 So another year has come and gone, and with that, a lot of life's inevitabilities have passed us by. Things like death, taxes, elections, and the rising tide of fascism have all just passed right by weirdly quick, at least in my opinion, weirdly quick. And we don't want to think about that. We want to escape that through the medium of books. So this is, I think, the third year in a row I've done this. Just let's look back at everything I read this year. Let's talk about the best stuff, the worst stuff, the weirdest, the stupidest. Just give a nice little recap. Let's let's see what's been going on. And as a reminder, this is stuff that I read this year, not stuff that was released this year necessarily, because I think out of all the like 60 plus books I read this year, I think one or two of them came out this year is, I don't know, I don't read stuff as it comes out very often. Starting off, let's talk about the biggest disappointment I read this year, and that was the dinosaur lords. Now, let me be clear, I actually like the dinosaur lords. I think it's a very good series. You can watch my review of it if you haven't already. But I, it doesn't have an ending is the main thing. You know, the author planned for there to be six books and he died after writing the first three. So I got really into the story and then found out right at the end that, oh, there's never going to be more. So I'm left with all these lingering questions, you know, like, it's, it's a real shame, you know, because it's basically just epic fantasy, but with dinosaurs, you know, it's a low fantasy setting, or at least it seems so at first. So there's not that much magic. It is mostly just people with medieval technology. And then they incorporate dinosaurs into the everyday life and into agriculture and into warfare and things like that. And it's really, really cool and really interesting. And the characters are fun. The world is fun. It's just, it's a great series. And I was very, very disappointed to know that I will never get to see how these characters end up and I will never get to find out the answers to all of the questions about the nature of paradise. It's unfortunate, but it did happen. The best pleasant surprise I read this year was Guards of the Shadowlands. Now, again, you can watch my review of this if you're curious. This one I really did not expect much from, you know, like I read a lot of audiobooks or listen to a lot of audiobooks, I should say, because I'm just, you know, driving a lot and I need something to occupy my mind while that's happening. And I also, you know, have to pay attention to the road, so I tend not to go for complicated stuff while I'm... or complicated stuff for audiobooks, I should say. And that unfortunately means I have listened to a whole bunch of young adult stuff this year, which I'm gonna have to try and change next year. And Guards of the Shadowlands was one of those, you know, it just looked like something simple and short that I might think is fine when I was done with it, but actually wound up being really good, because it's a story about basically this girl whose friend commits suicide and winds up going to hell and she knows that she's in hell because she also attempted suicide at some point earlier and so now she can actually see into the underworld kind of and she decides, you know what, I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna rescue my friend. And that is basically what happens. The whole thing winds up being a weird metaphor for, not just for depression and why people commit suicide in the first place, but more of a metaphor for helping your loved ones through mental problems, like whether they're depressed or they're an alcoholic or they have anxiety or anything like that. And I really liked the way that was done and I really liked the message that it eventually got to. And obviously we see the main character like fighting demons and stuff, which is a lot of fun. And then the series does get worse in the second and third books because, well, to put it bluntly, the story just gets a lot more unfocused and kind of repetitive, but it's never terrible. You know, even in the latter half of the final book when I was just begging for things to hurry up and end because it was really stretched out, I still enjoyed myself and I wasn't expecting anything from this. So to go into it and just think, yeah, that was pretty good. That was a very pleasant surprise. The best non-fiction I read this year was The Bronze Lie by Mike Cole. And this one is pretty simple in concept. It's basically the whole idea that Sparta was this, you know, unparalleled military force in the ancient world. And the whole book is just saying, no, that's not true. In fact, it's complete bullshit. The Spartans lost a lot. Like they lost more than they won, quite frankly. Like their most famous engagement was at Thermopylae. Guess what? They fucking lost. And the Spartans didn't even make up a majority of the force there, despite what George Miller and Zack Snyder would have you believe. And don't get me wrong, I like the movie 300, but it's not true. It's not real. Like they lost that. They lost most of the engagements against Athens and their allies during the Peloponnesian war. They lost most of their battles in the Archaic period, like way before we have good written records. They lost to Thebes after the Peloponnesian war, and then they lost to Rome and whoever else afterwards. Like they just weren't that good at war, and the whole thing is propaganda. And I know many of you are sitting there like feeling