 Hey guys it's Tilly and today I'm here with another video and this one is going through my top three favorite and least favorite reads so far of 2018. At the end of every year I like to do videos that face around my top 10 favorites and my top 10 least favorite books of the year but it's not the end of the year yet although it is coming up quickly but I do like to keep you guys updated on what books are in there running for that and I have very quickly picked up these books on my favorites and least favorites so far. So the first one that we have is Whisper by Lynette Noni so this book features around a girl called Jane Doe and Jane Doe has been locked in this underground captivity prison sort of like place called Lengard for almost two years and she's basically been tortured on, manipulated and forced to live like a prisoner for no reason and she has not said a single word in all of this time until her rigor routine has changed up one time and she meets a new person, a new male and you'll then see how the story unfolds but I will not be doing any spoilers for this video because these are still some popular books and even if they are not as much like side of this video I still recommend picking them up and having a read because just because I didn't like it doesn't mean that so many of you guys won't. Anyway back on track because I easily got sidetracked then but the only thing that I didn't really like about it was the main character who seemed to have made some really silly choices and decisions in this book that I didn't enjoy reading. Lynette Noni is a really fantastic writer. I love her other series The Midoren Chronicles. I find that her writing styles are very easy one to read and yet her books are very page-churning with characters that you are bound to fall in love with but unfortunately Whisper just did not live up to the hype that I was hoping it would have and it just wasn't one that I enjoyed. I put the book down and I kind of felt a little let down by it. I'm not sure if I'll be reading the second book or not. I guess I'm gonna kind of wait until I hear everyone's opinions but so far I just I wish that I had loved it. I really did. One of the books that are on my new all-time favorite book list is The Scandal also known as Bare Town by Frederick Backman. I have recently just discovered that there is a follow-up book from this and I'm so eager to buy it but I also need to like not buy books because if you guys haven't noticed I have way too many books that I haven't read yet. However this is one of the books that I have read and thoroughly enjoyed. The writing style that Frederick Backman has is fantastic. This book centers around a hockey town and I know nothing about hockey and yet by the end of this book I was like the biggest fan of hockey because his writing made you feel like you were one of the townspeople. You were one of the people in that crowd watching this hockey game and you were like rooting for them. You wanted them to win. However this book does have its dark parts in it. By example it is called The Scandal and The Scandal does take place and it is quite horrific to see how this story is unraveled and how people react to this story as well. It is based in a small town so everyone knows everyone and when a scandal happens it obviously will break out. It's not something you can keep a secret and the side that people take in it is quite eye-opening and heart-wrenching at the same time. The very first chapter of this book had me hooked and I can guarantee that I'll have you hooked too. Late one evening towards the end of March a teenager picked up a double barrel shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there. And although that first chapter seems rather dramatic and action-packed I can say this is not a very fast-paced book but it is such a rewarding read and I loved it. I really did. It's the first kind of book that I've read like this and I'm really glad that I am trying to branch out from the normal genres that I read because it's been so rewarding. I have found a new favorite book. This next one is quite a popular read. I might have been late to the bandwagon upon reading it and when I did read it I kind of just skim read it. I didn't get into the book at all. I didn't really enjoy it and unfortunately I don't think I would do a really read of it even if I felt it was the right time. I can say that maybe I'm partially blaming the fact that I have watched the movie before I read the book which I know is like sacrilege among book readers but I did it anyway and maybe I can blame back for it. But anyway the book is Perks Being a Wallflower by Steven Shiboski. It is a very small read and I thought that it would be one that I could just pick up and read but it did take me quite some time to actually finish this book and when I say I was skim reading it I mean like I would I wasn't really taking the words in on the page. I kind of felt like the movie even did it better. The depth of the characters in this book didn't seem nowhere near as much as they were in the movie. Certain characters they just didn't feel like they had a big role in it and although I like I really did like Charlie a lot of the side characters just were very one-dimensional and I think their characters make up a lot of the story and that you need to make them strong but that didn't seem to happen in this book. Next up on my favorites is Red Rising by P.S. Brown and I recently finished this book and if you guys have me on Goodreads and if you don't have me on Goodreads follow the link down below because I use Goodreads occasionally. I had a love-hate relationship with this book. I first started it and I thought that I would hate it. I have rancid about this to so many people because reading this book I thought it was horrible and brutal and really pushed past the lines when it comes to certain themes and I thought that it was all pointless that they were writing this story just for a shock factor. There are parts in this where even me someone who loves this horror was kind of like that is just unnecessary like yes it was horrible and brutal and mean but for what point exactly? But by the end of this book I fucking loved it. It's definitely spoiler free so I can't explain why I loved it or what point actually changed my thinking of this book but it is not a YA book at all. It is a fantasy sci-fi book and it does deal with dark themes such as like murder and rape and beatings and death and things like that and it's a heavy book but it is so well written and so smartly thought out and the characters in this book are problematic and they are false and they are so human despite the fact that they're like not human although they're human but someone have like six fingers, seven fingers? Weird amount of fingers. I didn't expect to love it and so far it's probably been one of my biggest highlights of the year and I'm really excited to continue on with the rest of the series although I'm trying not to buy books I might have