 hi if you have been a regular viewer on this channel you know 2021 has not been my reading yet at this point i don't have anything to talk about there's nothing that i want to say there's more so what i want to do and i keep trying to fix it and it keeps not happening so i was sitting here and i was thinking to myself mega and what can we do what can we do to make you you know to make this happen to get our reading slump to have so many favorite books and i thought let me just ask you guys what your favorite books you've read so far this year have been and then i'm gonna read them so that's what we've done i just asked on twitter like casually or something like that i don't know why i said and i probably could have got more responses like if i did something a bit official or if i did on instagram as well but i only asked on twitter there was a ton of books but obviously it was just a ton of variety because you're reading different things so there was like so many books that like one or two of you said but the ones i'm going to be reading in this vlog was like three or four of you said so it's not like overwhelming numbers of people but that's because i didn't do it that officially so what we're gonna be reading let me show you i'm very excited so the first book i am terrified to read because i haven't done a five star prediction updated video i have now lmao i filmed this a long time ago but if i was to do one now this would be on there and four of you said the house in the cerulean sea by tj klune are we surprised this is like a bookshed favorite i have not seen anyone read this and not love it all i know about it is that it's about a guy who has to travel to like this orphanage with magical children that are maybe gonna end the world because they're so dangerous and i think it's like a gay relationship between him and the guy who runs the orphanage as well i've heard it's like a middle grade for adults it's just so like emotional and heartwarming and lovely and i'm so excited riley has been telling me to read this for so long i know this is one of her favorites so i hope i'm gonna make her proud so yeah i'm super excited i'm so excited to read this and then the ones that three of you said firstly we've got watch over me my nina lecore i already owned this this was one that i've been so excited to read for such a long time all i know is it it's about a girl who goes to this farm i think she's an orphan and she goes to live on this farm to kind of like work there but it's haunted by ghosts or something and it's also to do with her trauma super excited to get to this i think this could possibly be like a favorite favorite favorite i mean i think all of these could be this is the first time in a while i've done a reading vlog and i'm like these could all be five stars wishful thinking you're a dreamer you dream a lot in your sleep no not really yes you do no yes you do then we've got another one i already owned which is legend borne by tracy deon this is like an atherian retelling i don't really know anything about it other than that like her mother dies in a car accident she's at this university when she's only 16 like she's like an advanced student and there's like something about this like atherian knights very strange but i've heard really really good things about this i've been super excited to read it for a while and then one that i had heard quite a few people speak about like on booktube that they were reading it but i actually haven't i don't think i've heard anyone review it i think i've like watched live sprints when people have been reading it but i wasn't expecting this to have so like to be one of the books in this video it's amari and the night brothers by bb alston i don't even know the plot of this it's a middle grade that came out earlier this year amari's brother's gone missing she's invited for a trial the bureau of supernatural affairs she's certain this is her chance to save him okay for this one we're just gonna go with it and find out what it's about as we go along i really am excited for this though because i love middle grade i love the experience of reading middle grade and i haven't when was the last time i loved loved middle grade i don't know i generally can't remember so i'm hoping this could be a new favorite so they're the four books we're gonna be reading in this video that have been some of your favorite books so far this year and i'm really excited because i feel like these could all be five stars like these are all heavy hitters these are big names these are big name books i think i'm gonna start with watch over me i'm hoping this can be one that i can read pretty fast because it's only like 260 pages so it will like get me motivated get me like this in every video about how i need to get motivated to read but we're gonna start with this and we'll see how it goes it's so dark in here it's like two o'clock but it's like so dark i've got the ring like cranked up right here's the thing i feel like i'm getting my mojo back that's the first thing i want to say like i feel like we're back i feel like the tide is turning i mean to enjoy myself jc style you know i want to make i just want to be me i usually check in like a third of the way through a book or halfway through a book i got halfway through this last night and then i went to go make dinner and i was like okay after dinner i'm gonna come and check in and then when i was making dinner i was getting some baked beef out of the microwave and i got them wrong and i burnt my hand i spilled them then i dropped the bowls they spilled them all down me like hot hot hot hot and i got it all up the walls so i felt a bit sorry for myself and i didn't want to like come and film so i was just like megan you can just finish the book you can just do that it's okay no one's gonna hate me i hope no one's gonna hate me that is not correct here's the thing it's five stars it's five stars it's five stars it's five stars i loved this this is everything this is this is my kind of book this is my kind of book this is it this is it smash smash smash smash smash we're following a girl named mila who has been in the foster care system and she's aged out of it she gets to go to this farm where other foster kids live this couple runs this farm and kids like young adults who have aged out of the system can go and work there