 This was so good. This was so sick. That's sick, mate. It's your timeline. It's your timeline, which we know is not my favorite thing. The last 30 pages was just her like, I don't know how to end it, I don't know. That's like hitting the keyboard like I don't know. Like it just is really well written, you know? Especially for a debut. Not in a million years, absolutely not. I'm DNF-ing it. So I have always wanted to read the top 10 of the Mystery Thriller Goodreads Awards category and this year we're doing it. I have wanted to do this since I started Booktube but it always felt like too daunting and I was too scared. Also, I felt like it was Kayla's thing from Books and Lala. She used to do Mystery Thriller now she does horror and I just felt like it was her thing. But this year I was like, Kayla, you okay if I do it? Cause a lot of other people will do it now but I just feel like it's Kayla's thing and I just love Kayla and I felt like I didn't wanna encroach and Kayla gave me her permission so I feel justified. Another reason that I really wanted to do this year versus previous years is that previous years in terms of the trends in the overarching Mystery Thriller genre it definitely led more thriller. But I feel like since the past couple of years we've been slowly leaning more towards mystery which is what I'm more into. I prefer mysteries. I love mysteries. I love a good murder mystery. We know this about me if you're a regular here and so I felt like it was my time. It was my time to shine. This is what I came here to do. So yeah, in this video we're gonna be trying to read the top 10 of the Goodreads Choice Awards from Mystery Thriller and figuring out what we think should win. What we think is most deserving of a win and then seeing how it compares to what actually wins and I'm very excited. So I'm gonna flash you back to when the top 20 was announced and I found out what I could possibly be reading between when the top 20 was announced and then we'll just go on this journey together. So let's go. Okay, so the nominees, the top 20 have just been released. I have not looked yet, I could not wait any longer. I'm actually not gonna be starting filming and like reading for this. For like probably another week I have two vlogs to finish before then. So I'm gonna be doing the majority of my reading when the top 10 are out but seeing the top 20 allows us to make some predictions. I need to start reading before the top 10 are announced because it's only like a week that you have once the top 10 are announced before you vote and I do wanna vote on what my favorite one is before it closes. But this will allow me to maybe buy some of the books that I don't have. Get ready, get prepared and I'm just so excited. I can't wait. So let's talk predictions, right? I have read two books that I think are definitely gonna be on there and definitely gonna be in the top 10 and those are the Made by Anita Pros and The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley. This was a massive mystery release at the start of the year. It was like everyone read it. I also feel like this might get close to winning. I think this will do well because I feel like a lot of people have read it. You know, it was very, very pushed by the publisher. It was a book of the month pick. I just like a lot of people have read this and it's a good like, I didn't, I liked it. I had fun reading it but like it's a very much a good mystery for someone who hasn't read mystery before. And I'm hoping that we're gonna skew more towards mystery in the mystery thriller section. I think I said that already this year because I feel like stuff is trending more towards mystery. Does that sound like something you want? It is. But let me tell you, you'll never get it. And then Lucy Foley, I just feel like this is gonna be there. You know, I feel like the guest list did very well. Did it win? I don't know if it won but I think it did very well when it came out. And, you know, I don't think good reads don't just pick like the 20 books that have been talked about the most like on Book Cheap or whatever. There's gonna be some, some ones that sneak in there that you would have thought, what, when? How was that arrived there? So I don't think we're guaranteed to have Lucy Foley, Ruth Ware, Ry Seger, Peter Swanson, like all the big names. I don't think they're necessarily guaranteed to be there but I just, I feel like this is gonna be there. So hopefully these will be in the top 10 and I will have already read to the top 10. And if you wanna hear my thoughts and these very conveniently for you, I did a vlog of just these two books. So I will leave that link down below. In terms of other stuff that I've read, maybe Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins. I feel like this has a good shot of being there. It came out in January. I feel like this could be there. And then I don't think this is gonna be there but I just think it's outrageous that I don't think a Thursday murder card book has ever been nominated. Can see you're getting angry. Angry, no, I'm not angry, I'm livid. These are popular. These are the best selling books ever, pretty much in the UK. But I know that internationally they do really well as well. So I just find it ridiculous that they've never been nominated even though I don't think this will be there. In terms of stuff I haven't read, I really don't know. Maybe some of the Book of the Month picks I have. Oh, I forgot to tell you, you need to go watch the video that Ashley from Ashley's Little Library did predicting what this top 20 and top 10 was gonna be for Mystery Threater. It's such a good video. You need to go watch it. I feel like a lot of my opinions going into this are like, she just convinced me because she did a lot of research. I think the It Girl by Ruth Rea is gonna be there. Like I just said, I don't think all of the big authors are gonna be there but I do think the It Girl is gonna be there. And then I would love if the woman in the library or the last housewife was there. I don't know if either of these have a low rating though because usually a book has to have a 3.5 rating to qualify. I would love a 5.5 because I really wanna read them. So let's see, shall we? I need to screen record. I actually feel sick to my stomach. Here we go. Let's click on Mystery Threater. I don't wanna see anything. Okay, let me not look at the ones lower. So we have The Housemaid which I don't know much about. Killers of a certain age is a good one. Okay, I own that. The Night Shift by Alex Finlay, yeah, okay. The Family Game is another one that I've really been interested in. So I'd be up for reading that. Right, we can score down now. Oh, get out, get out, it's there. You did it, you're winning. Oh my God, they missed it. That's so exciting to me. The Violin Conspiracy, I remember that was in, I can't believe this is there. Yo, Justice Richard Osmond. I was like, it's not gonna be there. I'm just gonna put it in so that Goodreads know what they should be doing. And they listened. I don't think any of the other ones have been nominated, so. Yeah, The Violin Conspiracy was one I remember actually putting in her top 10 prediction but I haven't even heard of that. So maybe that's more thriller-y. But I feel like you can see we're shifting towards more mystery at the moment. And it's just like, it's like majorly. Things We Do in the Dark, I own. That was a Book of the Month pick. I have been excited to read that. Actually, that sounds really good. And of course, the Paris apartment is there. Oh, okay, okay, okay. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James, I've been so excited to read. One of my favorite books I read this year was The Broken Girls by Simone St. James. So I've been really excited to read more. So I hope that makes it into the top 10. Wrong place, wrong time. I've had a lot of people reading. All the good people here, that's got a lot of ratings. True crime, podcast. Okay, I could vibe with that. I don't know if that'll make it to the top 10 though. Jackal, I've had a lot of people talking about but only has 1,600 ratings. See, I don't think that'll make it to the top 10 then because it has so few ratings. Goodreads is a popularity contest, you know what I mean? So I don't think that'll make it. What's next? Oh, okay, oh, the maid, which we have read. Daisy Darker, I didn't like Rock, Paper, Scissors. I gave it two stars. And I don't know if I'll be reading another Alice Feeney but maybe we will be because Alice Feeney is a big name and I can see her making it. An absolute disaster, a total disaster. But Flickering the Dark and the Ick Girl I own which is great, this is great. The less books I have to buy, wonderful. The Golden Cup I own, oh, The Family Remains. I told myself I wasn't gonna read that one. I've read the, what's the first one? The Family Upstairs, I've read but I read it during a readathon where I read a book a day and I just have no, I have no memory and I gave it three stars. I didn't love it. So I was just like, I'm not gonna pick that up but Lisa Jewel will probably make it into the top 10. The overnight guest, I have wanted to read so bad this whole year but it's quite difficult to get your hands on in the UK so we'll see how well I do with that. More than you'll ever know. Oh, big capitals, 9,000 ratings. I don't know if I'll make it to the top 10. Married to two minute ones. Wow, okay, let me get together the ones that I have read that are on the list and the ones that I haven't read that are on the list. I have read three that are on there. I think all of these three will make it to the top 10. My immediate ranking of the three that I've read is that, right, these two were five stars to me. This was like a 3.5. So I'm gonna go ahead and vote for the bit at the miss, right? I want that, I want it in the final round, right? I loved it. I love the bit at the miss. I literally just read this. It was like the last book I finished and I gave it five stars. I cried, it's amazing. So those are the three I've read. I then own, how many? One, two, three, four, I own six more. So we've got nine in total. If this could be just the top 10 plus one, that would be great. So I don't have to buy any books. The ones that I feel most confident about loving are probably The It Girl because Ruth Ware is one of my favorite authors. I've given her three, five stars on one, four star because of a