 Hey guys, it's Liana and I'm here today with Read This Not That. This video is kind of a combination of ideas. I have seen, I used to watch like a lot of like vegan channels and like food channels and that kind of thing. That's how I got into like YouTube life. And there's a lot of videos on there that are Eat This Not That. So like for either switching to a vegan diet or if you're trying to be healthy or even on a vegan diet. So it'll be like instead of eating some kind of greasy potato chip, how about having air popped popcorn or something like that anyway. That inspired me and then I've also seen a lot of booktubers do if you liked this then you like this. So I thought it'd be cool to do that kind of in reverse. That if you didn't like this one book, then what you may be looking for is this other book. Now a couple quick disclaimers. I know my favorite thing ever. With some exception, the books on the the list of like to not reader if you didn't like this, I don't necessarily dislike them. Some of them I do dislike, but some of them are books that I actually do like. But I'm addressing the fact that if you were looking to get a certain thing out of it that they don't deliver on that certain thing. And that if you're looking for that something else may be able to help you out. So don't necessarily take the fact that the book is on the don't read this list. That I don't necessarily take that to mean that I don't like that book. That is often true, but isn't necessarily true. So I'll probably say as I go which are which, but just in general be aware that isn't necessarily true. All explanations over, let's get started. First up I have A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Mas. This is like the only one of the only Sarah J. Mas books I still have. Because if you saw I have a video unhauling Sarah J. Mas books, um, but things being realistic like I haven't actually got them out the house yet because that requires either mailing them or going to a used bookstore. So some of them have slowly disappeared. I still have some because I'm getting rid of them slowly. Um, so yeah, this represents the Akatar trilogy. I don't have Akatar anymore because I did get rid of that. So this is a placeholder for that trilogy. If you didn't like this because you wanted a story about the Fae and you wanted them to really be Fae-like because you're familiar with lore or you just prefer that kind of story where they are kind of weird and cruel and animalistic and have more of the typical traits of Fae and a story that's more like that. And you read this and you were like, whether you liked it or not, you were like, those aren't really Fae. Like those are just like really pretty humans with kind of pointy ears because that's real. That's what's going on here. And if you like that, I mean that's what it is. But if that's what you were disappointed in, if you were looking for more Fae-like creatures and this wasn't doing it for you, then you should read The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. When I first heard The Cruel Prince, that was my reaction. I was like, finally, Fae creatures that are like really Fae-like. Because I remember somebody, I think it was on Instagram that posted a thing that was like, what if Hakatar? Like what if all the characters had really like resembled what they came from? Like because Tamlin is from the spring court that he'd have like, like horns made out of thorns and he'd have like roses blooming when he's in a good mood and like describing all these like strange earthy characteristics that would make them really otherworldly. And I was like, yeah, you mean like if Neil Gaiman wrote it. And then when I started reading The Cruel Prince, I was like, or like that, yeah, that's more like it. These are like weirdly not human, immortal, creepy creatures that are also kind of ugly, beautiful, and definitely intriguing. And there's something romantic in the idea of them, but they're not human. And I really like that about it. If you're looking for more Fae-like Fae, then read The Cruel Prince. If you didn't like Stalking Jack the Ripper by Carrie Maniscalco, because you wanted a book that was more historically accurate and really gave you a sense of like something creepy going on and since stalking a serial killer and really being on their tail and a sense of danger, but you also wanted it to not feel like anachronistic. You wanted a feminist heroine, but not one that just was literally like someone pulled out of the present day and just put in a corset and we're calling it historical fiction, because that's how I felt this book went. I didn't like this one. The character feels, the heroine feels very modern and there's like, I don't feel like any suspense reading this. So if you felt that way about this, but you went into it wanting it, and that's what you went in, like wanting to get out of it and you were let down by it and you're still looking for that experience, let me help you. You should read A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis. I read this book last year and I really loved it and it delivered in a way that Stalking like the Ripper did not. This book doesn't follow any famous well-known historical serial killer like the Ripper, but it does take place around the same era, although it takes place in America and our main character is a female who ends up in an insane asylum because she's pregnant and women back then were in insane asylums for all kinds of reasons and this pregnancy, which you come to find out through the story, the reasons why this was not wanted by the family and why it was going to be hushed up by shoving her in an insane asylum. So that's why she's there and she ends up being transferred to another asylum which isn't much nicer and she ends up assisting this like this forensic psychologist and helping him to track down a serial killer because she can be his eyes and ears as an inmate and she can sort of find things out that he would not be able to. So she definitely within the confines of society's expectations at that time, but she's working around them and she's found somebody to be an ally in this and it felt really historically accurate and infuriating for that reason because you do feel this frustration of women being prevented from speaking out and how agency is taken away from you already as a woman and then as being declared insane. So it made me really angry in a good way and then I really did have this sort of creepy sense of following this serial killer. So if you're looking for that, I highly recommend this book. Next up is a book I don't have a physical copy of, so this is just my placeholder and that is The Flame and the Mist by Renee Addie. If you read this because you were really looking forward to a badass Asian-inspired fantasy and what you got was really boring. It was an Asian-inspired fantasy but it wasn't a good one. I personally felt super let down by that book. It's supposed to be Mulan meets 47 Ronan in a fantasy world and I was like oh badass lady and this is gonna be great. It was such a snoozefest. Oh my god, but I was still in the market for a good Asian-inspired fantasy and oh baby did I find one. Forced of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dow. I didn't plan to read this or like I kind of vaguely did but like it wasn't on my list because it didn't seem like I was burned by Flame and the Mist and this cover didn't appeal to me but I read it from Booktubeathon and boy did I love it. It is dark and beautiful and it's quite mature. Her a YA fantasy. This is a evil queen