 Hey guys, it's Liana. I'm here today to talk about books that I'm hypocritical about. So I'm fairly well known for my rant reviews and unpopular opinions. I piss a lot of people off on a regular basis. I am well aware. And I do realize, I think, because when I talk about books that I do like, I'll often say like, I know in the past I've criticized books for this but in this book it doesn't bother me because whatever. So I'm gonna go through a list of books that I guess we're gonna go with the one I hated or accused it of being flawed in a particular way. And then I'm gonna tell you about a book that does the exact same thing that I love. Basically arming my enemies with ways to call me a hypocrite and a liar. Okay, so I hate thrown-of-glass. I tried so so so so hard to like thrown-of-glass, to get into thrown-of-glass, to read thrown-of-glass. I owned like all the thrown-of-glass books and got rid of all the thrown-of-glass books. And I accused it of of like the world building being terrible, of the main character being really kind of childish and unlikable and emotional. And I just really don't like the main character for that reason. And I was like, it's saying that it's a fantasy but really just a romance with like a lot of romance in it. And it's just like a lot of like wordy flowery descriptions of things amounting to nothing. And I don't think I'm wrong about that. I think thrown-of-glass really is all those things. But I love Shatter Me. Okay, the first Shatter Me book, I low-key hated for most of it. And then by the end of the first Shatter Me book, I was like, I'm kind of into this. Also, how the f**k can Warner be the endgame romance, which all of the merch has informed me he must be, or he will be. And I was like, how? I got tricked into reading the rest of the books because I was just like, I need to know how. And now I'm like into Shatter Me. And yeah, the main character is an emotional female who makes dumb decisions and it is a romance, not really a like interesting sci-fi dystopian. Like that aspect of things is kind of there to serve the romance plot more than anything. It's over the top. It's dramatic. It's melodramatic. That a writing is like very purpley and flowery and I'm into it. I do think because it is shorter, the books are shorter. I do feel like the head of Mafi knew that she was telling a story about Juliet and her like romances and like kind of keeps it tight and keeps it made me to that. There aren't like a million sub plots and sub characters that like take up a lot of time and amount to nothing because really the plot isn't that important. I feel like the head of Mafi knew that it's not, that it's not over here for it's not what she's here for. So she kind of stuck to the essentials, the things that we are there for. So I never felt like it was bogged down by trying to continue to pretend to be something it wasn't. I don't know if that's an actual justification or not, but that's kind of how I feel about it. I feel like it is just as trashy, but it's better at being that trash in a way that genuinely is addicting for me and I do think the head of Mafi's purple prose is more artful. I do think that her like descriptions and poetical ways of talking about things, they're very extra. It's a lot, but I do think there is some genuine poetry and art to the way that she writes that I do enjoy from a craft like wordsmith standpoint more so than Sarah J Maas. That's just how I feel about it. Next up is The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I had many criticisms for The Way of Kings, but the one that is relevant here now is I did criticize it for kind of stopping all the storytelling to tell world building stuff that wasn't being like that we didn't need to know. And there is a fine line and it is very, it's a very, your mileage may vary, gray area subject to preference type thing, how much world building is necessary to know to establish a world is feeling real and how much is extraneous. I felt like a lot of the world building detail in The Way of Kings was extraneous or at least because it was delivered in a way that was kind of into a dumpy. It felt more extraneous because it felt like it was taking time away from the story rather than kind of organically filtering into my awareness as the reader. That said, I've heard this criticism leveled at The Wolf by Leo Kauru, which is one of my all time favorite books. I've read it three times. I'm already itching for a fourth read. I've heard it criticized for the amount of description that Leo Kauru includes for the world of the Anakim, for the buildings they build, the way they organize themselves, the their relationship with nature, with the nature itself, all of that. To me, it came across as very much like reading an anthropological ethnography. And when you read an ethnography, all of that is super duper relevant because we're learning about what makes a culture that culture. And it didn't really come across that way to me in The Way of Kings, partly because I felt like the culture and world building in The Way of Kings didn't make sense. So for that reason, then I also couldn't forgive because I was like, you're spending a lot of time telling me all this detail that ultimately doesn't really make sense. So I think I found it more frustrating for that reason. Whereas in The Wolf, it feels very to me organic. I don't feel like the story is stopping to tell me those things. I feel like it's really important to really see how the Anakim are different from humans because the Anakim are Neanderthals. And so how they operate is different. And it's necessary to understand how different that is. And to them, their home is their everything. And so describing their home to them is this is essential to describing who they are, because who they are is where they are. Because that makes sense. Makes