and like teach the younger kids there and she gets that position but when she gets there everyone there can see ghosts there's like ghosts that like dance and play with everyone like child ghosts on the farm and for most of the book you're not sure whether those ghosts are real they're kind of like is this actually happening or like what's going on here but this is just an app you guys you don't even understand this is an absolutely beautiful book about trauma about grief about her it's written so hauntingly like that's how I would describe it not just because ghosts but the style of writing it's so haunting and like kind of like grief and the melancholyness lays so heavy over the book oh my god I can't describe too much I love this there's this really special relationship between mila and the boy that she teaches Lee how they try to like work through their trauma together and how she tries to help him even when she's not really really ready to help herself the thing I love about this it reminds me of a lot of those kind of my favorite like YA weird books you're not sure who you can trust so like I never really trusted the people on the farm I can't trust them they don't know what they're doing it's written in this way where you don't know what is real and people act in very strange ways like people don't really act the characters don't act in a way that people act like the way that they interact and so you're like what is happening here like are we all imagining this is something sinister going on and that's what I love in books when there doesn't have to be something actually sinister going on but it's got that undercurrent of our knees because of how like melancholy and sad this book is I almost cried at the end there was oh my god the ending like I read the last 100 pages of this engrossed and I haven't read a book like that in a long time we're like I literally can't take my eyes off there the denouement of the book was so beautifully written I was like almost crying like just how beautiful and poignant my god I'm like just how beautiful and poignant the words were this was so good it was so good so I just love I think I've realized like my favorite genre is probably this kind of like weird young adult surrealism fabulism magical realism whatever you want to call that kind of like big encompassing bracket that's my favorite genre like without a shadow of a doubt I really can't wait to read uh we are okay by need a little core I don't have it and I'm on a book buying man but one day I'll get it and I'll read it I'm very excited it definitely reminded me of Katrina Leno I've got Katrina Leno's other two books so I'm really excited to read them because this is just kind of like the vibe right now you know what I mean like this is it I'm obsessed so if you've got any more recommendations particularly I want to read more sorts of color like in this vein in this kind of like surrealism often like melancholy or dealing with like anger or sadness or trauma books that's what I'm looking for so if you've got any recommendations please let me know and the way it explored grief and trauma and her was so beautiful such a beautifully written book we are off to a success I thought I'd be reading like heavy hitters like I'm getting a bit violent oh that was that was one thing I wanted to say I love the quietness of it it's such a quiet small book like you're on this farm isolated there's this like you know group of characters who are kind of like acting as a family together and just how quiet it is so an example I can think of is you must not miss by Katrina Leno he's very loud in its anger the character has been through trauma and is very like angry with that trauma and rightfully so but what I loved about this is it's kind of like the opposite where the trauma has made the character like draw into herself and everything is very small um I just thought it was done so well so five stars if you've been eyeing this up pick it up it was so good it was so good oh my god I loved it next I looked at you weird then next I think I'm gonna read Amari and the Night Brothers again I don't know anything about the plot for this but I'm just feeling like a middle grade and the cover is beautiful this has got like a 4.5 something rating on Goodreads like it's got such a high rating so I'm hoping for really good things like people are saying it's their favorite middle grade they have ever read I'm gonna start oh my god look there's like really gorgeous illustrations in here okay I'm gonna go start this and I will check in with you partway through this I won't just read the whole of it and then come back to you so to this video I started it weeks and weeks and weeks ago and then I've done like three vlogs since the level of unprofessionalism far too much it's been really broken up but I am halfway through Amari and the Night Brothers but that reading has been very broken up it's been like 40 pages here then I read another book 50 pages here then I read another book so I'm hoping to just read the rest today so that it is a more of like a cohesive reading experience but I am really enjoying this this is like one of my favorite middle grades that I think I've ever read so basically we have Amari whose brother has just gone missing and she gets an invitation to this like camp or training place for the bureau of supernatural affairs and that is somewhere that her brother was and it's this whole secret life that she didn't know he had and it's basically he was a really famous agent for this bureau of supernatural affairs so it's all about these supernatural creatures and magic and it's really like magic boarding school vibes and so it feels like nostalgic in that sense I love Amari as a character and the writing and this is amazing honestly this is so good you guys this is so good it's it's amazing it's so amazing to me this is just mind blowing I remember I watched Nicole talk about this in a wrap-up that she did a couple days ago and she spoke about how it explores issues like race and class really well in lots of different settings like how Amari is disadvantaged by her race and class in lots of different settings even in this supernatural world and it's so interesting and it's really fast paced I'm just really I'm just loving this experience but I feel like it isn't a proper check in because my reading has