rage, building at the base of your skull and trying to say, actually, it's not true. But where's your actual evidence of that? Like you can actually look at the records of all the battles Spartans fought in. They lost a lot. And all you have are like half remembered anecdotes from internet comments and stuff. Like that's where the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy comes from, really. But anyways, yeah, the bronze lie, it was a little verbose at times, but not that hard to get into for a history book. If you're interested in the subject, I would recommend checking it out. It's a good one. The most popular book I read and reviewed this year that I've never really seen anyone else talk about is The Chemists. And this one I talked about before was, it's written by Stephanie Meyer who wrote the Twilight books, and it was written after she was already really famous. So I'm not sure why it just didn't take off at all. I think it might just be because it's not really in the genre she's known for. You know, it's a spy thriller. It takes place in the real world. There's no magical or supernatural elements or anything. And yeah, there is a weird romance in there, but it's not the focus of the story. And it especially doesn't seem like it would be the focus of the story based on the summary, so anyone looking for a romance wouldn't really be reading this in the first place. So it's just, I don't know, it's just odd that it's in this position. You know, it's not even like the worst book ever. It's not very good, but it's not even the worst book ever or all that strange or anything. It's just strange how a lot of people have apparently read it. It was a bestseller. It has a lot of ratings and reviews on Goodreads and stuff, but just no one's ever talked about it except me. It's odd. The funniest book series I read this year was The Immortals, aka Evermore. And man, I'm sorry. This is the second video in a row where I've talked about Evermore, and I haven't quite finished it yet, so I haven't gotten to make the whole big video about it. I'm hoping to either get that put together in late December or early January, and then it should be released sometime in January either way. But I don't know, I'm almost done. But man, this is another one of those Twilight ripoffs that came out in the early aughts and the late aughts in the early 2010s. And it's just so bad in every way, but it's bad in like a crazy fun way. Like, the basic idea behind it is that the main character ever, her name is Everbloom by the way, that's her actual name, and her boyfriend is named Damon August. These names are amazing. But the whole thing is that Damon is immortal and over the past couple hundred years, ever keeps being reincarnated and then dying before he and her can be together. And you might recognize this as the exact same plot that was in Fallen and Elixir, which I've already talked about. And Evermore came out first though, out of all these. And it's just beautiful. But like, to give you an idea of just how freaking stupid this gets, the main conflict of the entire series for several books is that the two main characters cannot have sex. Like, they get a curse put on them so that Damon will die if the two of them bone. That's, I'm not making that up at all. So they just have to try and find ways around that, including like, magical full body condoms and stuff. It's, it's beautiful. It's a mess. And it's beautiful. Like, I just cannot wait to talk to you guys about it more, or talk about it with you guys more. But, oh god, it's amazing. It's the funniest thing I've read this year by far. And it was not intended to be funny at all. The worst romance I read this year, and keep in mind this is not the worst romance book I read this year, but the worst romance in any genre is Ever and Damon from Evermore. And man, I can't, I can't go into a whole lot of detail about that again, because it would just take a long time. But they're both kind of awful people who don't spend much time thinking about how their actions affect other people around them, including each other. Like, they're manipulative to each other. Damon, like a lot of love interest in this genre for some fucking reason, is just possessive and borderline abusive to Ever. He kind of sort of makes her immortal against her will and keeps her away from her family. It's, oh god, it is a mess. They're horrible people. Like, it's, no, it's the worst romance I read this year. That's all. The runner up for the worst romance I read this year would be Eden and Bramford from Save the Pearls. Now, I'll get more into Save the Pearls later in this video, don't worry. And I already spent two and a half hours going over it. But man, just like Ever and Damon, they are fucking horrible people both on their own merits and to each other. Like, Bramford at one point straight up locks her in a cell because he wants to prevent her from making trouble, which is just super romantic, I guess. Ever hates him and then she loves him and then she hates him and then she loves him for no real reason. Like, they don't know each other all that well other than him being her boss at the beginning of the series. And I can't even explain it. It's just literally from paragraph to paragraph she will change whether she is in love with him or whether she hates him more than she'll ever know. And the only reason she winds up really liking him and eventually getting married to him is because she has like a weird fetish for black people and then he turns himself into a furry and she also is a furry apparently. It's like, it's