 I don't feel so nervous, okay. Welcome back to my channel and I don't know how obvious the change is gonna be but can you tell I have a new camera? I don't see it for me, but okay. I hope you can. I am so excited. I finally have a new camera. I've been like dreaming of this for so long. Hang on, let me show you. When I was 13, I had a YouTube channel. I bought this camera as a Canon 600D. I bought this camera when I was 13. I had that channel for a year. Don't go looking for it please. I don't think you'd be able to find it. It's very embarrassing. It doesn't really exist anymore. Sure, Jan. And when I started my booktree channel a couple of years ago, I just used this, but this is old. It did me a solid. I feel like, I feel like, you know, it did quite well for me over the years. Like for what I paid for it, for how long I've had it, I'm thankful to this camera, but I've been ready to move on to greener pastures for quite a while. One of the things I'm most excited for, you might have noticed in my videos that I can just sit down. Bitch, I can stand up and move around now because this has autofocus. This I had to always manually focus so I couldn't like move, but now I can. I'm just, I'm so happy. I'm genuinely so happy. And it feels like probably one of the most like big moments of my channel and I'm so excited for what this means I can do. I've got some really fun stuff planned in the next couple of months that means like I can finally do that stuff. I wanted to do a video that kind of felt momentous enough to do with the camera for the first video. So what I decided to do, it feels like an anniversary, you know, it feels like very important to me. Some of you are going to be like, girl, it's a camera, like it's a fucking camera. It's a piece of fabric. So the video idea I came up with is we're going to chat about the favorite book, the best book I read from every month that I've had in my channel. So going back all the way to September 2019, almost three years ago, scary, we're going to chat about the best book I read every month. I feel like this is just a fun way to like, look back at the history of the channel. That's history. That's history. Oh, and just like have fun and appreciate where we've come to. This generally feels like a big moment to be able to do this, to be able to get this camera. It feels pretty momentous for me. So you're gonna be like, girl, calm down, calm down. But anyways, let's just get into it. I'm going to put it on the screen the month that we're talking about. And I'll also put in brackets the number of books I read in that month. Just to give you an idea of how many we're fighting for the title. We're not going to speak about them for too long. You've heard me speak about all these books before. We're just looking back, appreciating and seeing the highlights from each month. Okay, September 2019, my favorite book I read. This is the only book I didn't physically own. I still need to get a physical version of it and reread it, but it's Sadie by Connie Summers. This was the moment when I started to really appreciate audiobooks and love audiobooks and go like, wow, I can have a five-star experience with an audiobook if I pick the right one. Because previously I'd kind of just listened to audiobooks that I didn't want to read physically and wasn't as excited for. So this was like that moment when I really realized how much I could love audiobooks. Like the year of just realizing stuff and everyone around me were all just like realizing things. Next month, it was Love or Breed by Suzanne Lafleur. So other months I haven't counted rereads, but technically, because this was a reread from when I was like 10, it's fine. This is probably my favorite book from when I was a kid. We follow Aubrey, whose dad and sister passed away and her mother abandons her. And it's kind of her dealing with all that grief and loss. And I just can't wait to give this book when I have kids and they're old enough to them because I think it teaches so much about compassion and it really like speaks to the kid as if they're like clever, you know? And it doesn't dumb down, but it also just like, you know, is a realistic way of how 11-year-olds feel. It's heartbreaking, nothing. Not many other books have made me cry like this book. Next was Ninth House by Luba Dugo. I cannot tell you how excited I am for hellbent to come out. I am literally so excited. Ninth House was the first Luba Dugo I ever read and I just loved the writing. I know some people think it was confusing, but I loved the detail and the complexity of this fantasy world. I just think it's amazing. I think it is Luba Dugo's best. I wish it was more popular so that we could have like, you know, spin-offs. And I just want her to do adult. I don't, I'm not really interested in her doing like young YA ever again. I know Six of Crows from the Kingdom level I'm vibing with, but her adult stuff just hits different for me, absolutely. Next was The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Still one of my favorite like copies of a book that I own. I mean, if you have never seen this, look at this. Look at it. I think this is when I really started to learn what I loved in fantasy and that is complexity, that is detail, and that is a beautiful world, like beautiful writing, vivid, like complex. I know I've said complex like 200 times. By the way, if I