been so disjointed like I literally just read the last 40 pages um but everything else I read like kind of weeks ago so like I'm a bit like oh there's like these trials as well which is really fun like I feel like this is a lot of like classic trope elements um but done in this really new and exciting way so to stay in the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs and to kind of like become this agent you have to pass lots of trials and so there's like kind of like a different trial every week which I think we're kind of approaching the first one now and we're gonna go through the rest of them but that's really fun like this competition element with the other kids and I won't say who but this does draw in some like characters from classical Victorian literature um and reimagines them in this like supernatural setting and that's something that one of my favorite not in a supernatural setting but one of my favorite um series The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter did that where you had all of these characters from classic Victorian literature in this story again and I really love that like when we just kind of like bring those characters back they're in the public domain nobody owns them let's just use them I'm a genius I love it I think it's so fun to have those to Easter eggs like appear so yeah I'm going to try and finish this today it shouldn't take me long because it is a middle grade but I'm really enjoying it I didn't finish Amara and my brothers last night but I'm actually going to pop out to the Waterstones Cafe in the city today because I haven't been um obviously because they've been open in ages and I'm moving back home in like a week so I want to go before that happens and go and spend some time there so I'm hoping I'm going to finish Amari and the Night Brothers and also maybe get a bit of the way through the next book which is Legend Born. I had such a good time sitting in the in the cafe yesterday and reading and I read so much I don't even think I get some of my best reading done when I go and sit in a cafe like I just get in the zone and I just read so much so firstly I finished Amari and the Night Brothers by BB Alston this is like a 4.25 for me it's like somewhere between a 4 and a 4.5 it just has the perfect like whimsy magical tone in the writing that you want from a book like this that you want from a middle grade fantasy just the way it is written is so amazing like it has so many amazing little nuggets of information and like magicalness like so many complexities to it which I really love like it's a really fleshed out world and magic system how this bureau has all these different departments and we get to visit them all there's loads of really great characters we have quite a big cast of characters in this and I think they're all done equally well it was such an engrossing read the second half of this like I just sat there and flew through it nothing was getting me to put down this book like I loved it it was so good it just didn't feel like a five-star but it's definitely I think up there as one of my favorite middle grades of all time if not is it the favorite middle grade of all time I don't know I can't think at the moment of anything that can top it but I feel like I have given a middle grade five stars before but maybe not maybe this is it it was just clever and funny and difficult and explored so many topics I loved Amari as a character I cannot wait I cannot wait to continue on with this series I'm so excited for more to come out in this series the fact that this is a debut is honest it's shockworthy the fact that this is a debut is shockworthy I can't believe it if you want like a middle grade boarding school magic kind of vibe oh it's just so good so so good it was such an enjoyable read I'm so glad I read it you guys are right this was a great book I understand why so many people love this rightfully so I am actually already halfway almost through legend born as well I told you I read a lot I read a lot I just stayed there for ages and just read I'm listening to your audiobook of this as well it's a really long audiobook it's 18 hours long this is a quite a long book because it's almost 500 pages and the font is tiny in this the following brie whose mom has just died in a car crash she's gone to is it carolina she's gone to university as like an early admission person like she's only 16 but she's kind of gone to college now she gets caught up in this secret society which call themselves like legend born and like descendants of king Arthur and this is whole like energy and magic and she can see things she's not supposed to and yeah okay um it's fine I'm sorry that my behavior has upset people and I've never intentionally set out to upset anyone like I'm enjoying it it's not bad it's really well written but I don't feel the same pool to read it that I felt in something like this I feel like in this all of the minor characters were really well fleshed out but I feel like we almost have in some ways too big of a cast here it's and it's all like these a theme in this is like racism and colonization like historical colonization and historically white spaces and what it's like to exist in those as a black person so in the society we just have so many white people and all these white people names and they're all the same then that I just don't I can't separate I just I know the two main guys in this society and then everyone else you're all blowing into one I I just feel like it it's a bit long like I feel like it takes 10 words to say what could have been said in six as a whole there's not necessarily sections I would cut out but everything is just a little bit too long and listen I'm a sucker for long sentences this isn't usually something I'm a problem with but it just feels a bit like not actually much has happened in a lot of story you know what I mean but this makes it sound like I'm not enjoying it I am really really enjoying it the audiobook narrator is great I will update you with my thoughts once I finished it but like right now it's just good what I'm about to say could hurt some people but I don't give a shit okay so I'm back was I in the same spot yesterday I think I was we're going home soon it doesn't matter I finished it and I really don't know how to feel I'm in a conundrum okay so for the majority of