dumb, okay? Like, I don't know if I would use the word toxic exactly to describe it because I don't know if that's the most accurate thing because they're both just insane assholes and in a weird way they kind of deserve each other. The best romance I read this year was Hunter and Kate from the Elemental series specifically from Spirit which is the third book in the series because Kate is only in that one book. And the thing about this is they aren't the main pairing so they do not get all that much screen time and not as much as they deserve in my opinion really but they are both kind of bad people, right? Like when we meet them they've both done some bad things in their past and they continue to do some crappy things as we go along in the story but both of them also are trying to change and trying to be better and they both inspire each other to be better and it just feels really natural that they would start developing feelings for one another and it unfortunately they do not get a happy ending and it kind of sucks. I don't want to go too deep into spoilers or anything but they unfortunately do not get a happy ending but it works out well. I don't have a whole lot else to say about it but they are just the best romance I read this year because they're very genuine and they make each other better people. The best pet in a book I read this year is She-Ra from the Dinosaur Lords. Now again in the Dinosaur Lords people use dinosaurs and warfare and stuff and the not quite protagonist of the series but the closest thing to a protagonist the series has is named Kareel and he has a pet Allosaurus that he rides into battle and her name is She-Ra and She-Ra is such a she's just a good girl okay I can't I can't help it she's we see things from her perspective several times and she's an intelligent animal she's about as smart as a dog you know and she's very well trained you know she does not attack people unless she's told to uh she goes into battle trying to protect her master and trying to protect other people and she will die for them she will sacrifice herself for them but she also will not take any shit from people who don't deserve it like from other dinosaurs or from people who try to kill her or try to kill her master or anything like that and she also has this really great rivalry with a T-Rex who betrays them near the beginning it's it's hard to explain but like watching her hate him and then eventually fight him more and more is just it's great She-Ra She-Ra's a good girl I wish we got more of her the book I read this year that makes me wonder the most why it exists is Zabiba and the King by Saddam Hussein you didn't mishear that Saddam Hussein wrote a romance novel while he was president of Iraq and it got published I could go into a bit more detail about like what exactly happens in the story and everything but that's not that important I just tell you the basic idea of Saddam Hussein wrote a romance novel and that's why I'm wondering why the hell does this exist this uh this is a thing okay and that that's about all I have to say about it for now the most boring climax I read this year was in Unearthly or more specifically in the last book in the series which is boundless and uh yeah there's not a lot to say about that like main character's friends gets kidnapped and taken to hell or not really kidnapped she kind of voluntarily went there it's stupid uh and then they just sort of stab a fallen angel with like a sword made of God's grace it's like a friendship blade basically and they stab him excuse me and he just immediately decides he doesn't want to be evil anymore and he also goes back up to heaven because his sins have been cleansed which it seems like an easy way out of your sins I gotta be honest like especially considering he's a several thousand-year-old fallen angel who's been torturing people in hell for millennia whatever it's okay whatever it's like the whole climax is over very very quickly too like it's not built up to it happens very quickly and the events themselves are not very satisfying they just sort of stab this dude and then all their problems are solved it's a not a good way to handle the ending to your series like a climax doesn't necessarily need to be action packed but it does need to be the most emotionally resonant part of the story and if it's like a romance or something it could be you know that cliche of oh driving to the airport before they leave forever to tell them that you love them or the characters finally get married or something like that but it can't be this the best fantasy series I read this year was del Torah quest and I know what you might be thinking like James this was written for kids how could it be that great well so was the Hobbit and the Chronicles of Narnia and those are all fantastic books that have stuck around for decades because they have something for people of all ages and del Torah quest does too it's a very well it seems like a very simple story at first and in broad strokes it is it's basically just heroes go from place to place to collect all the gems for the belt of del Torah so that they can use it to get rid of the evil dark lord who has invaded and corrupted their land like it's it's pretty good and watching them go along this journey and get to know each other better and rely on each other is great and most of the time when they get in the trouble they don't just fight their way out of it they have to think their way out of it and there's a bunch of puzzles and stuff that you as a reader can actually stop and look at it and try and solve