keep touching my nose, my hay fever's really bad. I've taken anti-istimines, but it's hard. Like, I'm like. And I really scratched my head and I wonder where's God when you need him. The Starless Sea is like an impossible book to really give a synopsis of. Before this guy who reads a book that he's in, like an event in his life is written about and it kind of takes him on this wild journey into stories and magic and love of stories. And Erin Morgenstern, I just need a new book. Like, when are we gonna get the next one? I know it's like 10 years between every book and I think that's really unfair because I think Erin Morgenstern is one of my favorite writers I have ever read. Like, absolutely ever read. Next is Heartstop volume one. This was the month that I read graphic novels for the first time. I did a video like, oh my God, reading graphic novels for the first time and Heartstop volume one was the first graphic novel I ever read and I fell in love. We know my love for Heartstop. I've reread this one once. I've never reread the other one. So maybe I should do that at some point, but I mean, I need to say literally nothing anymore about this because of the show. But I just love the characters, the relationship, the realisticness of it, the coziness, the joy. I just love everything about it. Then we have Murder on the Orient Express. This was another one which at the time I only listened to the audiobook. I am gonna reread this maybe towards the end of this year with the audiobook and the physical book now that I own it. This is, I would still say my favorite Agatha Christie I've ever read. I did give Death on the Nile five stars recently and that's the only other one I've given. Well, Roger Acroyd, I gave like 4.75 or something. Yeah, I would say this is still my favorite. I just love the setting. I love how this book is conducted with like interviews. Basically most of the book is Occuporo just interviewing each of the people on the train. And then the reveal at the end of how the murder was done is absolutely incredible. Agatha Christie's mind. Oh, it amazes me sometimes. Next one of my favorite books of all time is Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Gus. I don't know why I love these so much, but I just do. They are just, I feel like they're me in a book, they're everything I've ever wanted in a book. I almost think this series will never be topped for me. It's just, it feels so special to me now. This was another one actually where I only read the audiobook the first time I read it. There's something about these audiobooks that is so, so special and amazing. And listen, it's mystery. It's monstrous girls. We have Sherlock and Watson. We have so many characters throughout from classic Victorian gothic literature and I just love it. I love the way it reimagines stuff. I've reread this one once and I'm just itching to reread the second one. If I was to probably read anything right now, I'd probably reread the second one, but I must make videos, so. I just wanna say that month, the March was a super hard month to pick. I mean, obviously that, but I also read the guest list in that month which those were my two favorite books of the year. And I read Heartstopper Volume 3 which was my favorite, my favorite volume of Heartstopper. So that month was like, I was living my best life. I don't know what, maybe I just had a lot of solace. I know I read, cause obviously lockdown then. I know I read the guest list in the strange case before lockdown, before COVID. Cause I think it's more towards the end of the month, but that probably like stress was still rumbling cause I had issues like the year prior in like the summer, well early 2019 with health anxiety and basically convinced I was dying all the time. So when COVID started, it was, I had to be really intentional to keep my health anxiety under control. I'd gone to therapy the previous summer for it and got it under control. But I remember almost not COVID happened but that time beforehand, when there was whisperings of it, I'd go to the cinema and if a guy next to me was coughing, I'd feel very like stressed out. And I think I probably found solace in books and read some of my favorite books ever because I was, you know, I needed them at that time. So next is one of only two non-fictions on this list and it is Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay. Some of my favorite essays I've ever read. Actually, I never highlight or anything that I was like out here highlighting sections of this. No, I don't think you understand. I'm a bad. This is another one I would love to reread. I hope Roxanne Gay narrates the audiobook cause if so, I will get the audiobook and read along. But yeah, I think this is something I would love members of my family to read. I think it's so insightful. I think it's so wonderful and I need to read more Roxanne Gay like right now. Next month, my favorite was One By One by Ruth Ware. I would say this is my favorite Ruth Ware and it had a bad, like, I feel like it got a little bit of a bad rep because it is different from other Ruthwares in the sense that it's more mystery. It's more classic mystery. It's more Miss Agatha inspired. I love this book so much and it didn't get a good rep but I think it's your classic mystery done so well. We're following this work trip where they go on and they start getting killed off