certain age and Simone St. James. Those are probably the ones I'm most confident about. I really want the bullet, the miss to make that final round. I'm hoping that these three will do so that I don't have to read more than seven books for this video. Okay, so it is time to start reading. It is currently Friday the 25th and the final round, like the final top 10 is gonna be announced on Tuesday the 29th. So we have a couple of days where we can make progress because once the final top 10 is announced, we only have six days. I just can't do it. It ain't for me. It's just not for me this show. I found it really difficult. Ideally, before Tuesday, I would like to get maybe three books read, but I don't wanna waste that time reading a book that's not gonna end up in the top 10. So I was like, I need to figure out a way mathematically to best figure out what books. I'm gonna end up in the top 10 because I don't have time to read more than that. What I've done is I've made a spreadsheet where I put in two factors, two things that were measured. Oh my God. One is the number of ratings that the book has and one is the rating that the book has. What I've done is I've given it a rank on number of points it gets based on those factors. So the most read book, like number of ratings has ranked number 17, the least read book has number one. The highest rated book in terms of star rating has 17 next to it, the lowest rated has rank one. And what I've done is I've added those two ranks together and the higher total the book has, the more likelihood I think it has been the top 10. I'm confused. Now this isn't the perfect science because I think number of ratings matters much more than average rating, but I think average rating does play a role. So let's have a look at this together, right? So this is all of the books. This is the 17 books that I haven't read. I don't think these bottom four have any chance of getting into the top 10 because they have such low ratings or low average rating. I mean, Jackal has the lowest number of ratings and the lowest average rating. So I don't think it's gonna happen for Jackal. Same for more than you'll ever know. It has the second lowest number of ratings and the second lowest average rating. So I think these bottom four don't really have a chance. Now I'm pretty sure at the very least, the two out of the three that I've read are gonna make it in top 10. The maid and the press department are the only two books that have over 200,000 ratings and that's like the most important thing. So those two are definitely gonna make it. The book that I missed has only about 40,000 ratings which if you can see that would put it like kind of the same as all good people here but it has a 4.5 average rating which is by far the highest rating out of the whole of the top 20. The next highest is 4.37 with the house maid. And I also think the fact that it's like inner series is gonna benefit it because if people have read the Thursday Manicub and they've loved those they might not have gone round to the bill that they missed yet because it only came out in like October but they might still vote for it because they love the series. So I think that one's 50-50 as to whether it's gonna make it or not into the top 10 but let's pretend that it will. The top seven are these ones, right? Based on my ratings. Now this is not a perfect science because I don't think the violin conspiracy is gonna make it because it only has 18,000 ratings which is the fourth lowest and I just don't think that's a high enough readership. I'm interested in it though so I'm kind of sad that it's gonna make it. And it is the second highest out of the ones that I haven't read. The second highest average rating on there. So you think, I don't know, it could but I just think 18,000 ratings is such a lower rating compared to so many of the other books on this list. I don't think it's gonna make it. I don't think because of a certain age or Daisy Dark will make it. Daisy Dark has been very controversial. Honey, you've got a big storm coming. I think that one's just too controversial. It has the fourth lowest average rating. I don't think it's gonna make it and because of a certain age only has 20,000 ratings. So I don't think that's gonna make it. Then we have these four, right? Okay, so I don't think the violin conspiracy is gonna make it into the top 10. And again, the bullet that missed might not. So these four I think are the ones that have a chance of making it into the top 10. My hope is because it's the one I'm most interested in reading is the book of God Cases by Simone St. James because that has a pretty high number of ratings. It's 70,000. So it's got rank 13, so it's pretty high up there. So those four could, but I think these seven, bar the violin conspiracy are pretty likely to make it. They've all got pretty high number of ratings and bar the it girl. Pretty, they're all in the four point something for average rating. So all that to say, the books that I'm gonna start off reading this weekend before it gets announced on Tuesday, I'm going around Tom. So these are the ones I'm gonna take with me. A Flickering the Dark by Stacey Willingham. This is second on the list. I don't own the housemaid. Otherwise I'd start with that because that's definitely gonna be on there. But I need to buy that one. But yeah, A Flickering the Dark by Stacey Willingham. This is a book of the month one. It's been optioned for film. It's the most read by the Paris apartment in the maid. So I think this will definitely make it same as with The Garden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Peckinen. These are the only two that break 100,000 ratings. So I think these will definitely make it. This one I'm a bit nervous about. I'm scared. Are you scared? You should be. And then I'm also gonna take the it girl by Ruth Ware. Listen, I think it's Ruth Ware. I think name recognizability will help it. It's in that top seven. So I think this will make it, even though it has a little bit of a lower average rating, they'll just be the Ruth Ware girlies who will wanna read it. So my goal is to definitely read these two by Monday. Maybe start this. I don't know if we'll fully get into it yet. Yeah, are we all excited? I'm so excited. Isn't life great? So let's start reading. And let's start reading A Flickin' the Dark. I have the audio book for this, which I am hoping is gonna help me get through these books quicker. ["The Garden Couple"] Hey, hey, hey. Morning. So it's Monday. I'm only halfway through A Flickin' the Dark, but it's fine. It's fine, everyone. It's fine. We're gonna be fine. Keep saying it. Just keep saying it. Keep saying it out loud. And maybe you will convince hope. I'm really enjoying this. Okay, let me give you the snopsis first because that's something I always forget to do. So we're following Chloe, who is now a psychologist. But when she was 12, her dad was convicted of killing six girls in their hometown. And obviously she has a lot of trauma from that. She's a psychologist now to try and help other people who are going through difficult stuff. And her dad's in prison, obviously, but then similar deaths and missing girls start to happen in the town where she now lives. And the question is, is it a copycat killer? You know, is it someone trying to emulate what her dad did or was her dad actually innocent? And I think considering this is a debut, the writing is amazing, right? It's such a readable book. Like I just think this is a great beginner thriller mystery. I don't know, it's just a very easily readable book. I've read pretty much the whole of the first half via audio and I love the audio book. Like it just is really well written, you know? Especially for a debut. I often find when I read a debut, like the writing can be a bit heavy. I'm loving this. Like I've been so excited to listen to the audio book whenever I've been doing stuff. I'm literally about to go cook and I'm like, I'm so excited to listen to the audio book. I think I quite like the trope of is, was her dad innocent or is it a copycat killer? I do have two main theories as to what could be happening. And if either of those are what is happening, it probably won't be a five because they feel really obvious. One of them in particular was like, I think I had this thought within like the first, I don't know, 20 pages maybe for like my initial theory as to what's happened. And if that is what's happened, I'd be like, you know. But I still think I'm really gonna enjoy the reading experience. It's like, I can see why this has done so well and why so many people have read it because it's just so readable. It's easy to read, you know? Yeah, and I'm, it feels more like a four star. It just feels like coming on really enjoying but it's not like, I feel like five stars for me kind of do something different, you know? And I feel like a lot of these books maybe aren't gonna do that. But I think this is maybe the one I would recommend to the masses. Like it's just very well written, very fun. I'm actually gonna get these authors next, a book which is I think just about to come out and this has made me really, really excited for it. So I've got reading sprints tonight with my patrons. So we're definitely gonna finish today and hopefully start the golden couple. And then tomorrow we're gonna do like a 24 hour deathans situation. I don't have to do anything tomorrow, apart from read. So I'll see you later once I have hopefully finished this. Whoa, whoa, let's not do that on a video that people that don't know me might watch. Okay, I finished. Why is my book mark still there? Why are you here? I just finished Thick in the Dark. And yeah, you know, you know, I did predict it. I did predict the ending, which means it can't be a five star. I am gonna give it a four star. I do feel like the first half was stronger than the second half. I did not enjoy the second half as much. I felt just the pacing in the first half, the introduction to the characters, like all of that was so good. And then obviously the second half is more like twist upon twists. And I just saw through all the twists. I could tell what were red herrings. I could tell what was leading us to one. And so I think that just meant I didn't enjoy it as much, but I'm still gonna give it a four. I think this is a great debut. I really enjoyed the reading experience overall. I really got excited to read it. I think, yeah, for