this book I wasn't loving it and that's a very unpopular opinion I've gone I've looked on Goodreads everyone is out here giving it five stars everyone and their mum every single person five stars five stars five stars five stars no not not for me not but I know I'm the outlier here so like don't let my opinions put you off reading this because everyone else loves it I actually started reading the audiobook at three times speed which I never do just because I wanted to get through it I was just bored I could recognize it was good like objectively but my enjoyment level I was bored I don't feel like I ever bought into the like magic system and particularly how it affected like the wider world I could never see really how it went beyond this little like group of teenagers like I it was mentioned and it was explained but I think it felt very insular because I could never see it beyond the group we had I struggled to believe in it and also I've never been a big fan of love triangles I've never really vibed with that haha this is not for me no they've always frustrated me so there is a love triangle in this not obvious but you can see how it's being set up for the other books and it just irritated me and wherever we had scenes that were like to advance the love triangle I was just like fuck off like I just didn't I know if you would like them it's just a personal thing they've always made me angry like I don't know why I just don't like them but here's the thing the ending like the last 50 pages were amazing like we're so good so so good it was so moving so interesting I just I just loved it I just absolutely loved the ending I thought it was genius it was something I could never have predicted and was really unexpected and when you see it come together it was just so clever but I've been having this conundrum recently I had it in my last reading vlog does the ending change the rating of a book if the large percentage of it you felt another way right so like I read um spoilers for my last vlog if you haven't seen it but I read the devil in the dark water by shua turton and the majority this was a five star but the ending wasn't great and so I decided like the ending didn't prevent this from being a five star right this is a three like a three star book for me but does the ending raise that and I don't know if it does because here's the thing maybe it could raise it to like a 3.5 but then I should have I should round it like a four on goodreads and it's never a four it's not a four because I felt bored so I think I'm just going to give it three stars but the ending was great originally I wasn't actually going to continue on with the series but I think the ending has made me want to I'm sorry I feel like I need to be more careful with the YA fantasy I pick up because it's something I pick up a lot but I don't think I have a ton of success with I definitely haven't haven't had a ton of success with it this year I think I know what I like and what I don't like but I still pick up things with the tropes and the kind of like world building that I know isn't my favorite but I still pick it up hoping it's gonna be my favorite it's a three star I'm really sad I thought I was gonna love this because everyone loved it but alas so that brings us on to the last book of this vlog which I am actually about to explode with excitement for like I don't know how to contain myself the house in the cerulean sea by tj klune oh my god I cannot wait searching for something that ain't lost have a garden our lives cry I'm a step it doesn't really matter wish it for something better you guys I'm I've only read the first chapter but I'm already in love I'm already in love with it like 10 you guys I am about third of the way through I'm on page 126 I'm in love we did it I'm in love I'm obsessed I already want to reread it this is gonna be five stars if you're wondering what my rating was guarantee you don't even need to watch the rest of this video you could click off you know the rating I'm in love I'm in love everything I've ever wanted in a book it's everything I've ever wanted it's everything I've ever wanted I this is this is it how have I not read this yet how has it taken me this long where'd I even start let's tell you the plot if you don't know because everyone's been speaking about it we're following Linus Baker who works for the department in charge of magical youth and they go around like these orphanages where these magical children are and deem whether it's suitable living situations for the kids but there's obviously some kind of like shady shit going on and I don't think they treat the kids very well and the living situations and like if they tear apart an orphanage and say it's not good enough the kids don't necessarily go on to a better place and Linus has always followed the company line he's worked there for 17 years he doesn't have much of a life he doesn't question authority and then he gets sent on a special classified mission to the orphanage in the house in the serenity where there are a group of children who are very unusual very very unusual unlike anything he's ever seen before so you guys it's told in this whimsical magical joke like jokey kind of tone almost like you have this omniscient narrator living above the story who's making fun of everything that is how I like my stories told you know what's the most exciting thing about winning it's when you win I love that feeling I like it to feel like we're watching so like I don't know old timey moody or something or or play and there's this narrator who's helping tell the story who's like above it do you know what I mean or just a star that it's told is sarcastic and fun and funny and oh my god I just love it oh my god I can't I can't emphasise sure enough how much fun this book is it definitely reminds me of another west school for wayward children very similar premises yeah the wayward children series by Sean McGuire it's very similar I feel like that one's a bit darker that series and this series is a bit more whimsical it's everything I've ever wanted a book America facts are facts it's everything I've ever wanted a book I cannot get over it I'm actually in shock like I really don't know how to act I really do not know how to act I'm in love with the kids already we've only really just met them I'm in love with the guy who runs the