 This is what I need a kick up the bat to read. Now that's bullying. Hi friends, I hope you're doing well. I hope you're keeping yourself well. Today, we are going to be talking about the 21 books I want to read before I turn 21. I still don't think I'm 20. I'm in my 20s. In what world? Okay, and what do you want me to do about that? And then the other day, we'll spur this video on. My mum was like, Megan, it's not that long until you're 21. I mean, it's about six or seven months. So like, it's a fair amount of time. And that got me thinking, I want to make this video and I want it to be something I hold myself to account on that I tried to make sure that I read all these books by the time I'm 21, because in my head, these are all the books that I'm like, I'm going to read you soon. But they are also books that I keep putting off. We're going to go through it in four categories, no, five categories. We're going to do Young Adult because there's not many young adult because typically I will read Young Adult very quickly. It's not something that I put off. And then we'll go classics, then we'll go nonfiction, then we'll go adult because I've got a lot of adult. And then we'll go through the audiobooks last that I want to get round to. Oh, it's green. Okay, hang on. Let's start actually talking. We met. Yes, sister. The first book that I definitely want to read before I'm 21 is Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie Macklemore. Kayla for Books and Lala, AKA the only person I get any actual book recommendations from, loves Anna-Marie Macklemore. And she told me that this would be the best place to start in terms of her book. So it's the first one I've ever owned. I keep looking at it and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to read you soon. I don't know much about this particular one, but I feel like that's kind of how I want to go into all of their books. I just want to be shocked and amazed by the world that is built. So this is definitely one that has to happen soon. Next on my list is Six of Crows and Cookie Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. It's me again, bitch. Hello, you damn rock. I've had these for months and I haven't gotten around to them. I mean, to be fair, I was reading the original Shadow and Bone trilogy first. Now that mess is out of the way, but I'm holding high hopes for these two. So this is a series, a duology in fact, where we follow Kaz Bracker and his group of individuals as they try to commit a heist into the Grush of Earth. That's all I really know. I loved So Deeply, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. It was the first book I ever read by her and it's a book that I forced upon all my family and friends. These are the two that are most popular from her. I'm really excited to get around to them. That's all the YA I have on the list because like I said, YA is something that I get around to fairly quickly. The other stuff on this list is like me trying to force myself to read these because I know that these could sit on my shelves for months. I feel like we should get into classics next because those are the ones that have everything that I'm really gonna put off. So first I have two of the Penguin Coughbound editions. I'm hoping to collect these in the long term. I have three currently. I haven't read a single one of them. So first is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Women. I bought this straight after watching the film many moons ago, many months ago. I loved the film so, so much. I've watched it twice now. I am hoping I keep trying to force my mom to watch YA but she's just not interested. Like Jenny, you'll love it. Listen to me. You'll love it. I hope you can hear me downstairs. My Little Women, I'm sure you know, is about four sisters. I think it's set during and after the American Civil War and it's kind of them from childhood into adulthood and figuring themselves out, figuring what it is to be a woman in the time that they're living. And something I love so much about the film is how it incorporated real life. So like how Joe is very much married on Louisa May Alcott and how Louisa May Alcott never wanted Joe to marry. I love the film so it really should not take me long to get around to this. Then next is another Coughbound edition. I love Sherlock Holmes. I've seen some discourse recently. Someone was saying how elementary is better than Sherlock. Stop inflicting your opinions on the world. I was forced to watch elementary occasionally because my dad loves it. It ain't, it ain't, it ain't. Nothing is as good as the BBC Sherlock. I'm sorry, you cannot convince me otherwise. So I really wanted to get into reading Sherlock. A lot of people said this was a good place to start because I believe it's like a series of shorter stories of them. Trouble the bound and solving mysteries. I'm a bit nervous though because I have been reading Agatha Christie's books very slowly on audiobook and reading the Hercule Parole series chronologically like in terms of when the book was published. And I've just been reading kind of the equivalent of this I guess, like the short story collection. And I'm not enjoying it as much as the one book mystery. So I'm a bit nervous about this now but I'm gonna read it and then I'll get around to more of kind of like the longer stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. Next is Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. My most viewed video on my channel is the one where I go and visit a lot of independent bookstores. And in that I visit Persephone Books which is a bookstore which publishes out of print women's fiction. And this was one of the ones I picked up in Persephone Books. I have another one as well but I don't think I'm gonna read that before I'm 21 if I'm honest with myself. Whereas there's a chance if I, I'll read it. Tom, my boyfriend picked this one out because he was like, maybe that just sounds so interesting. You have to get it. I was like, okay. There's about a woman who lives I think quite a mundane life day to