a debut, the writing is so, so, so good. And I think it's a great beginner thriller. Like I said, I can see why so many people have read this. And I can also see why it's been picked up for TV or film, one of the two, because I think it would make a really good show. And like here's the thing, with the thriller or mystery, the ending, listen, you just gotta do it and hope for the best, because it's so hard to do an ending, especially as a debut author, to do an ending that feels shocking, right? That the reader didn't predict, but also when they read it like, oh, that makes sense. How do I not see that? Like it's almost impossible to do something that straddles that line. Yeah, it's so difficult to an ending that is unpredictable and yet feels, you know, realistic and well earned and, you know, it's like impossible. So I don't necessarily always hold it against books when like the ending lets it down a bit. It just stops being a five star, but I think it was a really enjoyable reading experience. So in my stacking of the book so far, this will go under the Paris apartment, but above the maid. I'll have to review those three for you later in the video at some point, the three that I've already read. We'll read a few more before we do that. Yeah, I mean, I did really enjoy the maid when I read it as well. These are all pretty good books so far. I have not yet read a Klanger. Maybe that's to come. So next we're gonna start the golden couple. It is 540. So I've got just under two hours until my reading sprints begin my patrons. So I feel like I could even try and finish this tonight. Who knows? This is probably one of the books that I am most nervous to read. I don't hold out great hope for this one. I don't know. I have yet to read a Greer Hendricks and Sarah Peckman. I own The Wife Between Us. I'm just not a big fan of domestic thrillers like between husbands and wives. I know this is about a husband and wife and they're like therapists, but the therapist is like a liar and does not really have her professional license, but she's still giving them counseling and the wife is cheating on the husband. That's what I really know. But like usually domestic thrillers bore me because it's just like rich married people arguing. I like rich people killing rich people. Usually husbands and wives just bore me. I don't know why. So we'll see. But yeah, I would like to get a really at least halfway through this tonight because I think I'm gonna do some yoga now and then read more in the sprints. But I thought I'd show you some exciting mail that's just arrived. We've got another one of our books that we're probably gonna be reading. Wrong place, wrong time. I hate the UK cover in comparison of the US cover and then this. Anyway, Waterstones did a triple. What's the word? Triple stamps? Yeah, so when you spend 10 pounds on waterstones or at Waterstones in the UK, you get a stamp and every 10 stamps you get 10 pound to spend. So basically every 100 pounds you spend, you get 10 pounds credit, essentially. When they do triple stamps, every 10 pounds you spend, you get three stamps. So it's like every 30 pounds you spend kind of, is that the math? You get 10 pounds spent? I don't know. Well, it was triple points if you spent over 100 pounds. I put a lot of pre-orders in and I picked this up because I knew we're pretty much gonna be reading this. I also picked up Legends and lattes. I'm very excited to read this. Don't know what, I have no plans to get around to it, but I knew it was one I wanted to read. And then also today, related to what we just read, Stacey Williams' next book arrived from Book of the Month. This was one of their December picks that I chose from them. And I know this is about a woman's whose son was abducted last year and like a true crime podcast who's contacting her, but after reading A Flicker in the Dark, I'm really excited to read this because I feel like she could just get better. So anyways, I'm gonna go do some yoga and then I will start the golden couple. If I speak, I am in big trouble, in big trouble. I just don't like domestic thrillers. They're not for me. Right, let's tell you what the book is about. Also, I filmed the announcement for Wrapped Up this year today and I still got my Christmas jumper on. So enjoy that. Basically, all you need to know about this is that we have got the golden couple who the wife has recently cheated on the husband and they go to this very unconventional therapist to try and repair their marriage, essentially. And we have the wife's perspective and the therapist's perspective in this. Now I will say the beginning, the first half of this book, if you will, was like three and a half, three and a half, three and a half, three and a half. I was enjoying it. I have to say, I was enjoying it. I don't know, this is the kind of thriller that's just very easy to read, right? It's just so readable, like you just fly through it and you just like, God stop. It was really readable. But the second half, I became increasingly just like not caring about it, not wanting to read it because it just, every twist that it came up with, I was like, who gives a, like who cares? Do you know what I mean? I just was so bored. I feel like what it was coming up with was just so like, ugh, like so stereotypical. Like I feel like everything this book did was just like, oh, of course you did that. Of course, that's the reveal. Girl. But I feel like I had this same issue with the flicker in the dark. It's so hard for your reveals to be like, poppin'. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. And I just felt like these past two, the beginnings have been good, the endings, not so much. I just, I didn't like this. I'm gonna give it a 2.5. 2.5. I just found the ending just so predictable and a bit like, oh, a bit insulting to my intelligence. We could have done something more interesting. You know what I mean? I feel like this is just a thriller that beyonds years ago. Like 2017. 2017, this should have come out. Not now, you know? It's been very, very harsh. Nice to meet you, Kelly. And I feel like almost all there's like, there's a kind of gang left behind a little bit. It's not just me who prefers mystery. The trend in the thriller mystery, you know, all-encompassing genre is towards more like isolated mysteries, I think. And I think we've seen with popularity of stuff like Knives Out, I think just mystery as a whole is getting bigger. And this kind of like a domestic thriller just ain't cutting it, bro. You know, we follow mainly the couple and the therapist. There are three main characters in this. And I just felt like they were all like, they were all, they were all just pretty like cardboard characters, like moving around like. And like if you have any connection to like therapy or anything like that or psychology, like this is gonna piss you off because the therapist is ridiculous. Like it's ridiculous. Like it would never, it's just not realistic. It's just not realistic. You know, I enjoyed the start of it. Like I read it very fast at the start but the second half dragged, it dragged, it dragged, it dragged, it dragged. So next, if it's on the top 10, we're gonna read The It Girl by Ruth Ware because this is one of the longer ones. I know this is pretty long. So I think let's get it out of the way earlier in the week when I'm not as stressed and I can play through some of the quicker ones towards the end of the week. But the Goodreads finalists, the top 10 go announced today. And I have been all day, I have not looked at it because I wanted to finish this first. So let's head over there and see what's made it to the top 10. I actually feel sick. I feel nervous. I feel very nervous. I just realized before we get into this as well. Another thing that bothered me about The Golden Couple was like, it felt like towards the end, they realized, shit, we haven't introduced important characters or ideas that are like gonna play into how this wraps up. Like this should have been introduced earlier. And they were like, quit, quit, get them in, get it in. You know, so it just felt like poor plotting. I don't know if that's an issue with having two authors, I don't know. Anyways, I don't care anymore. It was 2.5 stars. So anyways, let's record my screen. I'm like over it, I'm so over it. I literally just finished it and I'm like, screw that. I looked all the other rounds of my patrons earlier today and voted in the ones that I've read stuff in, but I have not looked at this. Okay, I'm not gonna look and I'm gonna zoom in. Okay, right, we've got the top four there. I can't see what they are. Okay, okay. Let's take this one at a time. So, Calypso's gonna be, what does this mean? Okay, because of a certain age, I was pretty sure wasn't gonna be on there. So I've wrapped up for wrapped up. I've just been like, yeah, this book is one of the books that's for wrapped up. No, it's not, I'm reading it now. I'm gonna have to go find that and unwrap it. Flickr is like we've just read, okay, good. But Daisy Darker, you are kidding me. I was like, Daisy Darker's not gonna make it. Daisy Darker's not gonna get on there. I have to read Daisy Darker. I'm not really interested, sorry. Like, I'm just not interested. I have to read Daisy Darker. Oh my God. And all good people here, I didn't think was gonna make it either. I suppose maybe I'm pretty sure that this author is a host of a true crime podcast. So maybe she has like a good social media following that was able, she was able to mobilize, like go vote for me. Oh my God, what I, there's three here that I was certain were not gonna be in a top 10. Okay, right, a scroll. Okay, right. This is, ah, I'm so sorry. Just scared me go by screaming, my cat. Okay, the bullet, the miss made it. I am so happy. I am so happy the bullet, the miss made it. Oh my God. Oh my God, it made it. Oh my God. Okay, the book of court cases, I didn't think was gonna make it either. What? And obviously we've read the maid and the Paris parliament as well. Okay, this is looking good. Okay. Did it go? And wrong, the golden cup hasn't made it. I'm shaking. I'm physically shaking. That's not good. I read it for nothing. Now we're behind schedule. