 Thank you guys it's Liana and I'm here today with another read this not that. So a while ago I did a video called read this not that and like I'll explain it in a bit but so someone recently commented once again and said hey like you should do this again. I was like oh yeah I forgot I did that I should do I have more? I kind of like skimmed through my old video to make sure I wouldn't be repeating myself because one of them I was literally I was like the reason I thought of it in addition to their comment was because I thought I thought of another one I was like oh I should do that for this one and I looked it was like oh I actually did already mention that one so I already did it but um I do have some new ones so to explain for you who don't know read this not that when I did it the first time and what I'm doing now is there's a lot of videos out there that are like if you liked this then you would also like this and so this is that but kind of not if you read something because you were looking for a certain thing out of it and it did not deliver but you still want that thing then I'm giving you recommendations for something that will deliver on the thing that you were not getting so again same disclaimer as I did that time not all the books on the like to not read list are books that I dislike some of them are just books that for that specific thing that you may have been hoping to get out of it I don't think it delivers as well as something else does so just because it's on the list of don't read this that does not mean that I dislike the book some of the time a lot of the time it does mean that but not always that isn't necessarily why it's on that side of the list so yeah I don't think I need to explain much more than that I think you'll figure it out as we go if you're still confused so let's get into it okay so if you read The Gilded Wolves by Rashani Chakshi because you were looking for an interesting heist story with like a lot of you know young people with interesting backgrounds coming together to pull off set aside differences or to combine their skills to pull off a heist you're looking for cleverness and banter and a plot that we keep you guessing and you read The Gilded Wolves and you were like these characters seem two-dimensional boring and flat the plot was predictable the twists were stupid no but you still wanted that you wanted the good version of that then I think you should read Six of Crows by Lee Bardugo I don't feel like I need to say too much about this except that it does all of the things that I just said the other one doesn't it's a cast of characters that are all young people from different backgrounds with different emotional baggage different skill sets coming together to pull off a heist there's obviously a lot more to this story in this world it's in the Grisha verse I talk about this book all the time so right now I feel like if you watch my channel regularly you're like duh everyone knew you were gonna say Six of Crows for this did this need to be said I'm just saying I'm just saying Six of Crows is an amazing book and it does do all the things the Gilded Wolves doesn't and Gilded Wolves because I read them in the reverse order I was hoping for something that was new and refreshing but still delivered the same satisfaction that I got out of Six of Crows Gilded Wolves seems like a really shoddy store brand knockoff of Six of Crows so if you read Gilded Wolves first and haven't read Six of Crows I recommend Six of Crows okay next on my list is um oh shit I just realized that when I wrote my list except for the very first one I wrote them in all in the reverse order so my list is backwards I was like why is this book on the don't read list that's because I flipped them all oh my god oops okay everything's fine oh except and then the last one I did it correct again what is wrong with me why okay everything is fine I think I have it I mean I should know I made this list right so I should know what I mean anyway so if you read and this is a book that I did do last time but my recommendation is different and if you read the flame in the mist and were disappointed because you were excited about a badass Asian inspired fantasy it was supposed to be Mulan meets 47 Roan and in a YA fantasy and you were like this is boring and not remotely badass and how did you mess this up the first time I did this video I just talked about how it wasn't a very good Asian inspired fantasy and just like that alone and how instead you should read I think I said four seven thousand lanterns so this time around basically if you were looking for like that really like stabby and like because Mulan to me and 47 Roan and those are they're like war centric books or war centric stories and that flame in the mist was not that like at all so if you were looking for a very war centric Asian inspired fantasy then I highly highly recommend the poppy war by RF Kong now the poppy war is not YA so full disclosure like if you're not going to be able to handle adult then it's very very very adult it is a war centric book it's everything flame in the mist was not flame in the mist was like very tame and boring poppy war is a lot of war in the name so again Mulan meets 47 Roan and like to me is like somewhat historical legendary historical I said historical twice like basis for it with a lot again war in those stories and that book didn't have that the poppy war is not based on Mulan but it is based a lot on actual Chinese history it is a fantasy but it's rooted in a lot of actual Chinese history and it's very I want to say like bloody and stabby because it's more war centric than that and I did a whole video on what I mean by stabby to me stabby isn't necessarily like a war centric book isn't necessarily stabby to me but it is a very bloody book lots of war lots of like every trigger warning you can think of there's like definitely sexual assault in there there's it's a war book like again all of its horror like it is a war book it's a really good book I think it's just a bit heavy it's about a young girl who gets her who fights for a place even though she's like from the lower classes to be in the sort of military academy there is some magic in it which is obviously why it's not like historical but so she likes her fights for her place in this academy that has to fight her way through the academy because it's like a battle military academy and then post academy is like war so the whole book is very much like her fighting for her place and then fighting for just surviving and just fighting in a war and then there's a lot of again like basis in actual Chinese history for the events of war the war crimes like a lot of it is based in that which makes it to me darker and more tragic to read because any fantasy book or something that happens you're like that's awful but it's even worse if you're reading it and like even though this specifically didn't happen something very very similar to this happened which is what it's based on and when you read that and you go like this is horrible and this happened