 Sometimes you'll be like, Ryn, girl, girl. I will just say that I sabotage a lot of things. Oh. In it, yeah. Welcome back to my channel. I hope you're well. What is that? I haven't got the slightest idea. Oh my God. Okay. I'm so embarrassing. Let me calm down. Welcome today to my book award. Every year I do these book awards with just basically categories I make up to chat about the best and the worst of the year. It is mostly best. I think there's maybe like two negative categories. So it is mostly books I would recommend based on different things you may be looking for. And we're going to talk about my best book of the year and my worst book of the year. I finally decided them. It's dark outside now because I have been putting it off all day to decide what my favorite book of the year is. I'm still like not 100% sure. Hello Jack. I changed my mind. I read a lot of really great books this year. I had such a formative year in my reading. I feel like this is the year I really figured out what I enjoy, what I like reading, what excites me. This was my first full year on Booktube. I started September last year and just the experience of that I think has just taught me so much about my reading. So although I had proportionally less five stars this year, I think I had pretty much the same number, but I read like 50 more books. I think I, oh my God, ow. Nurse, help me. Nurse. I think I would say I had better five stars. More understanding of what a top, top, top book is for me. Yeah, let's just get into it. I don't even know where to start. So first is most surprising. And for this I'm going with Let Go Unlimited by Echo Brown. I read this, I think it was for the weekend version of Bacopoli that I did, Bacopolathon. I'm always really bad, Bacopolathon, Bacopolathon, Bacopolathon. Stop it. Get some help. I'm really bad at pronouncing anything. But yeah, I read it for that and I literally just picked it up because it was short. I think I'd heard like one or two people mention it, but I was shocked by how impactful this is. Often five stars are now something that I anticipated quite highly in some way, but this was just completely out of the blue. So this is a semi-autobiographical account of Echo Brown's life where she is a wizard and women in her family are wizards. But really this is a book about trauma and about getting through trauma and dealing with things in life like racism, sexism, poverty, there's trigger warnings also for sexual violence, sexual assault. This is a really heavy hitting book, but it's done with this magic of this kind of magical realism element to it. It's very difficult to explain. I think that's why it was such a surprise to me, but it is just this magical, magical story but full of difficulties. Like it's not light in any way, I wouldn't say. I remember there was one really interesting storytelling element where a chapter would focus on two scenes, two opposing scenes that happen at different points in Echo's life. It would flip back and forth between the two, like in the middle of sentences. So it would just really abruptly break and go into the next one and there would be two experiences that really relate to each other in some way. So I thought this was really cool. I really, really enjoyed it. Most disappointing when I was really disappointed by was the silent patient by Alex Michaelides. I don't know why I've chosen the two categories I don't have the book for to start off first. If I'm being honest, I'm a bit pissed off about it. I promise you I will be holding up some books in this video. God it's shit. God it's shit. Because it's shit. I was really hyped for this because it won Goodreads Thriller of the Year last year. I was like, fuck yeah, that's good. Shite, shite. This is about a woman who has been sentenced to murdering her husband and ever since then, she hasn't spoken a word. Here was my main issue. It doesn't really follow her. Like it's not, she's the interesting one and instead we're following like her psychiatrist. Oh my God. I was so angry with how this book cheated women with how this book treated mental health. I was fuming. I was fuming. It was the worst day of my life. Gotta be one of the worst days I've ever had. Ain't deadly serious. The twist isn't interesting or imaginative. It felt so cheap and here's the thing. Like if you love this book or the power to you, I'm not saying you're wrong. What I am saying is it wasn't for me and I think it is over hyped. Yeah. And it was just like it was one of those books where you're like, okay, this is written by a man because the way that women are framed in this book is just so annoying. Some people get annoyed at me for saying stuff like this but everything I say is true. I have freedom of speech and everything I'm saying is true. So next category is most under hyped and I went and I looked at how many ratings a lot of my five stars had on Goodreads and one of the lowest that I don't think I hear people speak about enough is you must not miss by Katrina Leno. I've heard quite a lot of people speak about Horrid lately, which is her most recent book. This only has like I think 1400 ratings on Goodreads. So not loads in this for following Magpie as her family has kind of fallen apart after she caught her dad cheating on her mom and she writes about this magical world called near where everything that she wants is possible. Everything is perfect. Everything is as she wishes it could be in real life. Then she finds out she can actually walk into near from there stuff kind of starts going a bit wrong. I don't want to say anything but like this was the perfect amount of weirdness like this will almost up for the award of best