day and then she has this crazy day where she lives this amazing life and it's a film as well. I didn't know it was a film. But I mean, as a classic goes it's only just over 200 pages and there's quite a lot of illustrations throughout the book as well. So I chose this because it is both me ticking one of my Persephone Books off the list but also not too intimidating as classics go. And then the last classic I wanna make sure I get to I was gonna say Daphne by Rebecca DeMaurier. It's Rebecca by Daphne DeMaurier. All I know about this is that it's a woman marries a guy moves into his richest house and she's haunted by the phantom of his beautiful worst first wife Rebecca. I've heard so many good things about this. It's a beautiful addition we have as well. This isn't even mine. This is my mom's. I don't know where Jenny got it from. This has been on my TBR for the longest. It's been sitting on my shelves down here for the longest and quite frankly, like it's just no longer good enough that I haven't read this book. So next let's talk about nonfiction. I've got four nonfiction books here. I wanna read more nonfiction as it is. I've felt a lot of pressure to read loads of fiction and to not read nonfiction during my time here on BookTube. I wanna be reading a lot more nonfiction than these four however leads to the four that I have on my shelves currently that really, really excite me. First is Not That Bad by Roxane Gay. So I've recently read Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay and I was obsessed with it. She is so incredible. And this is Dispatches from Rape Culture. So it's a lot of women coming together to share their experiences with rape and rape culture. I admire Roxane Gay so much and the difficult topics that she covers and the manner in which she covers them. I feel like I know that it's gonna be a really hard read but it's a necessary read. The next is Forgotten Women the Leaders by Jing Sheng. So this is part of a series of Forgotten Women. It is accompanied, each woman is accompanied with these brilliant artworks that are just like so beautiful. It is taking you through the story of all of these Forgotten Women that history has eradicated. I mean, that's one of my favorite illustrations in it. This book is very diverse in terms of the women that it's covering. It's women from all over the world and also the time periods in which it's covering. This one in particular, the Leaders is split into five sections which are the rebels, the warriors, the rulers, the activists and the reformers. I have a bit of weird obsession with like women's history. Lindsay Holiday. Lindsay Holiday is this history channel on YouTube and listen, I know this probably ain't always the most accurate. It's a very quick history often but I just love her content. She has just put out. I just saw my watch later as Royal Wedding, Middle Ages to Enlightenment. Very interesting. She just did a series on childbirth. Next is I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. So this is about one woman's search for the Golden State killer, I believe. And it is all of the material that she covered in trying to track this individual down. I believe that they were caught but after she died, the author actually died. And so this is kind of like a collation of all of her work. I love True Crime. I'm a big Buzzfeed Unsolved nerd. Me and Tom love watching True Crime shows, True Crime documentaries on Netflix. Oh, I live for it. So this is exactly up my street. And then lastly is The Five by Halle Rubinhold. So this is about the five women who were killed by Jack the Ripper and it's telling their story. It's bringing their lives to light. These women are so often forgotten when discussing Jack the Ripper and it's so important that their lives are shown as the vibrant, complex things they are rather than just being a statistic or just a name. Like I said, there's something about learning about forgotten women because our history is so often biased towards forgetting women and towards not remembering women for the wonderful things they did or just even for the tragedy they faced. These women are not remembered in their own story and I think that's so sad. So The Five again is one I'm hoping to get to soon. And then the next category we got to get into or joking, not another one. Oh, for God's sake, I can't honestly, I can't stand it. Is adult. So like I said, adult just tends to be something I put off and put off much more than YA. I don't know why because I enjoy adult just as much but I suppose because I do weekly themed vlogs, sometimes it's just easier to get the YA out of the way if I'm really honest with myself. First, this is an important one. This is really important, is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstin. So if you know me, you know how much I adored the style of C. It's one of my favorite books ever. It's one of the few books that has given me that like, oh my God, this is incredible feeling, you know? And so it's only right that I read The Night Circus but I am so scared. I'm so scared I'm not gonna like it. All I know about this is that it's about two like magicians at this circus who like battle against each other but they don't know they're in a battle and they start falling in love. And all, I mean, I was gonna say all of Erin Morgenstin's books. I've read one. So obviously I'm very authoritative on the situation but her style is very whimsical, but complex and confused and you don't always know what's going on. This is when I need a kick up the bat to read. Now that's bullying. Did you see that? Next is The Poppy Roar by R.F. Quang. So this is a fantasy and I honestly don't know too much about the plot at all. However, I keep seeing people who I have similar reading tastes to love this and it's one of those books that even though it came out a little while ago I'm seeing still a lot of people read it and love it. My dad has read this and loved it. I didn't actually buy this. He bought it. I pressured him into buying it. I was like, dad, that really looks like