like not exactly this but like pretty close to this happened and it's like to me that makes it so much rougher to read because I'm like this isn't just somebody saying wouldn't it be awful if they're saying oh this happened and isn't it terrible you're like yes yes it is flame in the mist is boring milk toast poppy war it's very spicy so I'm warning you it is all the spiciness that flame in the mist was not so if you cannot handle that level of spice I do not recommend the poppy war but if you wanted that out of flame in the mist and were disappointed the poppy war will deliver okay next on my list it's really messing me up that my list okay next on my list is if you read the wicked saints and you were disappointed like me I have a whole rant review about this on my channel if you would like to watch it um and but when you went into it like me you expected it to be about a really badass girl that there would be this sort of slavic inspired world that there would be okay scratch the slavic inspired world because my recommendation is not slavic inspired but then let's say like historical kind of real place in in our world in history kind of thing going on where it's not just entirely an invention where it's kind of rooted in a real place that we would recognize as being similar to it has that um and that it's playing on these ideas of like churches and religion sort of tying into very bloody magic and like the fact that this person would be like an assassin or a killer of some kind but it's tied to like it's called wicked saints so like that there would be like it's part of the faith or the church that this would be sort of built into it and there would be like this dark story related to that wicked saints wasn't that and it was really boring and terrible and again i have a whole rant review about it so i didn't deliver any of those things in my opinion but if you wanted that and for some reason you haven't read this yet you should read nevernight by jay christoff it's a more italian inspired setting it's not slavic which is why i backtracked on that but it's like very much in the way that wicked saints is very obviously rooted in like a slavic language culture and geography um nevernight is very obviously even though it's not actually italy very much rooted in feeling like italy and the red church in nevernight is like a school of assassins but like it's kind of religious quasi-religious and the main character is like a badass lady assassin who is becoming a part of this church in order to wreak revenge on her enemies so it's all of those things that i just listed that wicked saints wasn't said nevernight so yeah you have the churchy thing the historical thing the badass lady assassin thing tying like faith and blood into one it does all of that next on my list um if you read now i did this book last time as the one that you should read this time it's on the one you shouldn't read this so again like i didn't i as i said before just because it's on the shouldn't read list does not mean i did not like it so if you read the cruel prince and you were disappointed because we were really just looking for a book that had like whimsical fey creatures and a lot of just like sort of like fairness and you were disappointed by how much it sort of focuses on like the angst of the human character and how much like it is like an angsty romantic soap opera drama thing i think i mean when i when i did this book last time i was saying how i did the fey thing better than other books but still i would say like if you read this and you were like this isn't like so much fey like it just seems like a lot of like dramatic people with a lot of like emotional baggage and like it's more about that than it is about fairness so if you felt that way about the cruel prince then i recommend the read enchantment of ravens by margaret rogerson this book um when i read it i was like this is whimsical and like there's literally a place called whimsy in it so if you read the cruel prince and you were like this is just like a soap opera i want something whimsical and fey like then read enchantment of ravens like a lot of people didn't like enchantment of ravens because they had the reverse like they wanted something just as angsty and dramatic as cruel prince and enchantment is not that way but if you didn't like that about cruel prince then you will like enchantment of ravens because it does that it's like whimsical fey creatures that are sort of you know like dark and selfish but also sort of child-like and you know bewildered by humans and i really enjoyed it for that reason the writing style is quite flowing a little bit flowery which i think is extremely appropriate for a book about the fey because the fey always sort of speak in riddles and it has that almost sort of alson wonderland quality where you're sort of going into this other world where everything makes sense but doesn't or makes its own kind of sense because these are fey creatures so their logic is you know there's some kind of logic there but it's not exactly what how we would think of things so i really really enjoyed enchantment of ravens and i think it gets a bad rap for this reason that like people who were looking for it in like an angsty romance or like their next book boyfriend were like this book didn't do that and it it don't think it ever purported to um it's a whimsical fey book and i think it does that really well the next on my list is if you read unhooked by lisa maxwell because you like me are trash for peter pan and will be interested in and then usually disappointed in pretty much anything that's based on peter pan and you were like a book about hook yeah like that would be interesting let's see from hook's perspective and then you read unhooked and were like this is hot garbage i do the very first rant review i ever posted on my channel back when i had like two subscribers was a rant review of unhooked because i was that ready to alienate the two people that were interested in what i had to say i was like you know what this book sucks i gotta hate that book unhooked like it turned like i expected it to be an interesting story from hook's perspective or like telling us about hook or hook origins or something like that and then it turned out like everyone was basically a teenager and then there was like no plot and it just like completely destroyed the source material the main character was horrible she made no sense she was useless like oh my god i hate that book so much i'm feeling like triggered again but if you want a good one that shows things from hook's perspective then i highly highly highly recommend The Last Boy by Christina Henry this is a hook origin story so you see how hook first came to neverland and how he became the captain the pirate that we know from the original story so it doesn't like it doesn't end in a place where like hook is no longer the character you'd recognize where he's different than you always thought hook is exactly what you always thought there's just a reason why which i loved about it like there's