cover because I love it so much. And it was also almost up the award of weirdest book. Like I think this is the perfect amount of craziness. Like it's the perfect amount of like holy shit. The Huck is going on. Like what the fuck I got it like it was so good. I love when stuff is written in like a bit of a disjointed way. It's all straight. Oh my God. I can you tell I loved it the way that this deals with trauma again is really really interesting. There's trigger warnings and this for again sexual assault and the way that it looks at what happens to a girl when she has just again and again and again been dealt shit like been dealt shit in so many aspects of her life gone through so many different degrees of traumatic things and yeah what that does what that does to someone go read this I love it. I love it. Okay. Most over how we're going to spend like two seconds speaking about because I have trashed this book enough most overhyped read one probably by Casey McQuiston. What's going to happen going to shoot me. I doubt it got to catch me first. I'm like a whip it. You know what this is by now. It's a romance between the prince of England and the son of the president of the United States. I've trash talked enough but it's overhyped. It ain't it. This everyone loves it. Everyone loves it and you're wrong. Okay. No, I don't want to speak about it anymore. Like I don't want to do it but it is the most overhyped book I've read this year. So I you know if I was doing most underhyped I had to do most overhyped just don't if you haven't read it by now maybe don't that's what we're going to say. Listen. I was very restrained. I don't upset anyone. Okay. I'm done. Thank you. Next I want to talk about best for beginners. So this is a book that I think if you're wanting to get more into reading maybe you've just discovered booktube recently you want to be the kind of person that reads like a hundred books a year. This is a book I'd recommend to you for people kind of just getting back into reading and it is one by one by Ruth where I need to buy a version of this. This is about this tech company called Snoop which is kind of like a combination of Spotify and social media I guess basically you can see what celebrities are listening to or anyone is listening to and you can listen along with them at the same time and they go on this like corporate holiday to this ski resort and they start dying one by one. It's sad. It's sad. You know it's it's a shame. This got some heat this got some criticism because people were saying it was too simple and like boring and I've respectfully disagree. I can't see if I've got my hands on my hips like I'm trying to have a power stance here to feel more assured scientific studies have proven. I think there's nothing wrong with a simple mystery done well and here's the thing about this another criticism that it gets is that people knew the murderer was at like 60%. I knew the murder was at like 50 60%. I think you're supposed to I think that's intentional because then there's this brilliant like 20% of the book where there is just this tension building and building and building at this certain situation that is happening because you know who the murderer is and I think that is just done so well. I think that's a really fun way of reimagining a simple mystery doing everything else perfect but then having this element where the murderer isn't revealed at the end like it's revealed fairly early on and then it's about the tension building. I think this is the perfect starter thriller. The turn of the key I think I said last year was a perfect starter thriller. They're really good at being really accessible. The turn of the key was the first thriller I ever read and I think it's so fast paced. It's so like on edge kind of simple in terms of the structure of a thriller. I really think if you're just looking to read more in general or read more thrillers read one by one. Don't listen to everyone who says it's not good. And then the next category is best for veterans. So these are the books that if you read a lot I think you should give a go. I went for two for this one. I went for middle game by Shunde McGuire and The Poppy Wall by I.F. Quang. I think if you read a lot especially fantasy and you haven't read either of these yet you need to pick them up. You need to do it. You need to do it. What are you waiting for huh? What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? I'm choosing middle game because this is a really clever book. This is like a sci-fi fantasy about these two twins Roger and Dodger who have been created by an alchemist to help them ascend to Godhead. And it's a clever aspect. Like I always felt 10 steps behind. If you're looking for a book that will push you that will test how you think that will confuse you. I think this is a great option. And then The Poppy Wall is another one. I have hyped up on my channel a lot. This is a Chinese history inspired fantasy that is rich with so much depth because it is inspired by real history. I think this is really required reading for any fantasy fan. I still need to read numbers two and three in this series. I'm going to be reading them in January, hopefully or maybe February. I keep saying like January or February for all the books I want to read at the start of the year because I just don't know when I'm going to get around to everything. Good God get a grip girl. Our main character in this Rin makes a lot of decisions right from the get go that you're not going to necessarily agree with. Sometimes you'll be like Rin girl girl. I will just say that I sabotage a lot of things in it. Yeah. It plays with right and wrong and how do