yourself if you feel like it it's it's really great for kids and then near the end the story does get a bit more complex and there are some good twists and turns and the characters become much deeper than they initially seemed it's like it's just a great read you know like if you're looking for something to read to your kids that you also would enjoy i would say check that out and if you remember seeing it when you were younger but you never got around to it like which is what i did then i'd recommend going for it you know they're short books and they go by quick the worst fantasy i read this year by far bar none not even a contest is the fifth sorceress i mean like look i spent three hours complaining about this series a while ago like they're everything bad that you can imagine in an epic fantasy story is in here you have inbreeding you have villains that self sabotage you have a main character who's like whiny and annoying and goes oh i don't want to be a prince i don't want to have responsibilities but he's also like the best at everything you're the greatest sword fighter ever and all the ladies are just constantly trying to have sex with him because he's just such a chad and he's an idiot as well and then we have nonsensical magic and villain plans that don't make sense like it's just it's painful it's dumb there are very few things in there that are any good and there are very few things in there that even seem like they have potential to be good the fifth sorceress has been out for what 20 years now and it's become infamous as one of the worst epic fantasy ever written in that time period and for good reason it's terrible there's almost nothing good here to talk about and the runner up for the worst fantasy i read this year would be light lark now light lark is again somewhat infamous but it's also much more recent it only came out a few months ago and if i had to describe it it's basically just the hunger games except it takes place in a fantasy world and also it's bad like you know the hunger games worked because it kept like the rules of the contest simple you know there's 24 people go in one of you gets to leave do what you will you know like just kill each other try not to die try not to starve because they're in the wilderness you know it's pretty simple whereas light lark has all these Byzantine rules which don't really make any sense and it doesn't seem all that deadly to be honest because most people who have participated in the contest before haven't died and even outside that the world doesn't make any sense like it's just way too chipper and happy even when it's trying to be darker and edgier uh the powers and curses don't really make sense because like every kingdom has a unique set of powers that they can use but that every kingdom also has a curse that they have to live with and to give you an idea of just how dumb these get the skylings their powers that they can fly and their curses that they can't fly it's it's dumb like and the story is obviously not that great the characters are somehow less than two-dimensional it's like it's it's not good like it's not as bad as the fifth sorceress and hell i wouldn't even say it's as bad as a lot of people are saying but that might just be because i do see some potential and some of these ideas that are brought up it's just it's a mess like i i feel as if if the author had gotten a better editor or maybe just listened to the one she had then we might have gotten a decent middle grade fantasy or something but as it stands right now light lark is just it's pretty bad it's not like offensively bad it doesn't make me angry with how bad it is the way the fifth sorceress does but it's just not good the book this year that i did not actually read but i know i should have gotten to is the lost medal i know i know like but by the time this video comes out i will probably have at least started on the lost medal but it's just i i haven't gotten around to it you know i have other stuff i'm trying to read like i said evermore i'm trying to get through and i know i'm sorry i'll get to it the series i read this year that i just wonder why did i do this uh is matched it's not even that matches like the worst thing i read this year it's just why you know why why did i bother doing that to myself like again it's an audiobook because i just go through a bunch of those while i'm driving all the time but uh why i i don't get it like it's not even the worst thing ever it's just why why i don't know the dumbest twist i read this year is from 172 hours on the moon and um oh boy let me tell you like that story is basically just about a couple of teenagers who win a contest uh so that they can go to the moon you know they they get to go there on a manned mission and hang out in a moon base for a while and stuff and it sounds like a lot of fun but it's also hinted from early on that there is some nefarious stuff going on or mysterious dangerous stuff going on on the moon and it's just not a good book uh one of the problems is that they don't even reach the moon until more than halfway through and then once they're there the supernatural occurrences start happening and it's a little spooky it's a little creepy i'll give it that but then like the big twist is that the moon is hell like like literally like that's where the souls of the damned go like if you've sinned a whole bunch in your life then when you die you go to the moon and so there's demons and shit on the moon it's dumb i hated it just no no no just it's the dumbest thing i read this year or dumbest twist i read this year