one by one in this kind of ski resort. And let me tell you, there is a seam towards the end of this book down some ski slopes that is one of the most tense scenes I have ever read. It was so, so good. And I want Ruth Ware to not be afraid to write more stuff like this. I feel like her next book is gonna be more like her classic thriller. I don't want her to be afraid to write more mysteries like this. I don't want her to be scared off of that because I want it. So that means it should be done. The next month was so hard. Let me tell you, this month we read No Exit, Middle Game and The Night Circus. This is so hard because these are all like five star books for me. I just don't know which one is my favorite out of these. They're hard to rank but I think right now what I'm finding is No Exit. I've never read a book like it, you know? Whereas The Night Circus, I think I do prefer The Star of the Sea and Middle Game I love but I don't know if it's had like, I don't know if I feel it's lasting effects in the way that I feel No Exit. Never has a book made me feel so sick. Never has a book made me feel so uncomfortable. Never has a book killed me in the way that this book did. It just did it. Right, the next two months, we were on a struggle bus. What a month is it? July and August 2020. These are the only two months of the whole time that happened and then next to each other. I didn't have any five stars in either of these months. So these are not favorite books of all time. The next I'm about to mention, they're both four stars but why did this happen? I can't remember. I just obviously wasn't having very good luck with what I was reading. July, I am picking The Last by Hannah Jameson. This one I would say is my top 15 murder mysteries of all time. It's a very interesting concept where nuclear war has happened. The world has ended and new and 20-ish other survivors are like in this Swiss hotel and you can't tell really. You don't wanna venture out of the safe space you have. You can't really tell what's going on in the rest of the world. The first half is five stars. Absolutely amazing. The second half is a four star because it goes on a strange tangent. It's very strange. August, it was even worse for me out here. I only read seven books and they were all not great. My favorite book I read this month was The Death of Mrs. West away by Ruth Ware. I think I've only read three Ruth Wares and this is by far my least favorite. So listen, it shows you this month was a struggle. You're following this girl who believes she's got this inheritance from this rich woman. It's very atmospheric. She goes to the house and gets to know the family and it's very atmospheric, very gothic. I feel like it's setting up a lot of what she then goes on to write in the turn of the key. Yeah, probably my least favorite is where I've read, but it was the best book I read that month. Then we turned things around and my favorite book was The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O'Neill. This is another one of my favorite graphic novels I have ever read. It has some of the most gorgeous illustrations I've ever seen. I have the other two. I have the prequel and the sequel and I need to read them. I haven't read them yet and I just, this was such an amazing read. So I do need to get to them soon. Oh my God. The next book I used to talk about is on the bottom of another stack. Got to be one of the worst days of the world. Ain't Deadly Serious. So the next book, my favorite book I read was Catherine House. I know this is another unpopular opinion. It's probably one of the lowest rated books I've ever read. I loved it. I loved the weirdness. I loved the claustrophobia. This book is crazy. It's absolutely crazy. It's very strange. You're in the house and the house is in the woods. You're in the house and the house is in you. It's very culty. It's very mysterious. The ending is very ambiguous. But I loved it and I'm so excited. I really want Elizabeth Thomas to publish another book and like I want nothing more. This is probably one of my favorite books I read that year. I just think it's a special kind of book and I wish everyone else loved it as much as I do. Listen, you ain't seen the last of this series. My favorite book this month was The European Travel for the Monster's Gentlemen. I would say this is my favorite in the series. I just love it so much. It's very long. It is how many pages? I think about, yeah, just over 700 pages. Listen, the book doesn't need to be this long. It really doesn't. It could have been edited down. But I'm not complaining because I get longer with my favorite characters and my favorite storyline ever. So I literally am in my best element. This is perfect for me. I just loved it. It's clever. It's a perfectly poised mystery. It's funny, joyous, perfect, perfect. Then I read one of my favorite kind of magical realism-y, fabulism-y books I ever read. You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno. We follow this girl who's been through some shit and she has this world that she imagines and then it becomes real and then she's in control of everything and it gets really, really dark. But it was such a fun read. I remember I'd already done my best list for 2020. I'd already made that video and I was so upset. I read this right at the end of 2020 and I was so upset that this wasn't in there because it