we know what is right and wrong? I just think it's really just a wonderful, vivid, amazing writing. So if you haven't read this yet, it's a must. Even in this moment, I'm thinking about my best book of the year and I'm like it's not too late to change your mind because there's so many good ones. Okay, we'll get to that at the end. Next, let's talk about the weirdest book that I read this year and that was Dig by AS King. This is about a family of potato farmers. We are following a lot of different relatives of this family of potato farmers and some of them are in very strange circumstances. There is one who has a collection of fleas who have like a flea circus. I mean, she's been through a lot of trauma but she constantly thinks that she is on stage. Like she constantly thinks she's in a performance and she can hear the audience like applauding for her. Also, some of them aren't referred to with names. So you have the freak and the shoveler. It's crazy. It's whack. AS King is incredible. I'm already like, please AS King put out another book. It delivers on the weirdness. If you're looking for like a weird book, go read this. Like I think it's brilliant. I don't think it's been spoken about a lot as well. What it's really dealing with is like white supremacy in America that kind of privileged small town white supremacy and how that affects generations. So it's dealing with that like really serious issue but through all these like wacky crazy stuff. And then I asked on Instagram and a couple of these categories of ones you guys had asked for quite a lot. So one you asked for was most absorbing or like hardest to put down. And for that I'm going with Catherine House by Elizabeth Thomas. Now this is another controversial one. Not a lot of people lying it. This made me a bit crazy. Like if I had on her, this made me go, this made me feel crazy. This made me feel crazy. And the same way that watching Haunting of Hill House when it came out, I went a bit crazy like I went a bit like my mental health. So essentially we are at Catherine House which is this really prestigious school where once you're a go there you're not leaving for three years. And the more the book carries on the more this mystery occurs where we know there's some like shit going on that is not it. Like it's not, it's not good. No, I just don't think this is like great for me. I don't want to do it. I want to go home. Like I can't take the pressure of it. Don't you think any job interview... And this was written in such like a claustrophobic enveloping way. It really makes you feel how Catherine House makes these students feel where they become so attached to it and so drawn in and like just all they know is Catherine House. The writing does that to you as well. So this was just so absorbing. Take this with a grain of salt because not a lot of people like it. But I think if you're looking for a book that like sinks its teeth into you and like almost won't let go, this is it. And then quite a few people wanted me to talk about covers like favorite covers of books I read this year and I can't choose one. So I'm going to choose three. So one I love is The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill. I just think this is beautiful. I mean, obviously it is a graphic novel but I just think it's so gorgeous. This is another one of my favorite books of the year. The art of selling this is just like stunning. I really love Home Before Dark by Riley Sager. I don't really know why. My boyfriend hates this cover. He thinks it's really ugly but I just love like the glow in the dark green and how it looks and how different it looks. I feel like it's a bit of a different looking thriller. The one that like came to mind first is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I love this edition so much. I mean, it helps as a special edition. I love like the art of these characters on here, the blue edges. So yeah, they're probably my favorite covers of the year. We have gotten to the end of the more general categories. So now let's talk about the favorites and least favorites. So the worst book I read this year. This was hard but the worst book I read this year was Rebel City Avenger by Kendall and Kylie Jenner. Hard was because Jonas the Beautiful Dead by Erin Maguire has worse writing. However, the plot is a little bit less ridiculous than this. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't even want to talk about it. I'll leave the vlog linked where I discuss this. There's just like a multitude of like ridiculous stuff in this painting as a language. Also, I just remembered that like this machine that can read paint splatters as language. I remember I spoke recently about like the pedestal they have to stand on at their like young girls' integration into society and they spin and have to strike poses on it. I have to laugh. I'm sorry, this is so f***ing ridiculous. And that's like them being a good woman apparently and how they get male suitors. The fact that the twins share a love interest. Lord help me. Lord help me. Like Lord help me. Poorly written for the coin that this family have hire a good ghost writer. Hire a good ghost writer and it's just shit. It's just shit. And now it's time to get into the favorites. So my favorite series of the year has to go to the Illuminae Files by Amy Kofman and Jay Kristoff. I love this series so much. This is a sci-fi series where it is completely told in multimedia. So drawings, chat logs, surveillance cameras, web pages, all of these kinds of things. Our cast of characters in this is incredible. The teenagers we follow are all such interesting characters. I don't have a bad thing to say about