i should say the book series i read this year that is the most like okay i guess and by that i mean i finished it and i look back on it and i go yeah that was okay i guess like it is fine it elicits no strong reactions at all is under the never sky uh take a wild guess again audiobooks i just was looking for something to get through and originally i was actually planning on doing some sort of comparison between this and breathe because those are both series that came out around the same time and had very similar setups but under the never sky number one turned out to be a bit different than i anticipated and number two there's just i have like nothing to say about it like everything in there is just kind of fine you know characters dialogue the story itself the world building the setup it's just fine you know and there's no deeper way to explore that really like the the only thing i remember kind of liking all throughout the series was the main romance and even then um that's not featured as much in the second and third book as in the first so yeah i just i have nothing to say it like i look back on under the never sky and i go yeah that's that's that's okay i guess the most useless magical creatures i read about this year are the gnomes from the fifth sorceress like if you've read this you know what i'm talking about like their whole job is to just guard this one little hidden forest area which is also where they live and they can't do that like both before the story begins they fail a whole bunch and people break in there when the heroes show up pretty early on they fail to keep them out but i mean it's fine because they're the heroes and they don't want to hurt anybody and then later villains keep coming in and attacking them and the gnomes are just they just suck at what they're doing like even though they try to act like they're these powerful guards that will keep any intruders out so like they just they just can't do it they're useless and they don't even have any other skills like they don't tell the characters any useful information they don't uh help help them in their quest in any other way by like sneaking into areas and doing anything like there's no they're useless they do nothing all right we're near the end so now i can just talk about the worst book series i read this year should be no surprise if you follow me closely it saved the pearls man like god there is just nothing here that is good everything about it is terrible and is either annoying or makes me angry like it's a trend chaser it's riddled with grammatical errors the world it takes place in is dumb and doesn't make any sense either scientifically or within this book's own internal logic it doesn't it's just nothing about it fits together the way it should the characters are all dicks like i touched upon this a little bit earlier with eden and bramford but they're just awful people both to each other and to everyone else like there's a point near the end of the first book where eden just sends out the location of this hidden village to the world and then soldiers come in and attack it and then in the next book they all have to evacuate and move somewhere else like and at no point does anyone bring up that this is eden's fault like she's the one that did this to them and no one ever calls her out on it or anything uh bramford like i said he keeps secrets from her he locks her in an actual cell at one point uh he's semi-abusive towards his son but it's he says it's for his own good uh he's obsessed with his ex-wife even while he's now in a new relationship uh and then eden's father like experiments on her against her will and things like that like every character in this is just an asshole and then the story is just it's just complete nonsense like it starts off as like okay there's this horrible government that the characters need to work against and you think that's what it's going to be about and then they just escape into the jungle and there's kind of hanging out there without much real conflict other than eden and bramford slowly falling in love although i don't know if that's even really considered a conflict because it's just the two of them getting closer uh i should put quotes around the word closer because again it's a terrible romance but and then in the second book eden decides she wants to become a furry and she wants to turn everyone in the world into furries in order to get rid of racism and also she's an aztec god and if she can take her place as an aztec god it can bring balance to the world and it will no longer be destroyed like it is just fucking nonsense man like nothing here is good and i haven't even touched on the racism which is the main thing people talk about when they talk about this series for good reason it is extraordinarily racist but the thing is when everyone is talking about that all the time and like that's the main thing they focus on people tend to forget just how shit it is outside of that like it's not as if uh if you removed all the weird racial stuff the story would suddenly be good it wouldn't be it would still be shit so for that reason yeah save the pearls is the worst series i read this year it didn't actually get an ending uh like the author just never published the third book even though it was planned and part of me is kind of curious to see where it would go because these were you know kind of funny at a few points just because of again how freaking bonkers and off the rails they got uh but at the same time i'm just i'm glad it's done and i'm glad i didn't have to go through another 300 pages