was one of my favorite books I read that year. All right, so I'm editing the video and turns out I messed it up. The next one I say is my favorite book for January 2021 but it wasn't. It's February's and I just missed out January's. So I'll just tell you quickly. January's was the sister mystery of the mesmerizing girl. What? Aka, my favorite series ever. We've seen all of this series in this video and generally nothing could top it. This one, I don't know. I perhaps can see it's not the strongest in the series. Here's the contest info. Siri, I can perhaps see that it's not the strongest in the series but there's a scene at the end of this that just really plays so much homage and recognizes the journey that the girls have been on throughout the series and what they've each been through individually and what they've overcome. And it makes me so emotional to think about. So I'm very excited to reread the second and third ones in this series at some point. And I'm just hoping so much that we get more in this series one day. Theodora Goss has said that she would. So like listen, we just need someone to buy it. It says in the acknowledgments right at the end, I hope you enjoyed spending time with Mary, Diana, Beatrice, Catherine, Justine, Lucinda, and Little Alice who learned in the end that even a kitchen maid can be a heroine. I know they all enjoyed spending time with you and would love to have you over for tea at 11 Park Terrace the next time you're in the vicinity. Mrs. Paul is already baking a treat called tart, dot, dot, dot. So it shows you that the possibility is there. We just need someone to buy it and I'll just be like happiest person forever. Like I want eight books in the series, I don't care. But yeah, back to the actual video. My favorite book of January, 2021 is The Five by Halle Rubinhold. This is nonfiction, the other nonfiction on this list. Probably not one of my top nonfictions ever, but again, it was like the best of that month. Halle Rubinhold tells us all about the lives of all the different victims of Jack the Ripper. Just learning about these women and their lives and the lives that were told about them in death and the way that they were abused even in death is terrible. And I think it's one of the best like historical works that I've ever read. I get so angry now and I'm watching historical programs and they just refer, oh, all of Jack the Ripper's victims are prostitutes. I'm like, no, they weren't. No, they weren't. And Halle Rubinhold has done her research and we should listen to her. In February, I read The Classic, The Wonderful, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. One of the best YA mysteries I've ever read. Andy, no, not Andy. That is not correct. Pippa, Andy's the girl who went missing slash we believe was murdered and Pippa is investigating that. It is mixed media. We have police reports, interviews, emails and some of the best like Holly Jackson. I'm so beyond, beyond excited to see what Holly Jackson comes out with next because this is just, this whole series is just incredible. The story that goes on, the mysteries that are plotted. The writing is incredible. I mean, if you haven't read this yet, what are you doing? I didn't read much the next month but my favorite was Cooked Kingdom by Leigh Barduga. Leigh Barduga's out here with another one on the list. I read both Six of Crows and Cooked Kingdom this month but Cooked Kingdom was by far my favorite. She was that girl. She was that girlie. Yep, yep. I love this one being set in Ketterdam. The kind of plans and the heists and the hijinks that ensue feel even bigger and better. I sobbed. I was very emotional. I mean, I just got a look at a certain chapter. I know if I find that page I will be crying out here on this video. Extra tears. You don't have to cry over it. This is great. It's the great thing about the camera. You couldn't see. I'm not lying. I just read the chapter and oh, tears, tears. May 2021. My favorite book was The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Kira Awakawa, another book. Ooh, I shouldn't be emotional right now. I need to calm down. But this book, another book that made me sob like no other. We're reading this book from the cat's perspective as his owner. We don't know why, but his owner is trying to find him a new home to live. And as someone who love cats, has had cats all my life, I think there's only like a five month gap where we haven't had any cats in the house. So cats are like very important to me. Not five months actually. Maybe like eight months, nine months. But yeah, I've grown up with cats. I love cats. And this hit me in a way I don't want to be hit. I don't want to be hit. Oh my God, books are literally flying out at me. Okay, my room is a mess. Next is The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta. This is one of the best books I've ever read in verse. Dean Atta just kind of gets it. Just gets it. Listen, we're following this character from literally birth to kind of adulthood at university. This black gay boy and the ways that he learns about his identity and who he is and who he wants to be. And it's just beautiful and gorgeous and lovely and wonderful. And I'm so excited to read Dean Atta's next book, which is already out. The next month I didn't have many standouts. So I don't know if I gave this five stars. I think I did. But it's Fat Chance