it. This is such fast paced that you'll make you feel so tense. You can see especially in Illuminae, like this black bit at the end. Oh my God. You'll be like, I think it's a perfect introduction to sci-fi. If you're looking for that, it's funny. It's enlightening. It's just tense. It's everything. This series is everything. It's everything. It's everything. But wow, what a moment. I will never forget. Gemina is by far my favorite in the series, but I love them all. And that leaves us with my favorite book of the year. John Will, please. Actually, I lied. I couldn't choose between two books. It was really hard. I felt horrible as I picked one as my favorite. I picked it and I felt horrible. I was like, but that other book has been so amazing. It's been such a big part of my reading this year. I then realized the other book is published in 2020. So we're going to do my favorite 2020 release. So my best book of 2020. And then we're going to do my favorite book I've read this year, but it wasn't published this year. So my favorite 2020 release is the guest list by Lucy Foley. Yes. So I feel like some people are going to be surprised. This isn't number one. And so am I. It was hard. It's really hard. I still don't know, but I love this thriller. It's the one that I have championed so much. I adore it. This is a really classic murder mystery. Obsessed at this wedding. We know on the first page someone has been murdered and then we're going back in time to the night before and backwards and forwards to find out everyone's motivations, everyone's secrets, who could have possibly done it and who could have possibly been killed. This is brilliant. Like it's the perfect thriller. Again, this is another one I would say if you're looking to get into thrillers, read this. Or specifically murder mysteries. This is more of a murder mystery than a thriller. It's simple, but effective. It's tense. It's filled with these horrible characters. And I think that's really hard to do. And the way that everyone's secrets start to stack up is amazing. I loved it. And this was such an important book for me this year in terms of like reading it fairly early on and then being able to really champion it when it came out. I want to read more 2021 releases as they come out so I can do something similar. But this was like the first time I read a book as soon as it came out and then just like told everyone to read it. I loved it so much. I cannot wait for more from Lucy Foley. It's amazing. And it just got pipped the post. So my favorite book that I read this year, you're going to be surprised. I don't think people are going to call this. My favorite book that I read this year was The Strange Case of the Alchemist Daughter by Theodora Goss. I can't believe that. I actually can't believe that. I love this book. I read this originally by the audio book and I only just now got the physical one for Christmas. I love it. I love these girls so much. So in this we are following Mary Jackal and Diana Hyde and all the girls of the Athena Club who are all girls linked to men from a classic Victorian literature. And this first one in a way is a bit of a murder mystery but this book is essentially them trying to figure out what the Societé des Alchemistes is. The Societé des Alchemistes. It's them trying to figure out what that is and what they have been lied to I guess about their whole lives. These girls really make a family unit for themselves in a way that they've never had one before. They hate each other at times. They love each other at times. They're always there for each other. It's amazing. It's so good. The audio book for this is incredible. It's probably the best audio book I've read this year. I'd really recommend if you're going to read it, check out the audio book. The way that the fourth wall is broken in this, the way that it captures that Victorian classic literature, the way it incorporates characters like Sherlock and Watson into the girl's story as their friends but it by no means let them take over the story. It's not Sherlock's story. It's the girl's story. The way that all of these girls are so different and unique in their own way, the way they all bring different stuff to the table. It's just masterful. It's amazing. Pretty legendary if you ask me. I love it. And this era will always have such a close place in my heart. I just have such a soft spot in my heart for this. I just think it's incredible. I don't think people speak about it enough. I think it's kind of one of those books that was maybe popular when it came out and then has been a bit forgotten. I want everyone to read it. It's feminist. It's historical. It's strong. It's witty. It's fun. It's everything. It's everything. And I love the cover as well. This was another contender for best cover. I loved it so much. So I'd really recommend picking this up if you haven't already. This series is amazing. And yeah, that is my favorite book of the year. Can we believe it? So there we have it. That is my book awards for 2020. I hope you enjoyed. Let me know down below what some of your answers to these categories would have been. Also leave me the... Oh, I'll put the emoji. Like it's like streamers, like celebration. Like whoa, put that one. Put that if you've watched this point. I am so excited for what all of my reading in 2021 is going to entail. I've got so many fun things planned for this channel. And this year has just been beyond my wildest dreams. I could never imagine that my Booktube would get to the place it is now. I just feel so incredibly lucky. So thank you for your support on Booktube. I hope you've enjoyed this video and I will see you very, very soon. Bye.