so many of these stories i mean unhooked is just on a whole other level of awful but a lot of these stories they're like you always thought hook as the was the villain but actually he's not or like they turn him into something he's not this book never did that it just was like you know have you never wondered why hook would be the way he is so in the end of the book hook is hook hook is the pirate captain that you know from the original peter pan his main goal in life is to kill peter pan and he's you know a middle aged looking pirate man who's on the island of neverland out to kill peter that's who he is that that literally is his ending point so it is an origin story for that character except by the time you get there you totally get why um and i thought it was brilliant i love peter pan i thought this was really like true to peter pan because again following this story you really feel like by the time you get there you're like how could hook not be this way of course hook is this way it makes sense i get it and like i don't even know that i'd say that i approve of it but it makes sense so yeah if you need a good one the last boy i've seen it next up i have if you read sky in the deep by adrian young um because you're trashed for vikingy things and you saw the cover and you were like that's lagertha i want to read this and you were like it was fine but it's it was missing i was talking about this on my insta stories at one point how a lot of books lately that purport to be about vikings they sort of pay lip service to a viking culture viking window dressing but they don't at their core feel viking like the characters like their attitude towards the world doesn't feel rooted in like that kind of a mindset or culture it's just like taking ya characters or just fantasy characters from any other story but like giving them braids and an axe and having them talk about valhalla occasionally like rather than their whole world view and mindset and culture just having a different like relationship with each other and with the world and how they interact with things so sky in the deep to me seemed like a lot of viking window dressing and i enjoy viking window dressing but it's that's what it is so if you're looking for something that really feels like the culture and the the emotional and like rational attitudes of these people is different it's more vikingy than i recommend the will by leo kuru now technically those characters are not vikings i talked about this book several times now it's a reimagined history where more than one humanoid species survived the ice age and formed culture so the neanderthal like descendants who have now formed language and culture are called the anakim and they are very vikingy they're not vikings obviously because that's not what this book is about but they are very vikingy and much more vikingy than a lot of the vikings that i read about in other books like sky in the deep so these people like there's a whole basis for how they their relationship to the the land they're in their relationship to violence their relationship to faith their just the whole culture like is very very like it feels fully fleshed out like these people they're not just people like walking around with mead horns being vikings like their whole attitude the way they process things the way they react to things the way that they engage with the world what they think is a the right or wrong way to handle things the whole thing feels like this different culture that is a very different way of looking at the world that is much more akin to a vikingy culture and thought and behavior than these on their books and last on my list is if you read shatter me which again i am trash for shatter me but if you read shatter me and you were like this is basically just like a teen romance like i was looking forward to a post apocalyptic world where people have like insanely crazy abilities you know kind of thing and i wanted a story about that like about all the darkness of these abilities and like what that landscape would look like in the world rather than just like literally just about two people who may or may not be in love with each other and like vaguely post apocalyptic stuff in the background and that's how you felt about it then i recommend this savage song by victoria schwab this savage song is sort of a post apocalyptic world where dark deeds become monsters like physical monsters so if you commit like different kinds of crime not i don't want to say crimes make it sound like it's law but if you kill someone that creates a living entity so yeah there's there's three different kinds of monster and so like in this world like there's people trying to survive trying to defeat those monsters but then one of the perspectives is from one of those monsters and how he has to grapple with his identity as being a creation of like he's born out of a crime like that and it's a really cool concept and it's much more about that concept about this new world landscape and how that shapes it then it is like it's obviously about the personal relationships about this girl who's just a girl and whose father is kind of like killing these monsters and then this boy who is one of those monsters and it's i think like it's a lot more of that where this world is the focus of the book this like situation is the focus of the book yes the the personal stories of this girl and this boy are important and they are definitely a part of the story and there is you know some there's stuff about you know a little bit about like romance and stuff but it's more about how this world is affecting people in general and these specific characters and it's if that's what you wanted out of shatter me and you did not get that you're like shatter me is literally just a soap opera which it is let's let's be honest it is um the savage song is not a soap opera it takes a little bit to get into i will say that this savage song the first book um i was like halfway through before i really got into it and then the second book our dark duet it was emotional but it was beautiful and i really do recommend that duology it's really good so yeah that was my latest read this not that unfortunately read this not that does not always again but does tend to require me to read books that are not delivering for me in order to have books for that list so hopefully i don't have to do this again because every book delivers in every way but that's let's be realistic isn't gonna happen let me know the comments down below if you've read the books on either list if you agree with my assessment of them if they belong on their respective lists or you would switch them or if you have different recommendations or how you would do read this not that if you have books that you want to suggest to me to do this with maybe that'll work like if you had this experience then maybe i'll pick up those books and see if i agree and include them in another video crowd sourcing that's a thing right anyway um i post videos on saturdays so like and subscribe and i'll see you next saturday