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So out of the top 10, I need to buy, I can't believe the housemaid didn't make it. What else didn't make it that I thought was going to? The housemaid didn't make it. The golden couple didn't make it. The overnight guests didn't make it. Oh my God, the violin conspiracy didn't make it. What? Okay, I can't believe I'm reading Daisy Darker and I can't believe I've just read the fucking golden couple I didn't need to. Well, out of the top 10, I have read a flicker in the dark, the maid, the Paris apartment, the butler missed. We have six left to read. And today is Tuesday. It's Tuesday night. Do we know what time on Sunday this is gonna close for me? Okay, I'm Googling this. Five days, 13 hours and 31 minutes from now. Okay, interesting. So I actually have until 8 a.m. on Monday. So if needs be, we'll pull an all-nighter. And I'm gonna start on The It Girl by Ruth Ware. Oh my God, we've just read the golden couple for nothing and it sucked ass. Right, okay, we're reading The It Girl next. I'll see you. I don't think I'll get halfway through tonight, but if I do, I'll see you tonight. If not, I'll see you in the morning. Okay, I have to be honest with you. Halfway through, I'm not really enjoying it. You better f***ing take that back right now. You better f***ing stop right now. Okay, right, let's chat. Let me give you the synopsis first and then I'll give you my thoughts. The basic synopsis is that our protagonist found her best friend's body 10 years ago when they were students at Oxford. She had been murdered. The guy that went down for her murder pretty much went down on the best friend's evidence. Now in the present day, there is a suggestion that he was actually innocent and so half the book is told and we know this is going, hold the book, hold the book is told in the past about their friendship when they were at Oxford so it's very Oxford vibes, you know? And the other half is told in the present day with her realizing things, realizing, you know? Whoa, did I make a mistake? Anyways, right, it's your timeline. It's your timeline, it's your timeline which we know is not my favorite thing. Ruth Ware, however, is my favorite thing. One of my favorite authors. I think I've read four books from her and I've given her three five stars and one four star. So that's like, you know, pretty good odds. And yet, you know, the biggest criticism that I've heard from people about this book is that it's too long and it's slow and it's correct because I don't think I've ever read a dual timeline from Ruth Ware before but like they are so hard to do well because you're telling two stories. This is why I don't like it. We've read 200 pages but you've only read a hundred pages of each story and so it feels like the story has only progressed. Like I feel like we're only just starting to get somewhere. When we were at a hundred pages, I was like, nothing has happened in either storyline. Nothing has happened. The sun is shining down on me. God is like, yeah, you're right, Megan. And you know, I've read some dual timelines that I've enjoyed recently like in my dreams I hold a knife but that is fast paced. This does not feel fast paced. This feels slow and dragged out. I can't believe I'm saying this about Ruth Ware but like if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna do dual timeline, you need to like, you know, you need to be fast paced because you need the reader to feel like we're really, we're getting somewhere quick with both storylines. I don't feel like that. I feel like nothing has happened. Ruth, girl, you're usually giving me my nice linear mystery thriller. Just give me, like nothing has happened. I feel like I've had no clues. There's no real mystery. There's no real, I'm not interested. Oh my God, what is happening? I'm struggling to reconcile what I expect from Ruth Ware with what I'm getting because they're not the same thing. Oh, the sun is very bright. Excuse me. And you know, it does feel a little bit like Miss Ruth Ware. Listen, I love Ruth Ware. She's one of my favorite authors, right? This is terrible for me. This is actually terrible for me. I thought I was gonna die. I feel like she's still a successor to Dark Academia and she's like, yeah, yeah, I wanna do that. I wanna do that. And so this is like Dark Academia in a sense. All the past is set at Oxford and it's them being students, whatever. But I feel like Dark Academia, like this isn't Dark Academia because Dark Academia A has to have this eye. Can you see me? Whoa, let's just enjoy the sun. Doesn't come around that often at the moment. You know, Dark Academia has to have a commentary, you know, like a societal commentary on academia. I feel like it's rife, right? Oxford, we could critique so much about Oxford. But I feel like it never gets below surface level criticism or like observation, or it needs to be murder, debauchery, craziness, right? And I feel like it's fairly realistic as to what going to Oxford would be like. Like, oh yeah, we get drunk sometimes but we just have to study all the time. We're so stressed. Like I just like, that's not what I wanna read about. You know? So needless to say, I'm not loving it. I have however listened to the first half pretty much via the audiobook. I'm gonna try and read the second half physically because I don't think I love Ruth Ware's audiobook narrator. And also, like I say, it's the same with a series or an author. Once I start reading a series or author a certain way, I have to continue. So I don't usually read Ruth Ware via audiobook. So that could be what's harming it. Maybe I just need to just read it physically. So that's what I'm gonna try and do. I really need to finish this today and make good progress through another book. So that's the goal. I will hopefully see you not too long. Couple of hours, I'm gonna try and just sprint through it because yeah, I'm not enjoying it. Also, a lot of the focus is on the present day girlie and her husband. And I'm just not interested in them. I just don't, I don't like thrillers to have pre-established couples in them. I just don't. Anyways, bye. Okay. So we have an issue. We really have an issue because I loved the second half of this because, guess why? Guess why? That's why we stopped having the dual timeline. Story in the evidence box. I don't like dual timeline. I was literally at the halfway mark. It stopped. Ruth where I was like, okay, we've had enough of this, Megan. I'll put you out your mystery. You can get into the story. Once that happened, guess what? I loved it. I would say the second half was like a 4.5. But like, once I got over how disappointed I'd been by the first half, I was enthralled. I was enraptured. I was downstairs making Shepherd's pie for my family. And I was listening to all the book and I was like, I'm gagging. You know, and I think it was a little bit predictable, the ending of the who done it. But like, I liked the writing. I liked the direction. I liked the themes. I liked the emotions. I liked where it went. So I've been thinking since I had dinner, like what the, I'm hiding my face. What the hell am I gonna rate this? Cause I really didn't like the first half, guys. I was trying to like play it down, I think a little bit. I hated the first half. I really, it was like a 2, 2.5. I think I'm gonna give it a 3.5, which is my lowest rated Ruth Ware. I don't know, it feels wrong in a 3.5 book. So I feel like it does end on a great note. And I understand why if she wanted to tell this story, she had to do a dual timeline. Cause you have to show what April was like, why she was the it girl, why the kind of person she was, why there's this tangled thread of who might have killed her. Do you know what I mean? So like, I get it. Doesn't mean I like reading it. The reason that I liked the spit timeline and what you have to do to make me like dual timeline, the reason I liked it in, in my dreams I hold a knife is because something would happen in, I can't remember what way around it happened. You'd rather find something out in the, in the present day and then flashed back to that happening in the past or it was the other way around, like something in the past happened and then you were informed about that in the present. But anyway, they like directly informed each other, like the cliffhanger from one chapter, then we went into the other timeline and it was like happening directly. Do you get what I'm saying? Whereas this was like linearly telling the story in the past and linearly telling the story in the present. Whereas in my dreams I hold a knife, it jumped around a lot to serve that linking feature. Do you know what I mean? I know I'm not doing a good job of describing it but it's, I feel like it's quite technical. I liked that but when it's just like two separate stories, I just don't care. And like I said, it makes the pace so slow because you read 50 pages of two separate stories versus a hundred pages of a story, you know? It makes it feel so much slower. But with where, with where, in the second half I thought, oh shit, here we go again. She hasn't let me down entirely. This is a potential mother. I do think that the premise, it doesn't feel like her, you know what I mean? I don't think she's very good at writing teenagers. The stuff in there at uni was just a bit like, okay, all right, Bruce, stick to the 20 somethings and 30 somethings, all right? I don't think the premise is very original, you know? I don't know. I feel like she noticed a trend and went for it versus, it's like, I feel like this book is writing what she thinks the market is gonna want rather than writing something that she wants to write. Just give me one by one again. I know everyone hated it, but like, Ruth, trust me, it was so good. So that puts the girl here on our chart. Nothing has yet topped the bit of the mist. It's Thursday night, okay? It's half eight. I have to go wash my hair. So I haven't got loads of time to read tonight, but I would like to get maybe an hour or an hour and a half in. We haven't tools, well, we have technically until eight in one Monday morning, but I don't think I'll pull in all that. I mean, you may get to that, but who knows? So we have these five books to read in like three and a bit days, right? But luckily, these are all pretty much the same length. I find audiobooks are a better judge of how longer book is and page count because like a font size can be so different. So, for reference, this audiobook I think is about 17 hours long. This is a long book, it's about 400 pages, whereas these are all differing page lengths, but they're all like 10 hours something for the