 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. I hope you're doing really really well. Guess who is back on my channel today? Back again. No that didn't work. Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. I hope you're doing really really well. Guess who is back on my channel today? All the angles. So today? Today. Cameron has decided to- I instantly started looking up again, I need to look down. Cameron has decided to treat you all real good. With? A video on my favourites. It's going to be a pretty poor video because I have a strange thing about reading books. When I read books I get super super impulsive about reading them really really quickly. Like I'll read them every second of the day that I have straight until it's finished. Which is brilliant. But then means I forget everything about them, which is also brilliant because then I get to reread them having not known what happened, but does not make for great Reviewing capacity. Yeah, so to be fair when I filmed my favourite books of 2019 video I went back to my recent reads videos To look at my little wrap-ups of what I said at the time, which helped to do my reviews for the end of the year. Shall we introduce you to anybody who's new? Because there are new subscribers since you were here last. You're right. I'm Cameron. I read. I don't read as much as her, but I like books. Who are you in relation to me? If we keep that under wraps, Jazz. Who are you? See she wants me to say a specific word here. She's my fiancée and I am hers. Yeah, I actually don't know if you've showed them the ring yet. Can you see it? I have one too. This fucks a patriarchy. How was your 2019 in reading generally? I read more pages than Jazz. He didn't. And I read more books than Jazz. He didn't. But she doesn't like to believe it. Loads of comics at the end. But aside from it being a competition How was your reading year? Yeah, no good. I don't really read bad books ever. It's very rare that I'll read a book and be like, that was shite because I only really take recommendations off people. Like stuff that you've told me about or housemates or friends, people that read Stuff that I trust their opinions, which means that I don't really read bad stuff all that often. So 2019 was a good reading year. Read like what? 40? Oh no, did I get 50? 45 books? Something like that. 45-50 books, like around there. She does my good reads. I don't keep track of it. I like doing good reads. I think that you read more literary fiction this year than you ever have done before. I think basically all of your book favourites are literary fiction. So goddamn brainy. Since I look at the camera I end up looking at myself. Yeah, don't. I mean who can keep their eyes off that goddamn face. Shall we? Yes. So what order are you going to do this year? No particular order. No particular order. Nope. You? No particular order. I'll go easy. The fact that this is in no particular order, this still is the best judgment. Okay. The best of the lot. This is my favourite. This is the one that has absolutely fired up into my favourite books of all time. Which is funny because you may have just watched my previous video, which was my favourite books of 2019, and this was my favourite book of 2019 as well. It's almost like there's a reason why we get along just... This book is absolutely incredible. I love it. A ridiculous amount read inside like a day. So I'm going to literally read it inside a day. So I can't remember a whole lot of like the intricacies and detail about it, but I like it so much and I remember liking it so much that I get like genuinely palpably excited at the idea of re-reading this book because I'll get to experience it again. It's literary fiction novel. Yep. It focuses on two people, Connell and Marianne, who grew up in a real town in Ireland. They have very different backgrounds and the book basically just follows them. Sending a lot of information here Jasmine. Over a few years from when they're teenagers to when they're young adults. Cameron thinks everything's a spoiler. So we will at some point treat you to the gem of a debate video about what constitutes a spoiler. Oh video. He's very precious about it. So this book is really good. I like it a lot. It's a character study. It examines these two people's relationship. What's the word I'm looking for? Like just focuses on that. Like nothing else. Primarily, predominantly, exclusively. Anyway it just focuses on the characters, the main two characters a lot. It's basically all it's doing is following those two. It's homing in on that. It's not trying to paint a world for you. It's not trying to paint a picture of anything else. It's just these two people. This is them. This is their interaction and it just goes with that. The writing is beautiful. How's it beautiful? Sparse beauty. Yeah because I was going to say I think saying it's got beautiful writing might be quite misleading because it isn't beautiful in a very descriptive or obvious way. Super sparse yeah. It like leaves enough space for you to put yourself into the book and into the characters and then you kind of connect with them more because of that like a punctuation or that kind of stuff helps with all of that as well and you really end up feeling yourself within the book. Oh my foot's numb. Foot numb thing has to go in there. Oh my foot's numb. That's going in. Other thing, the dialogue is fabulous in it. So it switches perspectives from chapter to chapter and it does that in a really nice way so that you go into all the conversations they're having with more information than they have and it fits really well with that phrase that's like you know every time you're talking to somebody there's actually six people involved in the conversation, the person you think you are, the person they think they are, the person they think you are, the person you think they