of that shit the best book i read this year was the dinosaur knights and that's the second book in the dinosaur lord series like i wanted to single this one out because of the half of a series that we got is the best one by far it wraps up the original story arc of the characters just trying to protect this one area and then the villains being you know this massive kingdom that wants to just come in and cleanse everyone because they're heretics uh and we also finally get introduced to the gray angels who seem like they were going to be the main villains of the series because they just want to wipe out all of humanity and we see them in action and we're like holy shit these things are scary and we see them raise these entire armies and it's also a weird uh play on the zombie apocalypse trope because the gray angels can how do i put this brainwash people i guess you'd say uh but the thing is they keep all their mental faculties they can still think and talk and problem solve and everything they are just so fanatically devoted to the gray angels and to uh performing this crusade and cleansing the world of heresy that they will come at you with their bare hands or with a weapon or whatever and you you have to kill them beforehand like you can cut them in half and they will crawl on the ground towards you and keep going so it's like a you know it's a swarm of zombies almost when you fight them except these zombies can still think and still use weapons and stuff so it's it's an interesting take on it and you see how the religious fanaticism of this world works and you can see some of the dangers of real world religious fanaticism and the character arcs don't exactly wrap up but several of them move forward in very satisfying ways like it's just a perfectly paced story we see more of the world it's it's great and i wish it was in a series that got to be completed maybe it would be the best part of it maybe it wouldn't be maybe it would get even better later on i don't know but i do have to say the bit the best like single book i read this year was the dinosaur nets and that is the end of another video which marks the end of another year or maybe this will come out the beginning of january i'm not totally sure but you know i just uh i didn't have a long speech or anything to go through this year you know i just wanted to thank all of you for sticking with me this whole time through uh if you are new this year then welcome i'm glad you found me if you've been around for a while then i'm glad you stuck with me and to those who have left over the time over the past 12 months or even before that i mean i don't hold any hard feelings you know sometimes my content changes and it's just not what you're looking for anymore sometimes you change and i'm just not what you're looking for anymore and that's fine you know i'm glad we had that time together i'm glad you decided to spend some of your finite amount of time on this earth watching whatever nonsense it is that i put out i never intended for youtube to be my career like it was my main job for a couple of years but now i have like an actual one and this is more just a hobby that i do that also i happen to get paid for and i i always wanted for that to be the case you know i i was never planning to be a professional youtuber or anything it just sort of fell in my lap and i don't want to be for a couple of reasons but the biggest one being that a lot of youtubers just wind up chasing trends and they wind up telling their audience what they want to hear uh even if they're not consciously aware of it that's just what they do because you know that's what gets more engagements that would that's what gets more views that's what gets more subscribers and it's especially noticeable with like political abundance and stuff but it happens to the best of us at least sometimes and i didn't want that to happen to me you know i just want to put out the stuff that i enjoy making because if i'm just putting stuff out just to chase the algorithm or just to chase trends or something then it just becomes work you know it's it's regular work it's no longer fun which is why i started doing it in the first place and i never want to reach that point you know i i am disappointed when stuff i put out doesn't do super well obviously but it's not the end of the world you know my livelihood doesn't really depend on it so i can just put out whatever weird topics or weird things i've been thinking about lately and yeah i don't know i'm just i'm glad all of you could be here uh i hope that your year went well for you it as good if not better than mine and i hope next year treats you well too and i will see all of you in 2023 goodbye huge thanks to everyone who watched this whole thing all of my nonsense that i put out there it's appreciated uh and a huge thanks to all my patrons as well especially my ten dollar and up patrons whose names are oppo savelain and olivia rayon brother santotes buffy valentine carolina clay dan anceliovich dark king deo echo flax great grebo johnny st clare karkat kitsune liza rudakova lord tiebreaker microphone mist boy peep the toad robbie reviews sad martigan sillier the vixen stone stairs tesla shark vivictus and wezzley and of course everyone else whose names you see here uh if you want to get your name put on here consider becoming a patron and if you don't feel like doing that you can also like be a channel member or just like the video and subscribe you know share share it around help help more people see my genius i'm not appreciated enough uh anyways uh see you later bye