audiobook. I went and looked them all up. So yeah, they are all about the same length. So hopefully we should get through these pretty quickly. And I was thinking about what I wanted to get to next and I was thinking like this is gonna be more mystery. These, I don't know. Whereas these bottom two have kind of like speculative elements to them. You know, this one with the kind of Groundhog Day vibes that we'll talk about. And this one with, is there a ghost, is there a ghost vibe? I don't feel quite ready to read Simone St. James yet because there's like a five star prediction. I think I'll read this Saturday or Sunday. So I'm gonna start this. I've got the audiobook and it's literally 10 hours long. We'll find out what the plot is about together. Oh, Ruth Ware Blabdaire. Janice Hallett reviews Blab's loads of books. Yeah, I'm excited to read this. Never anything by the author. And it's been pretty popular. So let's go give it a go. Actually, before we go any further, I wanna give you really quick reviews of the three books that are in the top 10 that I've read before this video. I will point you towards the vlogs that they're in though. They're all in vlogs with like me reading the whole, with the whole experience of me reading them. So if you want my full thoughts, go to those. You're very lucky actually in fact that the maid and the Paris apartment are in the same vlog together. And that's all I read in the vlog. So the maid by Anita Prose, we're following a maid who works at this hotel and there's a merger at the hotel and she is... Shit, oh my God, it gave me a heart attack. Oh my God. What was that? It was scary. It was scary. It was really scary. She is framed for the murder basically. Everyone kind of assumes it's her. And when I first read this, I gave it four stars, but over time, I would say it's more of a 3.5. The thing about this is I think it's gonna win. This is my prediction, right? I think this is gonna win. I think it's got the most amount of ratings. I think the only thing that possibly challenges it is the Paris apartment. It could be either of these, but I think the maid is gonna win. It's a very simple mystery. I think this is a perfect beginner's mystery because there's not really much mystery. It's more like a voicy character study, character book about the maid. Now, Molly the maid, I mean character, is written. This is probably one of my bigger issues around the book other than it being simple and over time, I just feel like it didn't really give me anything. There wasn't much plot. When you compare it to these two, which were five stars, I feel like so much happened. So many of the rules happened. I feel like this book is like, you expect it to be a hundred pages shorter than it is for how little happens in it. But anyway, Molly the maid is coded as neurodivergent. So the way she's described, she has a lot of the features that a neurodivergent person would exhibit, but it's never explicitly stated. And something about that just makes me like, because you don't wanna say she's neurodivergent if it's never explicitly stated, but a lot of reviews I read like from, I was reading The Guardian's one because it would do like best books of the year and this was on there. And it said, oh, she's neurodivergent. But the author never explicitly states that. And I think there's a bit of a tendency in fiction to have like main characters who are coded as neurodivergent but never stated as such. And I just think that's a bit, I don't know how I feel about that, you know? I think if you're gonna give representation, give representation, you know? And don't kind of like skirt around the issue. Then in the same video, I read The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley and I gave this five stars, but it's a five stars in which I recognize like, you know, other people might not like it. I just seem to love what Miss Lucy Foley is doing nowadays. So our main character goes to visit her brother at his Paris apartment and he is missing, kind of presumed dead. The mystery is like, is he missing? Has he been killed? What's going on? And so she's in Paris trying to figure out what happened to her brother and meeting all the strange characters that live in his apartment block. We've got the socialite, the nice guy, the alcoholic, the girl on the verge, the concierge. I really loved the twist. And this is a twist about half way that blew my mind. And it was just a fun book, right? Lucy Foley gives me mystery, Nancy Drew, Cluedo, like caricature, characters, ridiculous, like I just love her, okay? I love the guest list, I loved this. I recognize not everyone might love it, but I did. I just think it was paced really well. It was a fun book. It kept me guessing. The twist shocked me. I never saw where it was going. I just think she writes a good mystery, right? The book The Mist I read recently in a Murder Mystery reading vlog, so I'll link that down below. This is the third in the Thursday Murder Club series. The Thursday Murder Club was my favorite book I read last year. And this, I say, was my second favorite in the series. I loved this. This is just amazing. The Thursday Murder Club follows a group of elderly friends at their retirement village as they have a Thursday Murder Club where they solve cold cases, but then actual cases start appearing on their desk. That's definitely what happens in the first and second one. But then this one opens with them trying to solve an old cold case that happened in the area where a local TV producer, her car was driven off the edge of a cliff with her clothes in it and blood in it, but her body was never found, but she has been presumed dead. She's never turned up. Yeah, it's kind of that spiraling with also stuff that's happened in the previous books coming in as extra mysteries. And I compare this to the maid, right? With how little happens in this. This feels like it has so much different character depth and so many different characters. There's multiple mysteries happening at the same time being unraveled. There's multiple links between everything happening. Like, I just think it's so well done. These are my favorite series. Probably one of my favorite series ever, The Thursday Murder Club. I've given them all five stars. I love this one. So at the moment, this is top of my list. We'll see if anything else tops it. I just think these are written so well. They really show the great side of human nature and love and relationships and caring. And like, I think having elderly characters really forces. I've spoken about this so many times. If you're not new here, you've had me speak about this a lot. But, you know, having elderly characters forces the book to like focus on what we should appreciate about life and what we should be thankful for and what we should live every day for. You know, I think with the kind of incessant like cycle of every day, you can just lose sight of what's important. And I think this book really is moving, but it's funny, but it has a great mystery as well. So those are the three books that I've read before this blog. I will link all the vlogs down below where I read these. But yeah, let's get into reading another new book. This was really good. This was so good. This was so good. Okay, so let's talk about what it's about. So Wrong Place Wrong Time by Jillian McAllister follows a woman who witnesses her teenage son stab someone, right? Wakes up the next morning, it's the day before. Wakes up the morning after that. It's the day before that. So she realizes that she keeps waking up. First it's the day before, day before, day before, then she starts going back even further in time and it's to try and figure out how it got to that point and hopefully stop it from happening, stop her son getting arrested for murder. And so she kind of goes down this rabbit hole of discovering things that she didn't know and finding out things and making links and connecting the dots. I've connected the two dots. You didn't connect shit, but I've connected them. And I loved it. I loved it. You know, I've been speaking lately about how whenever I read a mystery or a thriller, I would say this probably leaned more mystery. But whenever I read this now, I'm looking for something different. I feel like that's why I've been a bit disappointed. Like the It Girl, you know, it gave it a decent rating but it was my lowest rated Ruth Ware so far and the gotten couple I didn't like. They just felt a bit derivative whereas this felt different. The twists, it's very rare that a thriller or mystery these days gives me a twist that leaves me, that has me going like actually physically makes my jaw drop. I'm not exaggerating. I sat here like, apologies if you can hear my neighbors playing music by the way, to be fair, that there was one big twist at the middle that like had me gagged, had me shook. I was like, oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. But then I did predict like this, there was like a second twist. I did predict that, but I still think it was good. I thought the writing was good. And, you know, this boils down to her mother's love for her son and the love that they have in their family unit with her husband as well. And I just loved what this book had to say. I loved it. I had a great time. Women's stories matter. Yeah, they just matter. They do, they do, they do. And I remember I was feeling a bit stressed like it's Friday night, it's like seven o'clock. So I still got time to make a decent dent in another book tonight and I have no plans that we can, no work I have to do other than read but I was still a bit like, you know, the thought of how many books I have to read for this video was still playing on my mind. And then I said to myself, get rid of that. Like it's all about your mindset, just enjoy this book. And I just enjoyed this book. I loved it. I think if you're looking for an easy thriller mystery to read that has something unique about it, how's that speculative element? I think this is a great pick. I really went into this not expecting anything, right? I went into this, you know, it wasn't a book I probably would have picked up without this video. Yeah, the writing was great. I loved our main character. I felt like it was realistic. Like she only has that day, right? And like, you know, if she makes contact with anyone who could help her when she goes back, like when she goes to sleep and then wakes up, reverse