are and then the two of you like who you actually are and it really does that well because they each have these conceptions of who the other person is and what they're trying to say and they're wrong and then they don't even express themselves very well a lot of the time and you're kind of seeing all six of those people converse badly and confusingly to the wrong ends. It's a really nice and I think accurate portrayal of dialogue and does that really really well. Great book, you should totally read it. Done. Here's another thing to mention actually. I like a lot of these books a lot as part of liking a lot of these books a lot. I will tell Jasmine she should read these books, she should enjoy partaking in these books. She has not read. You say that like it's one way. Almost all of these. This one, Milkman by Anna Burns, do you want to hold that on? Gladly. She has been saying she would read what for like two years now and in the last video that we filmed you were like I'm gonna read it soon, I'm gonna read it soon. I'm gonna read it soon, I'm gonna read it soon. No you won't, still hasn't happened. To be fair I know this is odd and I don't know why because I don't think I'm a very obstinate person in this way but now that the hype has died down about it, I genuinely am more interested in reading it, I don't know why. I genuinely feel like I'm gonna read this in the first half of this year. Yeah, yeah. Could be the third video where she's still saying that. This is the one that she needs to read the most but we'll get to that. Milkman's great. Bye. It's by Anna Burns. This is also literary fiction, I actually don't really know what it's about because I haven't read it. Also it was surprisingly popular last year for the little I heard about the actual plot. Yeah. It's set in Ireland right? Experimental writing, Ireland. Experimental writing. So this one is like super difficult to read and the first half of this I really struggled to read it and it was like work but I don't know if it gets easier in the second half or just after a while of reading you just get me all used to it but by the end I was super used to it and it was totally fine I read it and it was great. Well so it's like stream of consciousness. Yeah stream of consciousness and it's de-personalised so there's no names and it's just it's strange and it's philosophical and it's like almost whimsical. There is a lot of philosophical stuff in there and that's really great that's kind of my jam so I really enjoyed that bit of it. It does something similar to one of the other books on this list actually that I really really like examines the other side of a conflict. I have read a lot of books that focus on conflict like physical violent conflict like that was happening in the times of the Troubles where this seems to be set but this focuses on the other side it focuses on how that conflict affects the communities not the fighters. Here you're looking at all the women and the non-combatants and you're kind of really focusing on them and how they're being impacted by this conflict that's going on right on their doorstep and how it creates this sense of other and then you've got this division especially when it's an internal kind of civil conflict how that community has to deal with that and how the people have to navigate that and all that kind of lovely stuff and it just does that in a really nice way with a nice philosophical bent to it and that's kind of up my street I really enjoyed that. You're managing to make me want to read this by class. You're saying it's about conflict so I'm like yeah well it examines that through the lens of character study though. I mean I believe you if you say I'd like it. You'd like it. It's all about characters and character analysis and stuff like that. Next. Saltwater by Jessica Andrews. This one's great I didn't like it that much when I was reading it because it's kind of poetry prose and I struggle with that not really reading poetry. I want to like it but I find it very hard but confusing very difficult. This kind of had a similar element in that you don't necessarily or I didn't necessarily understand a lot of it until after it's not like clear you're not reading a sentence you're like oh yeah I know what that said. It's more about generating feelings and capturing feelings in the book and then creating them in people than it is actually kind of just like normal writing telling you a story in a similar way to a field poetry can be. Got to the end of it and I was like you know what that was brilliant that really created an emotion and captured a sense of a feeling and a time for me. So this one kind of is all about youth and developing a sense of oneself and struggling to find a sense of oneself and getting through all of that confusion and hectic lack of personhood that I think a lot of people feel when they're in their early 20s. Yeah so it's all about the youth and like not knowing who you are and not even knowing who you want to be, where you want to be and like just all of that confusion and the fact that it changes daily. I think especially in the modern era you know one second you're like I really want to get out of the city and go back to what you are for me rural Norway. I want to move to rural Norway just do all of that and then the other time I'm like no I want to move to London and like experience all of this and this culture and this weird phenomena. We're constantly being bombarded by all of these people and these other things telling you how you should live and what the best life is and all that kind of stuff. I think it touches upon that like paradox of choice where you've got too many choices like our generation is is incredibly fortunate in that we've been told we can do anything but also like it's it's too much choice it can you know confuse and and leave people kind of paralyzed by an