orphanage I'm in love with the whole attitude him and line us a button heads but we know soon what is that that's not supposed to imitate anything I was just trying to show that they're gonna fall in love basically that wasn't it's like a fairy tale it's like this whimsical magical I've had it described by the author as like a middle grade for adults and that's what it is it's it's written for adults it's not a middle grade but it captures that whimsy and that magicalness and that childlike energy of a middle grade and I'm just obsessed I'm gonna go read more I cannot stop reading it and I'll check in if you want something a bit more but oh my god you guys how's it taking me this long how's it taking me this long ladies and gentlemen this is something that girl a ground breaker breaker breaker anyone remember la print anyone I felt like that was only really successful in the UK but he now writes music for euphoria if anyone was wondering that was your labyrinth update thank me later I'm still in love with it it's a ground breaker breaker breaker I don't actually love myself this much I just act like I do I love it with my whole heart it's already one of my favourites ever I already want to reread it it's immaculate it's I'm having the best time I actually feel embarrassed I feel embarrassed to come and stand here and talk to you because no words that are gonna come out of my mouth are gonna give this the respect it deserves none of it nothing I say will be good enough because it's outstanding I'm on page 250 and I just love the kids in this and the way that it's like looking at helping them recover and gain confidence ah oh my god so basically I've got a lot of different characters we've got for example a gnome a gongal who's a gnome we've got this boy oh my god my favourite is trancey who's like kind of like this water no one really knows what's up with him like water fishy kind of like a jellyfish he really wants to be like a bellboy from watching it in film so he's like oh my god there was this scene where Linus walked past his room and he was in the mirror like practicing to be a bellboy and my heart broke like I actually can't take it don't make also it's very quiet in the same way watch over me was very quiet and gentle I'm just looking at about these like kids being happy and like also the persecution in this society against them and the prejudice against them oh there's loads of kids I haven't gone through them all we also have Lucy who is Lucifer who is the son of the devil so that's a very interesting dynamic it's just the perfect book it's beautiful whimsical the perfect amount of whimsical it's everything you need in a book oh oh no never has such a perfect book been created I'm saying it I haven't even finished it and I'm saying it anyway I'm gonna go pack for a bit we're moving out in three days and I'm gonna pick up my books first and foremost I want to pack them by genre just so they're easy for me to sort through and I kind of like know roughly where everything will be when they get home so I need to start doing that well I'm gonna put all new releases together and then by genre so I'm gonna go start doing that and then after that I will finish the book and I am so excited it's really interesting to see actually like the spread of my genres so we've got romance between books then mystery thriller is those two sexes which is quite a lot then nonfiction uh horror um graphic novel and contemporary but by far the majority of my books are fantasy with the these two sex and then like magical realism and historical fiction so a good mix but it's crazy how much fantasy I have okay so I finished it and it's one of my favorite books of all time it's one of my favorite books of all time I loved it so much I love good news love good news I just love good news it was beautiful rimsical magical joyful it's such a happy book I feel like if you're wanting a happy book a scapist happy book to read this is what you need to read I already want to reread it I can't wait to make everyone in my life read it oh my god the relationships that Linus the main character and the children form are just incredible to see him go from this like gray person as anyone do you remember the music video for bad day and it's like in the music video that they're like working in these offices and they're like sad that's what his before was and the way that he grew and learned to open himself up to joy and to love through the relationship with these children was just like I almost cried at the end there was a point at the end right at the end where I almost cried it's just it was just like this little moment between him and one of the children and like I feel like when I've loved a book so much for a while afterwards I struggled to speak about it like when I have issues with a book that's easier to speak about but when the book was perfect there's nothing for me to say other than it was perfect like I'm just like in awe at it what this book really focuses on is prejudice against people unlike us in society and and like how damaging that can be and just really exploring that topic and I just thought it was just done so well and this book is perfect and I want to reread it I very rarely want to reread books but I feel like this could be something I could reread again and again and again and again I just loved it I don't know anything I'd say perfect characters perfect storyline perfect progression perfect dialogue the way that it had that like it will say things like and he loved it so or something like just the way the sentences were formed from like the narration perspective was just everything it's just everything if you haven't read this yet please go read it it's so good don't wait around any longer like I was so this vlog was incredibly successful I'm out of my reading slump I'm out of it she's gone she's in the past we're only moving forward I don't know the woman and on the whole we had a really successful video with two five stars thank you to everyone who recommended these to me I had such great fun reading these let me know down in the comments what your favorite reads of the year so far have been and if you've gone to the end because this has been a long ass video comment like a house emoji the house from serenity and yeah I hope you've enjoyed this vlog and I'll see you very soon another one bye