however much time she's reversed by, they won't remember that. So she's on her own and she only has that day. And I feel like what she did and like the conclusions that she made and what she tried to do was very realistic. I was super interested throughout. I really felt for this family and the characters and the love that they had for each other. And like, oh, you're just hoping for the best. So I really enjoyed this. Now, where does it go on the leaderboard? Shit, oh fuck, this is, I'm giving it five stars. I didn't even say that, I'm giving it five stars, right? So it's like, where does it go? No, okay, I prefer the bullet at the mist. I prefer the bullet at the mist. The bullet at the mist is all my favorite. I think I did prefer the Paris apartment. Don't yell at me. I don't wanna hear it. That's a controversial opinion. I don't wanna hear it. I still gave this five stars, but I would put this third still, I think. But yeah, reading this has really put me in the mood. I think because this lent mystery but was still kind of thriller mystery to read mystery. And so I'm gonna go in for Killers of a Certain Age by Adiana Raybourne. I just know this is about old women who used to be the best assassins and now they're trying to retire. So I'm excited to read this. I'm gonna have a chilly evening. It's been a bit hectic in my life lately. So I'm gonna go take my makeup off, have a nice dinner, do some yoga tonight, do loads of skincare, read, watch YouTube. That's my whole plan for the evening. So we'll see how it goes. I'd like to get at least a hundred pages into this tonight and then finish it off tomorrow. I finished Killers of a Certain Age by Adiana Raybourne and I really enjoyed this. I'm sitting somewhere between a four and a 4.5 so I really enjoyed it but I think I'm gonna give it a four. Okay, so plot. We're following. I think when I picture the four, I've called them elderly, like this group of elderly friends who used to be the top assassins in the world. But I wouldn't call them elderly. I think they're like 58, 60, like they've still got it. Do you know what I mean? They can still like punch and kick and jump and what do you know what I mean? But anyway, so they're retiring from this like assassin agency that they've been a part of their whole lives and it becomes clear someone from the agency wants to kill them. That's not nice. It's not. I'm just saying. Nice. Exactly what you're saying. You're gonna be nice. Basically, like they're like cut the cord, erase the memory of these women. And they're like, no, you're not gonna tell us that easily. And so it's them trying to stay alive basically. And I really enjoyed this. I thought the writing was phenomenal. I loved reading it. I think the number one thing I had in my mind was that this better be adapted. Like this would make a great film. It would make a great film. I think Dena Rae Bourne like kind of thought that while she was writing it. Cause I feel like a lot of the settings, like we go to New Orleans, we go to this like English stately home in the countryside that's like oak. Do you know what I mean? Like that kind of place. We go to Paris. Like I feel like it's just setting up for having great settings. And I just loved the premise. I thought it was just really, really, really fun. I loved the kind of like spying, trying to figure out what our next move is. The only reason it's not a five is that I didn't feel like our main characters were particularly fleshed out. We have four galleys. We have Billie and Helen, who I felt were pretty fleshed out. We're reading from Billie's perspective. So you would hope that we, that she would be. But we went Mary Ann and Natalie. And I didn't feel like I really knew who they were. Apart from one of them was married. Like that was basically it. I didn't feel like they had much character. I feel like we didn't get much information about who they were as people, but not even that. Like the way they spoke or the way they acted. Like I feel like sometimes I'd be reading a scene and anyone could be talking. Any one of the characters could be talking, which usually is a bit of a stickler for me, but like I think I enjoyed the rest of this so much that I didn't really mind. So yeah, I think it lacked a bit of depth to it, but I just enjoyed the fun. Like the high junks. They're like, oh, we gotta go here and kill this person. Just the mud. I just thought it was really, really fun. It was a really fun read. Also, there were flashbacks to when they were assassins. And although like I get why we wanted to do them, I mean, we're just coming to my problems again. Apparently I don't like coming back in time. No, I don't mind flashbacks, but in this case I was just enjoying the present day plot of them trying to live and trying to figure out how to survive. That whenever it flashbacked those scenes, I was just like, I wanted it to be done. Cause it kind of broke up the fast pace that we'd spent so long building up, you know? I would put this above flicker in the dark. I think I preferred it to that. It's more my kind of thing. It's more like cozy crime mystery kind of vibe. So we have three books left to read. I have little hype about these two. So I'm gonna try and get as much of these two read to the day as I still can so that this can shine on its own tomorrow. I'm gonna read that last cause I think that's got the best chance of usurping the bullet that missed basically. I have the audio book for all good people here. So I think I'm gonna start that now. I feel like I need the audio book a little bit. I don't know anything about it. I know the author of this is the true crime. I think she's like, apparently it's the top true crime podcast ever. And I was Googling it and I saw, cause like I was in a live chat earlier about Goodreads and someone mentioned that like the author was dodgy. I was like, what? And apparently there's been like plagiarism claims about the podcast. I couldn't find anything worse. The comment was like, oh, she's so dodgy, but I think that's what it will be about. Anyways, let's go ahead and read all good people here. ["Goodreads and Goodreads"] Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Absolute your crooked. Absolutely not. App, so lootly. I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. I hate her. I tell you now. Right, let me tell you the plot first. I don't even know how the fuck do I begin to describe this plot? So 25 years ago, a girl in this small town was murdered. Our protagonist was best friends with her. Our protagonist is moving back to the town to look after her uncle who she kind of grew up raised by because I think he's got dementia or something along those lines that's causing a lot of memory issues. And nearby another girl goes missing or I think is killed. And the protagonist is certain that there's a link between these two and she needs to uncover what it is. She's a journalist. Yeah, no, it was bad. It was really bad. It was so bad. I'm gonna give it two stars. I'm like really beyond tempted. My hair, I'm about to go wash it. I wanted to come to you all serene after having a bath and washing my hair and like it not looking. Oh my God. I don't for once like guys, please just don't even look at me. I don't want to be looked at. Can we just like put something over my face and I just talk? But I had to talk to you about this book. Yeah, I was so, I'm so close to giving it a one but I think it's just good enough to get a two. So anyways, it's bad. So the cold case, the girl 25 years ago, it's John Bonnet Ramsey, right? Literally every freaking detail is John Bonnet Ramsey. Well, no, we're just enough changed that like if the author had done it with like wink, wink, like kind of in like a, I don't know, I think you can do it in a fun way. That's not the right way to phrase it. But like in like a kind of like wink, wink, yeah, this is John Bonnet Ramsey, wink, wink, way but it was like she'd use one of the most famous cases in the world, but like was like, no, it's the author of the name. It's like she's got no one to notice. And I was just so bored. If I didn't have the audiobook for this, I don't know if I would have gone through it. It had the same audiobook narrator as Flickr in the Dark. Oh my girlies, sorry about this. It had split timeline as well, especially for the first 100 pages where we're following the perspective of the mother of the door to it missing. But that kind of peters out more towards the second half but it was so boring. I thought the pacing was really bad. It kind of reminds me, right? Like it was just like every freaking thriller you've read but not good, you know? You know, you see like the AI pictures now that everyone likes to tweet, like me generated by AI, a song generated by it. Like this is like a really advanced software. Like A, a lot of the books sort of books that have come out in the past five years and just regurgitated a book but like it's not as good because it's freaking AI. Do you know what I mean? Like that's what it feels like. It doesn't feel like anything has any soul to it. I just, I hate it. Is this out of focus? Hello? How long has that been out of focus? I am so sorry. You don't wanna see me anyway. The ending, I don't wanna spoil anything but like I don't think it's a spoiler to say a book has a kind of open ending, right? Right, so it has a kind of open ending which sometimes I like if it's done well, if it makes sense in the book, I don't think it makes sense other than this book to have an open ending. It just felt incredibly rushed. Like the last 30 pages was just her like, I don't know how to end it. I don't know. That's like hitting the keyboard like I don't know. I'm being mean, but like I just didn't like it. I'm so sorry. I might exit this conversation now. Why not? I wanna have it later. I'll see y'all later. And then there's an epilogue, right? That kind of like fills us in on some of the details but like I have a sneaky suspicion. I'm putting my detective hat on, right? Hang on, let me go get it. Okay, so I have a sneaky suspicion that originally the book ended with that open ending. Okay, because the rest of the book is narrated. The audiobook is narrated by two different audiobook narrators, right? Narrating the two perspectives that we have. Then I think Ashley Flowers, then if I'm correct, because she's listed as an audiobook narrator and then there's this weird third voice in the