 Hello, hello, everyone. My name is Laura. This is my channel Laura's Little Library, and welcome to today's video, which are all the five stars I've read so far this year in 2023. Pretty good reading year. I've been reading quite a few books, and I've been enjoying a lot of the books I've been reading. And so I was curious how many five stars I had read. And I went back and there was actually quite a few five star books that I've read. So I thought, you know, we're a quarter of the way through the year. That's kind of crazy. So I thought I'd go back and see all the five star books that I've read in the first quarter of 2023. So starting in January, I had four five star reads in January, which was pretty amazing. So the first one is the only one I don't own. And it is one I do want to get soon ish. And that is Saint by Adrian Young. This is like a prequel to the fable and namesake duology. So it follows the same world. It follows the father figure saint of the main character fable in that duology. And I have a lot of expectations going into this just because of how much I loved the duology. The duology was five stars for me last year and Saint had just come out in November. And I mean, I wasn't super attached to the character in the original duology. But the idea, the idea that he would have his own book got me very intrigued and quite excited. And it definitely lives up to it. You got the backstory and it was just the same amazing writing and had really all the same elements that I loved in the initial duology. But following a different character and with, you know, different personalities and everything like that. So I had so much fun reading it. It was a great summer read in January. Then I also read Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldry. This was an easy five stars cozy fantasy. Everyone's been talking about it on booktube. It is the perfect like autumn winter cozy up snuggle read. I like to describe it as a Dungeons and Dragons love letter to coffee because that's really what it is. It's this half orc decides to retire from adventuring and open up a cafe like what's expressed on everything like that. I loved it. Everything about it was perfect. So how could I not give it five out of five stars? This next one tore my heart out. I gave it five out of five stars because I couldn't imagine it being anything else. It was either five out of five or no rating and that was The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. So going into this, I was pretty intimidated because it's a very thick World War II historical fiction. There are a lot of World War II historical fictions out there and this one is a bit of a chunk. So I was kind of like on edge about it and I was like half intrigued by the premise. I had it on my wishlist. It was gifted to me and then my mom told me that she read it and she loved it. So I was like okay I have to pick it up. I have to give it a try and this made me cry and it really hit me hard in the feels. Yeah like just one character in this book and everything that she goes through and what she does with it just blew me away, kept me entertained. It did not feel very long. I was constantly wanting to keep listening to it, keep reading it, keep going. I didn't want to put it down and you know when a thick book is like that for me it's amazing. So I was so happy I read this in January. Now the final book that I read in January I also don't technically own. It's the second book in a trilogy but I own the first and third book weirdly enough. But that is Kingdom of the Cursed by Carrie Manuscalco. So it's the second book from the Kingdom of the Wicked. I read this first one last year and loved it 5 out of 5 stars. So then I continued the trilogy with Kingdom of the Cursed. Also loved it 5 out of 5 stars. I'm perfectly happy with the turn it took from like YA to adult. I didn't mind that turn at all because I thought the adult elements were done super well. So I didn't care and it made me very happy. The third book was only like 4.5 out of 5 stars so it was very close but not quite there yet. But it's also really good because I don't give a lot of sequels 5 out of 5 unless it's the whole series is a 5 out of 5. So that says something. I only had one 5 star read in February and I'm not gonna go too much into detail about it because I will be covering this entire series in a vlog dedicated to the series. That is The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Mess. I am slowly making my way through The Roan of Glass reading the whole series vlogging it all. This was definitely 5 out of 5 stars and so far it is the only 5 out of 5 stars for me but I'm still going. We're trucking on through. It's great. Now in March I had two 5 star reads and the first one is kind of an obvious one. I think they're both kind of obvious. If you watched my wrap up I mean if you've been watching my wrap ups then you know of all these 5 stars because I talk about them. But this one is particularly obvious because it is Babel by RF Kwong. I cried so many times during this and I've talked about it quite a bit so I'll keep this brief but it fantasizes and romanticizes my dream while also tackling very serious issues in a historical setting. Like if I could be a student at Babel my mind would be blown and then I could just die and be happy. You know that that's it. That's it. Okay so this was definitely 5 out of 5 stars and the other best book I read in March was Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett. Again this so this was just a beautifully written book. Like I hadn't had high expectations going into it because there was a lot of hype surrounding it of people being excited to read it when it came out so when it came out I was like oh my where the cover is gorgeous I just I have to get on this train because I know if I don't I'm gonna regret it because I'll read it eventually and then I'll be like why didn't I read this earlier? And I loved it of course I loved the characters the slow burn romance the setting the oh my word just everything about this book was spectacular and could not have been done better. Now because we are still in April I can't really like officially end it here. So April is still going on so I'm not gonna have like I'm not gonna know if I read another five-star book in April or not. Hopefully I will but I'm not super sure about it we'll just we'll just have to wait and see maybe I will but I will say that I did have a reread in April and I rated it five stars the first time and I'm rating it five stars again. I'm not changing the rating so I'm just gonna do a quick honorary mention. The Bremets Book Club by Alyssa K. Adams. Yes I reread this. I do not reread books like almost never do I reread books but this one I really had to because I'm getting in such a baseball mood for some reason this spring season so I was like I have to read this one I love the romance I love the characters our main man in this one is a baseball player so I was like yeah sure why not. Re-read it loved it just as much as the first time around if not more I don't know if I'm gonna reread other books in the series but I will honestly probably end up rereading this again like it just hits so close to home for me so there was also that one so yeah those are the eight five-star reads so far this year I am approaching 50 books read this year I'm like 46 47 books through this year so having eight out of like not quite 50 this is alright I mean of course I would love it to be higher but I think I've just had a lot of four and three stars of course but I've been having some two stars too so let me know if you're interested in the worst books I've read so far this year or if in the next quarter you want me to make another video of all the five stars comment down below and let me know and while you're down there feel free to subscribe I post videos twice a week hopefully on Sundays and Wednesdays otherwise if you like this video give it a thumbs up and I also have bookish social media links down below that you can follow me as I am reading books and getting my thoughts and opinions on them and I post a bunch of other fun content and whatnot so thank you all very much for watching again and until I see you all in the next video I wish you happy reading