origin story retelling type thing but it is an Asian-inspired setting and oh my god it's so beautiful. Like the setting is so well done and it all just flows together so seamlessly and even though it's an evil queen retelling you don't really know where it's gonna go. Like you kind of know but not in the way that it doesn't have the sense of inevitability. Like it's a really dark twisting journey that I devoured. I think it's so good and I cannot wait for the next book so if you, like me, were burned by Flame and the Mist read 4th of Thousand Lanterns. If you didn't like Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes because you'd heard that this would be sort of a multi-perspective Game of Thrones for YA and you were like wow that was really childish and I did not like that at all. The perspectives were boring and overdramatic. The characters were kind of insufferable. The world building wasn't very complex and it was how dare they compare this to Game of Thrones. Like I know it's YA but come on you can do better. Well that's true. You can do better and it is still YA fantasy and I recommend you read The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green. This I still kind of can't believe is marketed as YA. Like I guess it is on the simpler side compared to actual adult high fantasy but way more close to reaching the level of Game of Thrones than Falling Kingdoms was. So if you wanted more complex world building but still this multiple perspective, more political world building, different pieces in different parts of the world sort of coming together with like the same strange magical threat kind of looming over everything then I highly recommend The Smoke Thieves. It's really good. It's kind of slow to start but it's it's so much better than the other one and it's definitely more bordering on high fantasy than most YA fantasy and especially more than Falling Kingdoms. If you didn't like the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare but you really wanted a book that had a modern setting and that played on this idea of angels and demons as being the sort of the magic system is based on angels and demons and playing with those notions and those archetypes and that imagery but this you were like this is really childish and I can't identify with these super YA problems and these characters are really immature. Well then I highly recommend The Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy by Lainey Taylor. This book does take place in the in modern day in our modern day world and it follows Kiru who is an art student in Prague yes in Prague and it does play on the idea of angels and demons and the magic system and the world building and all of that plays on the ideas and mysticism and imagery of angels and demons and in fact the the opening tagline is once upon a time an angel and a devil fell in love it did not end well. Who doesn't want to read that? So yeah um there's many more reasons to read this other than that one but yeah if you're looking for that and didn't get it in Mortal Instruments pick up Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Now here comes one that I do actually like but it's still on the if you didn't like list and that's Shadow and Bone by Lee Bardugo. Like I said I'm reading The Grisha Trilogy and I do like it but if you were picking up this trilogy or these books because you had heard that it was a Russian inspired setting and you were really here for a super duper Russian inspired setting and you really wanted something that evoked Russian folklore and Russian fairy tales and Russian magic and Russian culture and Shadow and Bone just didn't deliver for you in that way. Like it's even if you thought it was a good fantasy it wasn't doing the Russian thing as much or as well as you were hoping. I have a book for you The Bear and the Nightingale by Catherine Arden. This book is as Russian as Russian gets. There's a ton of translated Russian words in here and I didn't know there was a glossary in the back so I just went off the scant bit of Russian knowledge that I already have. I was like thank goodness I happened to know several Russian words because otherwise I'd be so lost there is a glossary so if you're reading this check that it will help you a lot. If you love Russian fairy tales, folklore, Russian vibes, culture, history, whatever, this book just evokes it to the I don't even know what degree. Like this is so Russian-y and I love it for that reason because I did grow up on Russian fairy tales and I do love that kind of lore. Every bit of the magic system of the characters and not just the magic system and the characters but the culture like the way that they behave around each other and what are considered social norms because like even in the Grisha children there is a lot of nods to like Russian language and culture the clothing and whatever but the way that they behave the way they treat one another the values are very modern and very western whereas in here the values of your characters they're very like old-school Russian and so in every way this book is evoking Russia. The magic system and the lore and the way the way everything looks and how everything works but the way that people interact everything about it is just so straight up Russian that if that's what you're looking for oh boy is this gonna deliver for you. And last but not least if you didn't like The Diviners by Libba Bray and I know this is a pretty popular book so I think I'm in the minority and saying that I didn't super love it but if whether you liked it or not if you were looking for a story that deals with clairvoyancy and like psychic supernatural kind of stuff like that and you didn't feel like this delivered in a way that you liked or examined it in a way that you were satisfied with then I recommend The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon. This book is very complicated and very dense there are multiple charts and glossaries that even though I ignored them I highly recommend you look at them because it'll help you not be as confused as I was. I just kind of hoped that I would pick it up as I went along and for the large for the most part I did. This deals with clairvoyancy in the modern day and it is so intricately developed and explained and utilized and I've never read anything like it and if you want that if you want a book about clairvoyancy about that kind of I hesitate to call it a magic system although I guess it's treated more as a natural phenomenon but um yeah if you're looking for something that plays with the idea of dreamscapes clairvoyancy psychics that kind of thing then I highly recommend The Bone Season. Let me know in comments down below A what you thought of this style of video because I'm sure I could come up with some more read this not that type of like combinations so if you like this in general let me know that because I'll think of some more um but let me know as more specifically if you've read these books and if you would agree about my comparisons or if any of these on the don't list were ones you were disappointed with and now you are gonna pick up the ones I said you might be better satisfied with you do end up picking up any of them based on my recommendation whether it worked out for you or not please let me know because I would be curious to see if my advice was helpful to you in any way yeah let me know your thoughts um if you like what you saw don't forget to like and subscribe click the little bell icon if you want to be notified when I post new videos and I will see you in my next video bye