sense to me. And I love it. So I mean, you'll believe me, I'm being a hypocrite because I'm fine with it in The Wolf only. Okay, who does it? But I did not like it in The Way of Kings. Next up, I have Wicked Saints by Emily Duncan, I think is the author. And I hated that book. It was very like derivative of the Grisha trilogy, in my opinion. Grisha trilogy meets the Ralo ship, and it was just badly executed in my opinion. However, a lot of the appeal and a lot of the reasons that people did seem to like it was the sort of like edge lord romance between the main character, Nadia, and the sort of darkling type character, which I found cringy and poorly developed and too over the top in terms of like, um, edgy darkness. And she's like, you're a monster. I can't love you because you're a monster. But I love the shit out of the crows by Lee Vardugo. And people who say Six of Crows is good, but Kaz Breckers is an edge lord. Kaz Brecker. God, this is my shit. I fucking love Kaz Brecker. You do not know how much I love Kaz Brecker. Name a car after Kaz Brecker. My license plate is customized to refer to reference Kaz Brecker. I have like a skull, a crow skull hanging from my wit mirror in my car for Kaz Brecker. I really like Kaz Brecker. And like, to me, there's a lot of subtleties in his character that makes him so much more than just the service level edge lord. He's got depth and personality. He's got reasons to be the way that he is. Okay, like if you look at fan art, yeah, he's an edge lord. But I feel like the reason it works, like I feel like people like Emily Duncan look at something like Kaz Brecker and like, I can do that. But all they took from Kaz Brecker was the window dressing. They took his like outfit and that's it. You know what I mean? And there's just so much more to it. And if you don't have them much more to it in your story, then all you end up with is an empty shell of an angel lord. Kaz Brecker is nuanced and perhaps a little dramatic. But I think he's well written. I think Liam Arduko is good at character development. So I think I completely eat up the romance between Kaz Brecker and a nage. I ship them hardcore. I want good things for my Kaz, even though he kind of doesn't deserve them because he's a low camp monster. But Kaz must be an animal. Next up I have Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson. That is the third book in the Mistborn trilogy. I did really like the Mistborn trilogy. I really did and I do recommend it. However, I really didn't care for the way that it ended, which is what my criticism video is about, for which people like to hate me. I didn't like the way that faith was handled in the conclusion of that trilogy. Having faith be a strong component and a large part of the story you're telling, having characters grappling with faith, having questions of faith be really instrumental and significant to the story you're telling. I'm absolutely fine with that. I mean, people for that video like to tell me that I'm, yeah, I don't know. They like to tell me a lot of things. But I'm basically saying that like, so what if he's dealing with faith? Like it's a fantasy world. So like he can write whatever he wants in his fantasy world. And those are just the answers to that world. And they accuse me of projecting onto it like a real world faith. The way that I read it, the way that it came across to me was like an allegory. Was Brandon Sanderson not so subtly telling us a faith-based allegory, which really left a bad taste in my mouth, which is why it bothered me. There's a lot of stories that don't have this sort of one-to-one comparison to make to real world faith, where the conclusions and the answers are handed so cleanly and so definitively where you're like, this is the answer to the questions of faith. As if to say that you shouldn't have doubts. Part of faith, the nature of faith, both in real life and the way that I prefer it to be depicted is to not have those answers so clean. Because if the answer is that clean, then it's not faith anymore. Then then it's just like a natural phenomenon that you're studying, if that makes sense. Like the whole point of faith is the leap of faith. And so as soon as you start hand-fistedly giving me answers to faith, that's not for you anymore. So it was very heavy-handed in my opinion. I didn't care for it. But so, again, people disagree with me. And people tell me that I'm wrong for feeling that way, which is kind of ironic in my opinion, considering that we're talking about how people interpret faith and me having a problem with it not being left open to interpretation and I'm wrong. Anyway, I really do like the Golden Compass, or as it's known in the UK and Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Now, I did not like actually where that series ended up for the exact same reason. So I'm not really a hypocrite. But he did pretty overtly in the, even in the first book, address faith, except he was less addressing faith and more addressing the institution of the Catholic Church, which is why I don't, I mean, I guess this one is kind of a lie. I don't really think I'm a hypocrite about this and I'm not even arguing that I am hypocrite. But I guess arguably, I mean, that's the nuance for me. Like, I do like when faith is handled, addressed when structures of faith, faith-based organizations, faith-based things are incorporated, addressed, discussed, debated, grappled with in a fictional fantasy speculative kind of way and speculative context, which is why when I say that I didn't like it in Mist Point, it's not that I never like it. I just, when it's handled in the way that it was handled in Mist Born, where it does not leave any room for interpretation. That's when I really don't like it. Now, again, Philip Pullman doesn't also doesn't really leave room for interpretation and