something you'd enjoy. Having heard a lot about it myself, I'm wanting to read it. I think the last book in the series is gonna come out soon. So this is one that I definitely need to get on and I need to start the series and finish the series because I'm really bad at buying the first book in a series but not even starting the series. Some people start the series and just never carry on but I don't even start it. I just buy the book. Considering that people in my life have loved this, people with similar reading tastes have loved it, I think I'm gonna love it too. I just need to get around to it. Then next is No Exit by Taylor Adams. So this is a thriller where a girl is stuck at this service station in a snowstorm. She goes outside for a moment and sees a girl tied up in one of the vans of the people she is stuck at the service station with and it's her trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I love thrillers. I'm constantly wanting to read more thrillers but I try to keep an eclectic reading taste. I try not to keep it all thrillers but this is one of the books I am most excited to read. I have all the books I own. I think this is gonna be a five star. However, I keep putting it off for some reason. I was so desperate to get this for my birthday, for my 20th and I still haven't read it. How do you think that makes me feel right now? Then next are Half of the Yellow Sun and Americana by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I have only these for the longest. I bought them at a great secondhand store near me and I was like, oh, I'm gonna read them straight away. However, I just find them intimidating. I think it's the length and the font size. Font is very small. I've read some of her nonfiction and I've watched a lot of her speeches and she's someone I admire so much and who's writing and just way of, this isn't so stupid but I feel like writing and the way you use language are different things. Sometimes just the way someone utilizes the language is one of the most beautiful things ever and that's how I feel about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I don't know if that sounds stupid but both of these are ones I want to get to. Next is one that I put on the list to really challenge myself and I'm honestly terrified. There is Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantle. This is following Thomas Cromwell, I believe and his story and the Tudor Corps. I love Tudors. I was such a hoe for Tudor and Victorian history in primary school but this book is long. I don't think it shows how long it is but it's like, it's over 600 pages. This is so big, it's mind-boggling. And that's just so intimidating to me. As someone who feels a lot of pressure to read a lot of books, this is just something I never end up picking up and then the last adult book I definitely want to read is If We Were Villains by ML Rio but this I think is themed or thought or heavily inspired by the secret history which is one of my favorite books ever. It's a book that got me back into reading and so when I hear people describe this, I just think, well, I have no choice but to love it but again, I keep putting it off. I want to do a video where I reread the secret history and then read this or maybe go around. Let me know down below which way around you think I should do it because I'm not entirely sure. Again, one of the books I've been like, oh my God, I'm so excited to read that for the longest and then just haven't read it. So the last three books are all books that I really want to read on a script. The first book is Black Go Unlimited by Echo Brown. So this is narrated by the author, which I love. I love when the author narrates the orgy book. I feel like it just brings a whole another dimension to the book and makes it so much more exciting to read. I think this is about a girl who kind of has magic but kind of doesn't and you don't really ever know whether she is magical or not. I could be completely wrong and it's about her discovering her magical powers but it's very set in our world. I don't know, it just sounds really interesting to me. I also really want to get to this time will be different by Misa Seguria. So this sounds like a really hard hitting YA contemporary but something that also has like a bit of lightness to it. So I believe it's set in a flower shop. The girl works at like the family flower shop but then her mom I believe wants to sell the shop to the family that actually cost them those money. I think it was her grandparents. They swindled her grandparents out of loads of money and so she really feels like she has to fight against this happening. And I just really feel like I want to read some more heavy hitting YA contemporaries and this is just one that really excites me every time I see the cover and see the book. So that is another one I want to get round to. And then lastly, this may surprise many people but the last audiobook and the last book I want to read by M21 is The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. So it's shocking. I've never read The Hate You Give. I think like around the time it was popular in Booktube and stuff and when the book came out I wasn't reading. I only really started reading again last year. So I think I just missed the wave of when I would have read it and then I've just been intimidated to get to it ever since because everyone else has read it and I haven't, but it's time. It's time to read it. I'm ready, I'm ready. No you ain't. And I just keeps getting around it because I'm like what if I hate it? That is the 21 books. They are all stacked up around here. The 21 books I want to make sure I read by M21. Please hold me to account. If you see me reading all my other books be like Megan. Remember these. Thank you so much as always for watching my video. I'm so thankful for all the support I have on here. Let me know what are some of the books that you want to read are before your next birthday. I'd love to know what books you're really hoping that you get to and I will see you very, very soon. Bye.