any spoilers. It was a pretty emotional end to the trilogy. I personally think I handled it pretty well. As far as flaws with Dark Dawn goes, like look, I had a lot of the same issues that I already had with the other two books, and that's because it almost always comes down to running style. I'll leave a card for the video I made on the first two books in the series, and especially if you haven't read Nevernight before, that's probably the best place to start. But yeah, most of the same issues, you know, too many footnotes, too much purple pros, and just a generally overripe writing style that I personally feel broke immersion a lot. I don't feel any of it was like super bad, but it was stuff that I feel pulls focus away unnecessarily from the actual story, and from the events that are actually happening at that point in time in the story. Like it might be a high action, high intensity scene, and there's so much purple pros and poetic descriptions for what's happening that even subconsciously, and even a little bit, it's pulling our attention away from the actual, you know, battle itself or what's supposed to be a really romantic scene. But again, that kind of just comes down to Jay Kristoff's writing style. With those points aside though, I want to make it very clear, and I don't think I made it clear enough. In the first video, the Nevernight Chronicles, this trilogy is, it's phenomenal. It really is just absolutely fantastic. So the main plot of the trilogy, a girl who is raised as an assassin on a journey of revenge ends up finding out to her conspiracy secrets, falls in love, etc. It has most of the tropes of a normal like fantasy, or now don't flip out of me here, okay, but it does have most of the tropes of a YA adventure book. But that's okay, because they were all approached pretty damn creatively as far as I'm concerned. All of the lore of the, you know, world of Nevernight was super interesting and obviously very, very well thought out and planned. It's unfortunate that most of that lore was given to us by like footnotes that were cut into the middle of scenes. But back to what I liked. So the lore was fantastic. The characters were all very well written as far as protagonists go. It's like a habit, especially in fantasy to end up liking the side characters or supporting characters or even the villains. More than you like the main hero. There's probably a million reasons why that could be a whole video in itself, but as far as the Nevernight Chronicles goes, I always felt like Mia was always the most interesting and engaging character and she was really likable and even the side characters were very well written and thought out as well. There were some characters that I think we were meant to like that I personally didn't, but I still feel like they were well written, if that makes sense. Perhaps most importantly though, with a fantasy series, is seeing the kind of change of the character. We, not just the character arcs through the trilogy, but the story arc, how the characters change, how the world around them changes. Basically you want to feel a little bit exhausted going through the story because you want to feel like you're going through the trials with the characters you're reading about. It needs to feel like a journey. And this series honestly did it better than like any other fantasy series I've read in years. I also want to throw in there that the fan art for the Nevernight Chronicles is just utter perfection. Honest to God it's some of the most dope stuff I've ever seen. So yeah it was a satisfying journey. It was a satisfying conclusion. There are a couple more flaws that I just want to mention that were more specific to Dark Dawn rather than the first two books in the series. So there was a whole big plot point within the story. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I will say that it was a very meta part of the story and I think people who have read it are going to know what I'm talking about. And I really, I didn't like it. I really didn't. I fucking, I hated that. There was a, it was all a dream part of the story as well and that was just I hate that. I hate it so much. Like the meta stuff, it was kind of bad, but I can get past it. But what I can't get past in something that I think was just such a silly decision on Jay's part was through that meta stuff, he directly, and I mean directly addressed some of the criticism that he got for the first two books in the series. It was almost like he was talking like Jay was talking to you the reader through the story. And like four times he brought up like the criticism around him using too many footnotes and it was just like I get he was being tongue-in-cheek. I really doubt he was like taking it too seriously, but it was so uncomfortable to read. Reading within a narrative, like within a story, the author, getting defensive about criticism they got in the other books is just, I don't know what the hell that was. I don't know. I just really, really don't think that should have been put in there. The most controversial opinion I have about Dark Dawn is that Mia's main romance through the story you know the one I'm talking about. Maybe it's just because I already didn't like that character a whole lot, but like was there actually a lot of romance there? Like I know it's like you look back on it and you're like oh man that's so romantic, but really think about it. What did those two characters ever do or talk about or share or experience other than just being hard asses who are good at fighting and really wanting to fuck each other? That's all I can remember about their relationship. That's it. Like we're told repeatedly that they love each other so much that they would you know destroy the sky for each other, but like why? Just to me personally it felt like every time they had a moment where it was meant to be romantic, we were convinced that they were in love with each other just by how much they really wanted to smash. Like sure romance can lead to sex in books. I'm fine with that. I'm not against, god I'm not against smart. I really hope that's not what it seems like. Romance can lead to sex, but romance can't just be sex. I don't know I think I think you get the point I'm trying to make anyway. I hope I don't sound