Charlie Vega by Crystal Madinado. I have Crystal Madinado's 2022 release, I Own It, which is my filter and other lies. I love how they look together. I need to read this soon. That's not happening. All right. This is one of the favorite, just like YA contemporary romances I've ever read. I think it's the only one I've ever given five stars. And I love the exploration of Charlie Vega being fat and how identity around that and how she feels and her falling in love. And that being just so wonderful. I really remember enjoying reading this. It was just a really fun read. And if all contemporary romance was like this, I'd read way more. But I don't have the best success rate, but this is the best I've ever read. So I'm very excited to read her next book as well. Next, a top tier favorite for me is The Project by Courtney Summers. I love Courtney Summers. This is the second Courtney Summers on the list. It's the two Courtney Summers I've read. So we're a very good success rate. This is the story of two sisters, one of which is a member of a cult and the other one is trying to get in contact with her and talk to her and kind of kind of expose the cult, kind of talk to them. And the same Courtney Summers books just devastate me. There's a lot of books on the list that made me cry. I mean, I know it's easy to make me cry, but I think I really like that in books. If you can get that emotional reaction out of me, I'll always be more connected to it. Bro, this book, it was too much. It was too much. Then a thriller highlight for me is They Never Learned by Lane Fargo with, listen, we're killing shitty men in this book. We are killing shitty men with... Yup, yup, yup, yup, yup. We're following this kind of murderess who kills shitty men, but she's also a professor at this university and we're also following a young girl who's just joined the university and kind of both of their experiences with the patriarchy and shitty men and the way men abuse their power. And I just loved it. It was so good. There's a twist halfway in this book that you'll never see coming that's done so well. It completely blindsides you. And God, it was just such like a clever fun. It kind of got a bit ridiculous at the end, but I enjoy that, so. I am making a mess of my shelves. Oh my God, don't even look at it. It's a mess. It's a mess. It's a mess. Next, one of my favorite books of last year, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Yes, I know I need to read the second one. I actually had a nightmare I think last night that I hated it, that I read it and I really don't like it and I was like gonna give it two stars and everyone was really upset with me like everyone unsubscribed and it was like, it was a big deal, so. This is like a cozy mystery where we're following these old people uncovering mysteries together and it's a lot of fun and I love it. And Richard Osman, again, he gets what I want. And I just, oh, it was so good. I cared a lot for the characters. It made me cry again a couple of times and the mysteries were so, so good. And it's just cozy. I love the setting. Yeah, very, very good. And then we have my second favorite book of last year after that and that is The Once and Future Witches by Alex E. Harrow. We're following the sisters who are witches and it's them repairing their relationship and getting involved with the suffragettes. I'm not sure which one it is, but suffragists, yeah. Getting involved with the suffragists and using their kind of witchiness to pursue that aim. It was so good. It was so good. This is some of my favorite writing I've ever read. Again, made me sob. There's a running theme here. I'm telling ya. Like if you make me cry, we're on good terms. I love witchiness. I love fantasy that is complex once again and has a lot of layers, has a lot of character development. Again, some of my favorite characters I've ever read. And yeah, definitely need to reread this. December, 2021. I didn't have that many five stars, but I would say my favorite was Moon of the Crossed Snow by Will Beachick Rice. This is like kind of sci-fi almost where the world it seems to be has ended or something's happened. We're in this indigenous community and the power goes off and they're very disconnected from the rest of the world but it's them trying to survive essentially. And it's very atmospheric. I really loved the kind of look of how society will sustain itself and also crumble during a time like this. It's some of my favorite sci-fi, like post-apocalyptic sci-fi I've ever read because it felt very realistic and not just like completely out of the blue sci-fi. It felt like it could happen now. And the way that the characters acted in this I really enjoyed and there's, the ending was like interesting but I liked this kind of openness that this ending had. Okay, 2022. I did not read many books at the start of 2022 but my favorite was as Good as Dead by Holly Jackson. This book is so good. The best, maybe the best. I think this is my favorite in the series. Just now we're following Pip again and she's uncovering other mystery but this time it is personal to her. She's getting letters saying who will look for you when you're the one who disappears. And again, just like they never learn, huh. Yeah, it goes there. It goes there halfway. We're switching it up on the beaches and we're going in a direction you never thought we would. I'm