epilogue, I think it ended on that open ending and the publisher or her editor was like, yeah, or maybe like somewhere in the process because for the audiobook to already been created, I don't know, I feel like late on in the process, like when arcs had already been sent out, maybe they got feedback like the ending, like, girl, you can't leave us like that. Oh my God, what is going on with my camera? Why is it, what does it want to focus on today? Hello? The arcs came in, they were like, oh, bad. And so they're like, you need to write something that explains it a bit. And then that's why that last bit has been added on because I don't think that was originally there. I don't think the epilogue that gives us some answers was originally there. It's a conspiracy theory that I'm actually interested in. Because the ending of the ending reads like it, she wanted it to be the ending. So what's the truth? What's the truth? Yeah, I'm giving it a two because I don't think it was like totally waifu, but I did not like it. Now I've got to read Daisy Darker. It's like half 10, I'm about to go, no, half nine, sorry, I'm about to go wash my hair. So I don't know if I'll read much of this tonight, but I'm gonna try to because we've got one day tomorrow to finish these two books. I would like to get, if I could get a hundred pages into this tonight, that would be a win. Listen, I'm just, I'm telling you now, I really, I mean, this I was up for reading, you know, whatever, I have really not wanted to read this. Like people who I have very similar opinions to have given it one star. And the ending has pissed them off. And if it's pissed them off, it's gonna piss me off. I'm gonna give it a good go, but I reserve the right to DNF this because I'm not sure I want to do this to myself. I'm not sure if my inner peace that I'm trying to build at the moment will be served by me reading this. So if I DNF it, that's fine because I've read like 20 other books this week. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow morning. Listen, I'm so sorry, but no, not in a million years, absolutely not. I'm DNFing it. I'm very sorry if I've let anyone down, or if I've caused any ag, but I have to look after number one. I'm so sorry. I didn't really want to DNF anything for this video, but like you cannot make me read this. We're looking out for mental health, we're looking out for each other, like, no, absolutely not. I got about, how far into did I get? About 135 pages in. So I read like, I felt like that's fair enough, right? Over a third, I feel like over a third is giving it a fair shot. I hated it, I, this was gonna be a one star. So really I'm doing it a favor because I'm DNFing it, means it can't go in my worst books of the year video because I don't put books I DNFed in there, but it was gonna be probably one of the worst books I read this year. All you need to know about this is that it's another and then there were none retelling. We've got a family who are going to this isolated island that the grandmother, the kind of matriarch of the family lives on, and then they start getting killed off one by one. It's basically all you need to know. You don't need to know anything else. So, okay, we have a few problems. I hate and then there were none retellings. I didn't love and then there were none as much as everyone else, right? Like I feel like I gave it a think about a three star. I was pretty disappointed by it, but it was fine. But every other and then there were none retelling I read is even worse than it. I just don't like the format, right? Because in then there were none and in this, there's a poem, right? That's read out that details how people are gonna die, basically. And you know everyone's gonna get killed and then you're gonna work your way through the list. That is so boring to me. Where's the excitement? Where's the intrigue? Where's the guessing? Where's the tension? Like for me, there's no tension if I know everyone's gonna die, especially if I know how they're gonna die. Like literally the poem in this is a poem like on the wall when the first death happened saying, best person's gonna get shot. Basically, like, how is that exciting? Like everyone dying and oh, someone's death wasn't real and they were behind. Or like that's not exciting to me. That's not exciting to me. So that's the first problem. We were set up to fail. I knew I probably wasn't gonna like it. But I went in with an open mind, right? But within like 10 pages, I realized, oh, the writing is so bad. The writing is awful. I don't, I genuinely don't understand how this, everyone was like, yeah, great, let's publish it. Like, I hated, hated the rising in this. No amount of money would keep me here. I thought it was just so like juvenile. And I just, yeah, no. And for example, the poem, right? Cause then there were none, there's a poem. So if you're doing it and then there were none, you gotta have a poem. Alice Feeney's like, I don't really know how to write a poem. Like the poem in it is like, first there's this person, this is how they died. And there's this person, they're bad. This is how they join me. That has a rhyming scheme and like a beat to it. But occasionally Alice Feeney's like, I can't, I can't think of how to make that work. Cause it's just like, like it will go off, it will go off beat. It will like, she'll add in like too many words and it will go off beat or it won't rhyme all of a sudden. I'm like, cut the cameras, dead ass. I comforted it this year or last year, but I read Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney and I gave that two stars. So I've just accepted me and Alice Feeney don't get along and I won't read. I'm not gonna read another book by her unless I do another video in the future where I have to read one of her books. Then I will. But otherwise I'm not reading Alice Feeney ever again. We don't get along, we don't vibe. I don't like her, sorry Alice. And I did look up how it ended and oh no. I am so glad I didn't read this whole book. I didn't waste my time. The ending is atrocious. Ending is so bad. Do you think it's really a serve and it's clever? I mean, some people might like it. I feel like it's the kind of ending you're either gonna love or hate. And maybe if it was like the writing was good and I was vibing with the book, I'd love it. But like, girl. Mm-mm, mm-mm-mm. So that is gonna go at the bottom of the list. It's the lowest one for me. Nothing is still unranked, The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman. And I feel like generally one of our best shots is the Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James. I've been so excited to read this this whole year and I'm ready. I'm really, really, really excited. I love Simone St. James writing. I read The Broken Girls by her. Where is she? I read The Broken Girls earlier this year and it's definitely in my top 10 books I've read so far this year. So I am just ready. I'm ready. I'm ready for the speculativeness. I'm ready for the spookiness. I'm just so ready. So it's about 12 o'clock. So I've got the whole rest of today to read this. So it shouldn't be a problem. It's only just over 300 pages. So here we go. Simone St. James, I believe in you. Can you dethrone Richard Osman and get my vote for the awards? Let's see. Okay. Listen, it's the evening and I just finished the book of cold cases with like 11 hours spare. I did it. I've read the top 10. I'm tired. I feel like I've read how many books I read this weekend. I don't know too many. If we include Friday, I don't know. But my brain, it's a little bit tapped out. Anyways, I'm gonna give this four stars. I did really enjoy it. I did not enjoy it as much as the broken girls, but I had heard like it's not as good as the broken girls. So I was kind of expecting that, but I did enjoy it. So basically the premise were in this small town in America. In the 70s, some murders took place and everyone believed it was this woman, this particularly rich young woman who lived in this house, like on the cliff who commit the murders. She was like charged and it went to trial but she wasn't convicted of the murders. And now in the present day, our main character wants to kind of interview her to find out the truth as what happened all those years ago. And she goes to the woman's house to interview her and yeah, maybe the house was haunted. Crazy stuff starts happening from the get go. It's not like slowly like, oh, is it haunted? Like crazy stuff is happening from the get go. So it's kind of got that spectative element that I feel like Simone St James always has a little dash of in her books. I feel like this book had a lot of typical tropes you see in thrillers. You know, our main character is a true crime podcaster. It's interviewing and she gets out of phone and says, can I record this? Like she's interviewing everyone. I can't tell you how many times I've read that. It's books in the past couple of days. I've had it enough. You know what they... But I feel like it does it all in a new and fresh way. And I feel like that's what I've really been enjoying about Simone St James. You still feel familiar to the genre, to the tropes of the genre, but it's like fresh. It's giving me something different, which is like probably the number one thing I'm still looking for in my reading. And there's just something about Simone St James writing that I just really, I just really enjoy. I just like it. I thought the atmosphere was incredible. Like, I mean, look at the cover. Like that's exactly what it felt like. Rainy, blues and yellows. Like we're by the cliffs, by the sea. Like I could just picture everything. I feel like that's really important to me when reading. I hate, I hate nothing more than when I can't picture a book. And I felt like this was so vivid. The only reason it wasn't a five star is it wasn't a five star. Like I wasn't like, like I couldn't put it, like I could put it down, you know? I could have willingly not finished this tonight. And perhaps it's, you know, some level of reading fatigue after how many books I've read in the past couple of days and all along the same lines. I'm excited to read like some other stuff the rest of the month. Cause it's been a lot of mysteries and thrillers. So I've actually got rather than the computerized version, I've got the stack of books so we've read, I've got the golden couple here even though it's not technically in the final 10. So