unsure of where to go what to do. I feel like that's kind of what's going on this and it's working through that. It just captures a sense of that youth and going through all that stuff. This one intrigues me more than that man. This one you're either going to love it or hate it I think not I'm not that it's not Jasmine anyone that reads it will either like love this book or hate it is I think super specific and I think amazing but I can see why somebody would really not get along with it put this in. Oh trousers are coming off. He's warm. Yeah. Next book. Next book we don't have a copy of actually. What is it? It's Red Rising. Red Rising is actually the trilogy. I haven't read the fourth and I believe the fifth one they're out I'm too scared to. You say it's a trilogy. Yeah so it's a trilogy and then he brought out another one afterwards. It's like a second trilogy afterwards based on the events afterwards. If anybody has read those let me know if they're good because I'm too scared to read them because I like how the trilogy finished. I mentioned earlier I get obsessive about like burning through books but through these books more than I've worked through anything else can remember very little about these that was an obsessive week. Yeah it's YA fantasy. YA fantasy it's not really that YA it's more just it's sci-fi it's not fantasy it's neither of those things. You ruined my question. This is very different from most of the books that I like in that it is not a character study it does not have I think like it's writing is fine but it's not very good it's entirely like plot focused it's like conflict driven just burning through and you fall in love with the characters like I like the characters a lot but it's not there's not a huge lot of development and there's not that's not what you're reading for. It's interesting because I don't think I've actually heard that much about Red Rising on booktube. Everyone that I've talked to that's read it like absolutely doors it it's great book. If you try and pick it up after this stick through the first hundred pages first hundred pages you're like whatever totally see the way this is going it's cliched I can see the entire layout of this going onwards and you're wrong you're wrong it changes it's different and it's brilliant. That's good because you can usually guess. I don't want to be too arrogant I don't want to blow my own horn too much but I am ridiculously good at guessing what's going to happen next in books. You actually are to me. And with this I just didn't I mean I guess things all the time but I was wrong way more than I was right and that is like a genuine rarity you don't know where it's going to go you don't know the twists and the turns that he's taking on and it really really keeps you going and keeps you engaged. Did you say who it was by? No mostly because I don't know who it's by. She will put some text on screen now saying who it's by. I feel like it's Pierce something. Pierce Brown? Yeah. I think it's Pierce Brown. Why are we running out of charge right? Shit. We're back after a brief interlude. Yeah camera died. It's good we're back. Made it through. It's fine. The next book. An Ultimate Book. An Ultimate Book and to be honest the last book. I'm gonna talk about another book but it doesn't really deserve to be honest. Ah it's an honourable mention. It's an honourable mention at best yeah. Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. Fabulous book. Really really like this one. Read this in January last year. So I remember not a huge amount about this one. Yeah you loved this when you read it. Yeah absolutely. I mean you Cameron have an interest in what historical kind of conflicts and stuff like that. Yeah no but also just the original story. Oh yeah okay so I absolutely love the Iliad trying to read the actual text. It's a slog. I love that. I love kind of ancient Greek myths and ancient Greece in general. But I also love like just historical conflict especially like anything really ancient kind of conflict and stuff like that. Love reading about it. And I read loads and loads of books about it when I was a kid. Like about all the Roman invasions and all that kind of stuff. And this I think really resonated with me because it showed a different side to all those conflicts when I was reading this. It was kind of like I was rereading all those other books but seeing the underside of that as well. So this focuses in not as much as it's um what's it called? Advertising. Marketed. Marketed as. Yeah so this is marketed as the Iliad but from the female perspective. Yeah which is not what happens. It's just a retelling for the Iliad. It is from the female perspective somewhat and I read this as well. I really enjoyed it. I did enjoy the female perspective but yes it does switch away from the film perspective which annoyed me and yeah. It didn't bother me though because I have testicles. I just think it would have been a stronger book if it had just stuck to the female perspective. Yeah I see what you're saying. You don't want to hear from Achilles. I don't want to hear from Achilles. You know like I want I want that female thing but I also want to see the original dance. Anyway point being it shows a lot of the female side of conflict and talks about all that kind of stuff that women had to endure during those times and the kind of lives they had to live and that was really really good. It was a favourite of yours largely because of the interest you already had in it and kind of what it was doing for you because I didn't have as much of a background knowledge and I didn't have as much of an interest in it and I read it and I thought it was a good book but it's not brilliant book. Okay if you didn't care about the Iliad at all you probably wouldn't think it was that good. This isn't a brilliant book. But if you like the Iliad it's a brilliant