begging you, if you have not read the series, please read this series cause it is just top tier. Then in February, my favorite book that I read was Malibu Rising by Tilda Jenkins-Reed. Now I didn't vlog this actually, well I did. I read this with my patrons for our Patreon book club so I did a vlog over there but we haven't had great luck with the book club. I haven't loved a lot of the books we've read but this is by far my favorite that we've read and I love Tilda Jenkins-Reed. Honestly, Tilda Jenkins-Reed, one of my favorite authors, three, five stars. There's not many authors I can say that I've given three, five stars to. There's a big party, right, that these Reaver siblings host but that's the second half of the book. The first half, half of the first half is the morning before the party, learning more about them, getting ready. And the other half is the story of their parents' meeting and the kind of kids growing up and that was just so beautiful and heartbreaking and Teddings-Reed just gets to the heart of humanity and just like, ah! Then I actually never thought I'd be saying this but my favorite the next month was Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee. I just never thought I'd be saying this because I didn't love Jade City that much but I loved Jade War and Jade Legacy. This is a mammoth masterpiece, a feat of human writing of a fancy book. It is absolutely incredible the way that this story builds from book one, this complexity, this detail, this, the way that details, these little details from the first book can become so important in this book. The characters, the family, ah! We're following in this a family, like almost like a mafia family in this world where Jade is their power and it's just, I mean, the series is so difficult to explain let alone this book but this book is kind of years, you know, later years, obviously it's the last book so the later years of them and the family and having to broker difficult deals and make difficult decisions and like, oh, it's so complex, the characters are so complex. I love it so much. Then who would say the next month was A Skin Full of Shadows by Frances Harding. I discovered this book completely on a whim. I did not expect to love it so much and we follow this girl called Makepeace who can kind of like do stuff with ghosts. Okay. Basically a bear spirit gets inside her, a bear ghost so she's like got this bear ghost in her and her mother dies and she gets sent to live with her father's family. Her father is dead but he has a very rich family so she gets sent to live with them. It's again a gorgeous fantasy, gorgeous writing, so well plotted, I just could not stop reading it. Oh God, I'm not like having, I'm not reading a lot at the moment you guys and I'm finding reading a bit hard and I just need like a, just a quick succession of five star books would be really nice right now. And then the last month we need to talk about is last month, May. I really struggled with this one actually because if you watched my video with Mara from books like Woe, you know I had three, five stars in that video and it was The Rook, The Death in the Nile and The Broken Girls. And I really struggled to pick one of those. I still don't really know because I read them so close together. I don't know which is my favorite but I'm gonna go with The Broken Girls by Simone St. James. It's got a dual timeline which I never usually like. Part in the 1950s with these four roommates and part in the present day with this woman who's still discovering and uncovering and investigating the death of her sister 20 years ago and her body was found on the estate of the school that the girls went to in the 1950s. And a new body is found on the ground in the present day and it kind of opens up this mystery. And this book is heartbreaking. It is so well written, so compulsively readable. The ending was very, very satisfying and Simone St. James always has, from my understanding, this kind of element of the paranormal in it in her books. And I just loved that about this book. I thought it was just done so perfectly because often I read, the way that I understand Simone St. James in her book, I've only read the one, but I think this is how she does in all of her books, is there's a little paranormal element and it's neither like confirmed or denied but it's kind of left to be ambiguous. And I often read a lot of paranormal books that are pictures paranormal where the paranormal just ends up to be fake, right? It's like set in our wild and the paranormal is like, oop, I was tricking you bitches. It's actually like my fucking cat pressing some buttons behind a screen. I don't know, like it's like not real, right? Whereas in this, without spoiling anything, that doesn't happen. So I really, really love this and I can't wait to read more Simone St. James. That is my favorite books from each month that I have been on Booktube. Wow, that was a lot. Let me know what your favorite book here is that I've mentioned. I would love to know where our tastes are similar. Hopefully, I will see you if you watch me. Probably have maybe read quite a few of these and liked them, but we shall see. And thank you so much for supporting me in my channel. I am so happy to have this camera and to get to do this. And I feel so, so lucky. So thank you so, so much. I will see you soon in another video. Bye.