the end of his dark materials trilogy, which I also didn't like. But I did like the Golden Compass. So I guess I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I guess I'm trying to say that I'm not a hypocrite about this one. I'm a hypocrite about the other things, but not this one. And I just snuck it in so that I could tell people to leave me the fuck alone. Next up, I have Raider Dragons by Evan Winter. Raider Dragons is a revenge story that's nothing but revenge. And I was like, this is really one dimensional and boring, because it's literally like the only thing towel cares about is revenge. It's just revenge, revenge, revenge, revenge, my train to get revenge, my battle to get revenge, I'm gonna get badass, so I can get revenge, revenge, revenge, revenge, revenge, I don't think it's like a word anymore. But I love, love, love, love, love, love, love best of cold by Joe Abercrombie. I think he handles a revenge story a lot better. But technically, Monza Mercado is just as dedicated to her revenge quest as towel. That's the only thing she cares about. Come hell or high water. Nothing else matters to Monza. Just revenge. To me, I think it works better because there are other characters that are to get almost as much screen time as Monza. And they don't only care about revenge. So you do get that interplay. And you get to like examine these other characters and you get other stuff going on for that reason. If we did only follow Monza Mercado and we were only ever in her head, it's very possible best of cold would I would find it just as boring as I found range of dragons because she is I think she's slightly more nuanced than towel, but she is kind of a woman with one mission and one mission only and that is revenge. So arguably, she's just like towel. Next up I have Dune by Frank Herbert, which I didn't hate. But I had to take down my review unlike Way of Kings, which I just made unlisted so that I'd get like slightly less hatred. I literally made my Dune video unlisted or I'm sorry, private because that wasn't saying I there's absolutely no amount of like monetization is gonna make that worth it. But Dune, I accused of being up its own ass in terms of how in love with its own philosophizing it seems to be how it just goes off on just discussing this philosophical idea to the point where I'm like, I don't think you're telling a story. I think you're just like spinning an idea on paper in cool words. But this isn't a story. So it's kind of up its own ass. But I love the Secret History by Donna Tart, which is arguably equally up its own ass, because there isn't that much of a story in the Secret History. Now I would argue that because of the very nature of the type of book that it is, it's less necessary for it to be telling us quote unquote story because the Secret History in Dark academia in general is more about the kind of like philosophical head and emotional journey of the characters involved who are themselves up their own asses, whereas a space opera I go into and the the genre demands more plot. And I feel like Dune to its own detriment kind of stops having a plot too often to philosophize. And I'm like, maybe write a different book with essays and this save that for that. This is a story. It's like moms who put like a bunch of spinach into the macaroni because they're hoping to like sneak it in. That's what it felt like it felt like this space opera is the macaroni and we keep getting spinach thrown in because he's like sneaking in the philosophizing, which I know people who love Dune would probably well they already did kind of like want to shut my head off for that. But because that is what makes Dune the legendary book that it is all of the ideas. I just think they're not I feel like they're delivered in a way that's really inorganic to a space opera. It's keep stopping the philosophize, which again, a lot of people love the book have no problem with it. But basically, I'm saying I don't have a problem with the book philosophizing being up its own ass. Apparently, I just don't like it in Dune. And last and probably least is Dangerous Alliance by Janiki Cohen. I complained about it being this stupid anachronistic silly book that I couldn't take seriously because of the silliness and unlikeability of its characters and the anachronistic portrayal of this historical time period. However, I love Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by McKenzie Glee. Now I would argue that the dialogue is slightly more historically accurate in Gentleman's Guide. But ultimately, the nature of the plot is kind of even more silly and unbelievable and more anachronistic than Dangerous Alliance. It's debatable. But I feel like the humor is genuinely funny in Gentleman's Guide. And the plot was more interesting to me even if it was equally silly, stupid and unbelievable. Again, probably more unbelievable. I just thought it was I had a better time with it. It was more enjoyable. It was funnier and the dialogue was slightly less anachronistic. But I mean, basically, I'm forgiving a lot more things with Gentleman's Guide because I like it. Those things are still present in it as they are in Dangerous Alliance. And if I hate a Gentleman's Guide, I would tear it down for very similar reasons, but I just happened to like it. So let me know in the comments down below if you like or dislike the books that I have listed as ones that I like and or dislike. I didn't. Yeah. I feel like I'm gonna piss off a lot of people for the second time because I'm listed a lot of books here that already pissed people off the first time that I explain why I didn't like them. But whatever, let me know your thoughts and feelings in the comments down below. I post videos on Saturdays, other random times as well, but definitely Saturdays. So like and subscribe. And I'll see you when I see you. Bye.