spin on the Iliad. Yeah okay yes I'll give you that. Yeah writing's not very similar to her other stuff. That's why I was shocked right so part Barker is a brilliant writer she wrote the regeneration trilogy and she's been writing for like decades and she's great and I read this and I expected her writing to be stronger. Anyway I really liked it I thought it was amazing really loved it if you have interest in any of that kind of stuff I'd recommend giving it a read. I enjoyed it. Honorable mentions closing in on the end home straight these two um so Magic Ship by Robin Hobb it's the trilogy and then Viewers of Calderon by Jim Butcher and it's like seven books now they're going straight down. They are both great pretty much most of the fantasy I read this year I think very good for different reasons so the Robin Hobb ones super good different take on fantasy. I like them a lot more at the time but they haven't really stuck with me in the same way. So the Magic Ship does a lot more character building stuff than typical fantasy does so it's not as heavy into the world building and it's not really the pot at least from the plot even that like drove me forwards unlike other fantasy series it was more about the characters and the characters really went through changes in the three books and they really really developed and you got to see them kind of grow and react to the circumstances in a way that circumstances don't normally affect characters in fantasy normally like something terrible happens and everybody's like I'm the exact same person as I was five minutes ago it's like you're the entire city got destroyed right like people changed and people didn't um feel the same way as their families they hadn't seen in five years which happens all the time in fantasy like people go away and they come back and they're like oh my god we get along so well how would that anyway it does all of that and that's really really nice but it didn't stick with me in the same way great book really really loved it and then we're scared about the camera the fury of Calderon fury of Calderon series kind of the opposite the characters don't really develop they don't really change there's a lot of the issues that most fantasy has in it but you can tell that you planned the entire series ahead of time unlike a lot of fantasy I think when you read you read the book one you're like that's amazing and then you read the next four and you're like well you really should have thought that through to begin with this one I think fury of Calderon is the worst book but it like gets better and better and you can tell you thought the whole thing through planned it all out and then did it and it's just good very very very solid book I'm done I totally have more books I've really liked this year that I just thought of mythos I really like mythos oh yeah so there's two two two things left that I have to do number one to reveal a secret definitely did it in one of them where I do lack a little expose segment on Jasmine's life it's not going to be anything too bad don't worry I'm not going to tell them that you like bite your toenails with your teeth to go she doesn't use nail clippers she just she just gets them right up don't go for that but it's not that that's not the expose the expose is that you are lying you are lying to your friends on booktube you know that you're doing it and I know I know it's a sensitive subject sensitive subject for women I know that the patriarchy has made you very sensitive about 10 people in real age our little our little Jasmine is no longer as young as she once was I am now 24 she's 24 I just updated it I'm happy to 24 yeah good age and then the other thing gonna branch out gonna push some boundaries here jazz not not calling the channel one-dimensional but you know you're focusing on books or not it's booktube channel yeah it is book related before you click off it's about the little women film which is incredible yeah oh that's nice so good you definitely read the book before you watch the film because I think without it would be like you know sorry four out of five if you've read the book and then you watch the film hands down five out of five one of my favorite films I've ever seen probably the best or second best to a lot of the rings adaptation of a book to film ever it's amazing you should totally go I've actually seen it twice I saw it with my mom and then I saw it with cam and I knew cam was like it camera had already read the book and enjoyed the book like the book a lot yeah it was so good they got the characters I read somewhere that it felt like they were in conversation with the source material Cameron sobbed all the way through I was like seeping like I was just leaking started very early on oh straight away you know like the chest the chest is going good film would recommend book and film outro time okay outro time so that's it then that's it for another appearance for myself those were Cameron's favorite books that he read in 2019 as always we would love to know your thoughts on the books if you read any of them or if you want to read them Cameron will be reading let me know see what you think be interested thanks for watching everyone I'll see you soon bye I was scared of what you're gonna jump on she's bringing me on here to make her look great but she's actually set the cards in her favor I mean why else am I here popular demand I don't think they're a clown room for it I don't know I can't put anything in if you swear definitely already said that you're gonna have to do that do you sit up a bit you're a bit of a slouch I'm not sure I've been there all time put that in put that in it's funny I don't know you're saying things and I'm just like a spare piece by this point go again I'm sure I did a much better job than I'm going to hear but yeah you just chat shit and I cut so much of it out