like a total prude. No more pee-pee and J.J. star. Anyway if I had to give Dark Dawn a star rating I'd probably give it four stars, but if I was to give Nevernight the Nevernight series as a whole a star rating I would give five stars. That's fine. It really is phenomenal. It really is fantastic. It is definitely one of the best fantasy series I've ever read and I would highly recommend it. Sure. Okay so that's that's the one I enjoyed. Now for now for the bad one. This is one that I spent my monthly Audible credit on. It's an Audible original although I think you can get an actual book of this one. Also can I add Audible has been killing it lately. Just absolutely killing it with the Audible originals. They didn't sponsor this video and I'm not even an affiliate or anything like that. So anyway the terrible story I was talking about is called I'm a therapist and my patient is going to be the next school shooter. Six patient vials that will keep you up at night by Dr. Harper and I need to break this down for you because it's kind of a weird situation here okay. It's a little bit weird so just bear with me. So first of all Dr. Harper he isn't real. Dr. Harper is a fictional author. That's what a lot of authors do. In some cases they create a fictional name for them or pen name for them to publish some books under. But the thing is Dr. Harper even has a website and to be fair to give credit where credit it's due it's very clear there that it's fictional. Everything here is fictional these aren't real stories. I think that's pretty obvious to be honest and on the website it does tell you very clearly that Dr. Harper is not a real person and the author is not a real therapist but it's kind of weird right. A lot of people were angry about the fact that it was like fictional like they were like like they thought they'd expose them they're like these stories aren't real exposed. I didn't have a problem with that what I thought this was going to be though was like you know fictional stories where it's told from the view of a therapist sure but I thought they would be very very heavily character based to create a bit of a like creepy feeling by diving into the psyche of people who intend to do real harm that that is cool. I think that's a great idea for a little short stories and I'm even open to it being done by someone who's not a real therapist as long as they do their research I think that's fine and I am confident that is something that can be done respectfully and in regards to mental health. A lot of people were saying as well that this story stigmatizes a lot of mental health issues I disagree it's made pretty clear at the very start of the story that this therapist is dealing with exceptional cases but don't get me wrong it's still fucking terrible it's still it still sucks but it doesn't suck because I think the author's a bad person it just sucks because it's just bad it's like even by like something you would find on creepy past or a reddit thread it's it's bad it's badly written but anyway I told you what I thought it would be I thought it would be you know really deep character based what it actually was was pretty much entirely focused on just the worst therapist in the world and like it was his story it's almost like really bad Sherlock fanfic mixed with a bit of like Scooby-Doo like who's better to solve a highly criminal mystery than a small-time therapist so first of all like I said the guys are just a horrible therapist he's constantly like breaking the law and confidentiality rules on a whim his worst trait is that he jumps to conclusions like every couple of pages he has like the level of a revelation that you would expect at the end of a thriller mystery story you know when they have the the big the big realization this guy has that like three or four times in every short story and he's almost always wrong at one point he suspects his assistant so he punches him in the face and the assistant's just like nah I didn't sweat it mate still beats working for Telstra there's loopholes in the story like massive inconsistencies and basically everything relies on a foundation that is just absurdly unrealistic I will enthusiastically give this story one star because like I said poop tornado oh shit not a game anyway looking forward to the future here is what I plan on reading next first I'm going to be reading The Institute by Stephen King I'm looking forward to that the premise of it kind of sounds like if Professor X was evil like kidnapped all of these gifted kids for more malicious purposes that sounds pretty interesting the next one I was hoping to read after that is Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman you might have seen the trailers for the amazon show that's out about that I want to read that because apparently it's about a demon and an angel teaming up to basically like save the antichrist and stop the apocalypse I really want to read The Boy at the top of the mountain by John Boyne this is a world war two historical fiction I finally feel like I've recovered from Morris Glitzman's series that I read a while back which was also a historical fiction based around a young Jewish boy surviving the Nazi occupation of Poland I think I've finally recovered from reading that series so why not shatter myself into a million fucking pieces again last but not least a couple of you might be excited to hear that I'll be finally reading this one it's Six of Crows by Lee Bardugo don't get me wrong the premise of the story sounds super interesting I'm not entirely sure what it is that has put me off for so long you know when enough time passes and you're just like it's too late for me to jump in now but it's still getting recommended to me I still see a lot of like references to it online so I want to catch up I want to finally get up there you know I want to understand all of the Six of Crows memes finally I want to understand them so I can stop feeling older than my acid reflux would already suggest what the devil is a Casbrocker and why are there so many birds that's how you get the influenza anyway that's it for me folks gentle friends let me know if you've read any of these but hey no spoilers I heard that if you subscribe to me Peter Parker will dance for us at a private party catch ya