this is four stars, but I would say it's really my least favorite of the four stars. So we'll put it in above the it girl, below a little dot, can you not? It was rude and I didn't deserve it. This is my final ranking. Unfortunately, nothing in this video managed to beat the bullet that missed. My favorite I read in this video was Wrong Place, Wrong Time. I would, sorry, I'm like looking in the viewfinder so you can see. I would recommend everything other than these bottom three. They're trash. Don't bother reading them. I genuinely don't. But anything from the made up, I would recommend. I think they're all pretty solid books. We just starting to talk about the golden couple, all good people here or Daisy Darker, especially not Daisy Darker. Oh my God. So yeah, that's my final ranking of all the books of this video of the top 10 or technically 11 cause the golden couples in here of the good reads mystery thriller category. So if we had it my way, the bullet, the miss would win. Now it is the highest rated out of all of them. It's got the highest rating. So who knows? It may get close. It's got a ridiculously high rating, but I don't think it will win. I think the made or the Paris apartment will win. Probably the made. The made has always been my number one. I think the Paris apartment has the best chance of beating it cause it is the next most rated. And of course I would love this cause it was my second favorite. Perhaps my, I mean delusional second favorite cause I read this all the perfect book. Wrong Place, Wrong Time is probably a better book. I would recommend this to more of you than I would the Paris apartment, but I just love it. So like what do I have to say? So yeah, that's kind of my predictions, but I would say on the whole, this is a pretty strong group. So it is time that let's cast my vote. Oh my God, this is exciting. My whole life for the past couple of weeks has led up to this. I made it guys with, it's a little bit more than 11 hours now, it's gonna take 10 and a half hours. 10 hours, 26 minutes to spare. Oh hey. Okay, right, mystery dollar. And I'm voting for the same thing I voted in the first round. So this video's for nothing, no. I'm glad I've read all these books, particularly Wrong Place, Wrong Time cause I don't think I would have read that otherwise. And that's my winner of the vlog. You know, the bullet, the mist is still my favorite. We're gonna vote for it, but yeah, I'll be, dear enough. I'll be happy if the Paris apartment wins. But I mean, the maid, I won't begrudge it. Like I think it's gonna win, but we shall see. So there we have it. I vote for the bullet, the mist. I will be back in a couple of days and we will find out what won and we'll find out how the good reads, cause I will rank, I'll put how many votes they all got. We'll see what ranking they got compared to my ranking, which will be fun for the statistics obsessed me. Can you imagine if the bullet, the mist won? Can you imagine? It won't, but can you imagine? Okay, so the winners have just been released this morning, how exciting. I mean, I think the maid's gonna win. I think we all know the maid's gonna win or the Paris apartment, one of the two, one of those two is gonna win. And we'll see also how their top 10 matches up to my top 10. I've taken the golden couple out of the top 10 because obviously it's not in their top 10. So it won't, it will be bottom. So it made it difficult to compare. So I've just written out my top 10 without the golden couple. Let me record my screen and we'll see what wins. I'm more excited to see what the breakdown of the voting is versus what wins. Cause we're just gonna win. Okay, right, let's have a look, shall we? I think when I'll click on it, we'll see straight away. Yeah, okay, the maid won. It's not exactly surprising. We knew that was gonna happen. Oh my God, what? Okay, hold up. The maid and the Paris apartment were first and second. Not surprising, very close actually. 8,000 votes is still pretty close between them. We knew that was gonna happen, right? But I'm so happy that the bullet, the mist came third. I did nothing that, it got more votes than it has rating. So what happened was what I thought would happen where people who loved the Thursday Metaclub or the man who died twice who read some in the series voted for it even if they haven't read the third one yet cause it only came out a couple of months ago. I am so happy. The fact that it was one of the lowest number of ratings out of anything in the top 10, I'm so happy for it. I can't believe that. I didn't think that that was gonna even be nominated in the top 20 and it's made it to number three. I am so pleased. So if you look at it, my top two are in the top three. So I'm really, I'm happy that the Paris apartment and the bullet, the mist did so well. Flickr in the dark, not surprising. Book of Cold Case. I'm surprised that the Book of Cold Case has got more votes than Wrong Place, Wrong Time. Cause that Wrong Place, Wrong Time was so good. I thought that would get more votes cause it's got a much higher average rating. I suppose the most at James is just a much more well-known author than Ginny McAllister. Also, Cause of Certain Age did better than The It Girl. I think The It Girl just hasn't been super liked, you know? And I can see why, cause I agreed. And then yeah, okay, good. All good people here. Daisy Tucker in the bottom two, where they belong. So we agreed on the bottom two. Obviously the maid for me was number eight, but I said to you, anything in the top eight, for me, I pretty much recommended. Cause of Certain Age was seventh for them, fourth for me. Wrong Place, Wrong Time, I wish was a little bit higher up, you know, but we agree that these two were trash. Interesting, yeah. So the house made them look on a couple. I thought we're gonna be in the top 10. I wonder how close these four were in the initial vote. I mean, Gone Couple's quite a way off. Interesting, the maid one, not surprised. I think it's a great beginner's mystery. And yeah, even though it's number eight on my list, I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed a lot of these books. I think they're all pretty good, like basic mysteries. But something I wanna chat to you about before we end the video, I annoyed at myself that I'm speaking about this at the end of the video rather than somewhere further on where more people are gonna see it. I'll try and speak about this another time. I spoke about this a lot with my patrons whilst I was making this video. And then I just forget I haven't spoken about it with you cause I already spoken about it. But like the lack of diversity in this is shocking. It's shocking, right? In the Goodreads, but this is a discussion with the Goodreads Awards that comes up every year. But particularly talking about Mystery Thriller, there was two, I think, authors of color, the Vine and Conspiracy and Jackal, and they got voted out, right? They didn't make it into the top 10. In Goodreads as a whole this year, I think there's only been two authors of color in the whole, in all categories, which I think is the least diverse, like winner's circle since something like 2019. But for me, I don't think that much of the blame, I think some blame, but I don't think a lot of blame lies with Goodreads itself. I think more of the blame lies with publishers who aren't publishing enough diverse books. And with readers who aren't reading slash voting for these books, you know? I used to read a lot more YA contemporary. I used to read loads of YA contemporary. And I read way more diversely because YA contemporary is one of the best genres at being diverse, right? At publishing diverse. And then over time, I mean, I read my first Mystery book, probably not that long ago, right? It's become my favorite genre in what I wanna read. But as a genre, it's terrible for diversity. And so as a result, I read way less diversely than I did a couple of years ago. And I just wish that genres, I feel like it's beginning to happen. I feel like YA has kind of spearheaded diversity and has done better than any adult genre. I feel like fantasy and horror are starting to become more diverse. But I really feel like Mystery and thrillers are lagging behind. And it's just disappointing to me that the top 10 authors that I read are all white authors for this video. It's pretty annoying. It's pretty disappointing. You know, I don't necessarily blame Goodreads for the selection they make because it is kind of the 20 most popular Mystery thrillers that have come out. I didn't feel like there was many big upsets that didn't make it into the top 20 that should have. I think it's more on publishers and more on readers to read and vote for these books, is my opinion. So I kept talking to my patrons whilst filming this about how, you know, disappointed I was with this selection. But I don't think it's necessarily Goodreads' fault. I think it's our fault and publishers' fault. You know, I'm hoping if I do this video in the future, we'll see the selection become more and more diverse because I'm hoping that Mystery as a genre will catch up with other genres that are becoming more diverse. But yeah, it's incredibly disappointing. Oh no, I think Jennifer Hillier is an author of color as well. Sorry, I think I've got that wrong. Yeah, sorry, Jennifer Hillier is an author of color. So we're three authors of color nominated in Mystery Thriller and it's just, yeah, disappointing that people didn't vote for them enough to make it into the top 10 and not many authors of color have won across Goodreads this year. It's disappointing. But anyways, I just wanted to mention that because I've been annoyed at myself that I hadn't mentioned it yet in the video. But I hope you enjoyed this video. I don't know how long this is gonna be. I'm gonna start editing it now. Pray for me that I get through it. But yeah, I had a lot of fun doing this. I've always wanted to do it and it was just like, it made it more of an event for me and I really, really enjoyed it. So I hope you enjoyed this vlog. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already. If you're not subscribed to me, I read a lot of Mystery Thriller. So make sure you subscribe if you haven't already. Thank you so much for watching. If you got into the end, comment a magnifying glass. Comment one of the magnifying glasses down below. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.