to make an exception for book two and three of this. So in Red Rising you follow a young man called Dara and Dara's colour cast is a red. It's kind of like that dystopia society where every like different level of people get a different colour so red is the bottom and gold is the very top and in between you have a whole colour range. However Dara has been lied to his entire life he was told that him and his people were said to Mars to help colonize it for the future of earth and yet he doesn't know that he has basically been treated like the scum of the earth. He's been fed little rations, he gets treated like nothing and he works arse off every single day for people that already live on Mars in a very wealthy lifestyle and he has been doing this dirty work for years and years and of which he never realised until his wife is killed and he is then taken by the rebellion to help bring down the highest cast of them all the golds. And Dara then has to undergo becoming a gold which is an easy process because not only does he physically have to change but he has to become smarter, fitter, stronger and a bunch of all other things that I wouldn't be able to do and then that's when he gets to infiltrate the golds. And the last book on my books that I haven't liked for 2018 so far is one that I haven't actually like hidden my thoughts upon at all. I have been quite honest and upfront with how I thought this book was or should I say novella because that is A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Marce. So this is a short story from the A Court of Throne on Roads this series which features a first chapter from the next book in the series which I don't even know if it has a title and if it does I have currently forgotten which I think I've heard a lot of people say is the best part about this novella. And I can actually agree with that. This whole novella features around the gang around the winter solstice, them all hanging out together, what they're doing after the war and things like that. And I can say that the best part about this book was Feyre. I was never someone who was completely like on board with Feyre like she was just another character that I've seen written multiple times. However in this book you have her PTSD and you have her trying to overcome the things that she experienced during the war which I think was amazing. I really wish that they had put more point of views in like that. I'm someone who gets really annoyed in a lot of fantasy books when they have this huge war and they just show these characters moving on very easily when I don't think it would be like that. Which is why I'm glad that they did that with Feyre. It's not something that I think characters should be able to overcome in just a day because people can't overcome that in just a day. However there were other things in this book that I didn't really enjoy namely saying Reese or Rice and however you pronounce it. His character in this was completely stupid and he frustrated the hell out of me. I'm not going to be spoiling this but he just he was so frustrating and I'm pretty sick of him as a character but I know that he's going to be in the next lot of books because they would never get rid of the attractive male that is dominant in this entire series that everyone seems to love. I find that the side characters didn't get enough time to shine. And this is a novella so they don't really have much space for it but these characters didn't feel like themselves at all and that kind of really upset me because I'm a huge side character fan. I tend to fall in love more with side characters than I do the main characters and I did in the Corta Thornton and Roses. I love Azrael, I love Elaine, I love Cassian and I love more and I would want more of them. But that didn't happen in this book so I have really high hopes that the rest of the series as she writes it will contain them but that one will focus around Nesta and Cassian so it's just going to be like a repeat of the Corta Thornton and Roses I think. I remember talking to one of my friends yesterday and she read my review on this book and she said that she has never disliked a book with so much passion that I did with this one and it's kind of sad that I don't like a book so much but there was just so many problems in this novella that I couldn't overlook. So I have one more book for this video and it is going to be my last one for books that I have loved so far in 2018 and I've also talked about some other videos because I do absolutely love it and that is Strange the Dreamer by Lani Taylor. If you guys haven't read anything by Lani Taylor you need to read Lani Taylor. She is such a vivid and beautiful and fantastic author. Her writing is hands down some of the best that I have ever read and I will literally read anything by Lani Taylor and that goes to say that I loved Strange the Dreamer. I actually put this book off for a little while because it is a big b***h book but it was so worth it. It was such a fulfilling read and it was such a unique story with characters that were flawed and real and loved and I want to read it all over again and I cannot wait for the next book to come out because this is a series that I will die for. So this is the story of a mysterious city stripped of its name, a mythic hero with blood on his hands, a young librarian with a singular dream and a blue-skinned goddess, every bit as perilous as she is imperiled. Like I said there are a lot of things that I loved about this story. The writing itself is phenomenal, the characters are unique and amazing and you will love them. Even the ones that are basically the mean and bad characters in this are written so well. And I think I mentioned it before on the video but I believe that characters are what actually make the story and so to have this book with amazing characters written so well that you love them, you hate them but no matter what you have feelings for certain characters in this book and that is what's really made this book for me. So if you guys get the chance to read Strange the Dreamer, read it. Please read anything by Lani Taylor because she is fantastic and you won't regret it. And I think that is everything that I have for this video. There you guys have my top three best and worst reads so far of 2018. If I offended anyone I'm sorry I really don't mean to. Everyone has different tastes in books and I'm sure that some of you guys hated the books that I love. Not every book is made for everyone and that's something that I can understand and get behind and every interpret stories their own way, which I think is also kind of magical too. Thank you guys for watching and I will be back with another video soon and until then you guys have a lovely bookish day. Let me know what you guys are reading down below and yeah I'll see you guys next time. Bye! So let's get started. I have 87 books that I have recently got. I don't want to make this video way too long for you guys so I'm gonna kind of be quick going through