 It is so wonderful. It is just, ah, hello. Welcome back to my channel. I'm Megan and today we're getting Lux's here getting cosy with us. You okay? Do you want to say hi? He's very sleepy. Today we're going to be going through the cosiest winter reads that I can think of because I think in winter when it's like the Christmas holidays and you're at home you just want to be reading books that make you feel really cosy and wintery. So I'm going to be giving you some recommendations for that that make me feel cosy and let's just get into it. Lux is feeling really cosy. So my first recommendation is going to be the winter night series. I'm doing a very bad job of holding it up. They enjoyed it. They loved it. So that makes me happy. It was worth all the stress. Very Like a Girl is the first book in this series and oh my god, it is incredible. I'm trying to figure out my favourite book of the year is I really don't know. This is definitely up there. I read them all fairly close to each other, not like one half, well I read the first two one after the other but there was a bit of a gap between these two and I find it really difficult to separate in my head between them. It's just all one big story. To me does that make any sense? I think they're all as brilliant as each other so I kind of just I can't even pick a favourite between these. I don't have a favourite in the series. To me it's just like one big magicalness. In this we follow Vasya who is a young girl in Russia and it's her story of self-discovery discovering her magical powers. We have the Winter King who plays a big part in this series. I don't want to give anything away. The way I always like to describe it is that this series expands really really well. So in the first book she's having to kind of save her town. In the second book she's kind of having to save her country, her city or whatever and then in the last book she's having to kind of save the whole world essentially. She's up against so many different forces because obviously the society is quite not only kind of really negative towards women doing anything by themselves but also it relies really heavily on religion and religion is used to manipulate people in the society so she's got that to fight against as well and just on the whole this series is just so magically written. I always say it it reads like you're reading a Russian fairy tale like someone just handed you an old Russian fairy tale and you're just reading that because it is so wonderful. It's just ah it's so good. It's one of my favourite reads of this year by far. I just loved it. I read this in summer so but it still made me feel so cozy and so wintery and I think maybe next winter kind of this time next year I might reread this because I want to reread it in the winter and god just holding these books makes me feel so happy you know when just a series is just it's just everything so I would really recommend picking this series up if you haven't already. I always say I don't feel like enough people talk about it on here. These are every book I could possibly think of. Stop it mate come on stop it now. Yeah bitch it was me I did it like goes on. I think out of every book I could possibly ever think of ever read this is just the cozy I mean just don't the covers come on come on don't the covers make you want to get cozy. You cannot tell me the magic in this is so well thought out the politics in this so well thought out everything sometimes I read like I just read Shadow and Bone for example let's talk about that. I just read Shadow and Bone by Lee Bodugo and it was like fine it was good but I didn't fully understand the world like I felt like the world was a bit like uh oh you're leaving. Yeah sometimes with the world I just didn't feel like it was fully thought out and it is a debut novel but is this I think these are a debut novel as well and I just felt like I completely understood everything in the world like I just got it and it was so complex and things were revealed to you at the right time and it's just it's just perfect like I don't know how anyone could read this and not give it at least four stars like I understand that some people have different tastes but it's just you've got to recognize art when you see it. So next one of my another new favorite books is The Starless Sea. I haven't gone in this jacket at the moment but The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern I just read this and I posted a vlog of me reading this which I will link it's that side isn't it I think I've I think I've learned it now and uh and in the description down below now this is essentially impossible to describe to you I'm not the best I'm not the best at describing books we all know this but I just I've I read it a couple weeks ago maybe a week or two ago and I still don't know how to describe it to you but essentially we follow Zachary as he finds a mysterious book and as he reads the book he discovers that he himself as a child is in the book and he doesn't know how anyone could have written the scenario that was in the book he he was alone he doesn't know how anyone could know how he felt uh stuff like that and so it freaks him out and it takes him on a twisty internal journey uh into the starless sea where he meets some mysterious people and uh he goes okay so he goes to the the uh it's just impossible there is a library with loads of mysterious books and the story switches between Zachary's story and passages from the books that I mentioned in the book does this make sense and then those stories because the books in this magical world hold importance those stories then somehow affect Zachary's story does this make any sense I hope it does and it's just so cosy because it's books and cats and libraries and mysterious worlds and warm ins and it's oh my god it's it's it's amazing I still I'm still I just I still don't have words when it comes to this book I didn't when I wrapped up that vlog and I don't now because it's just like it's impossible I feel like I'm not clever enough or like worthy I feel like I'm not worthy to describe it to you it is just the most magical thing ever I'm obsessed with it and I want to reread it straight away it's just perfect it's just perfect for you to be sitting by a fire with a cat on your lap because there's cats in the book and just just feeling all like warm and cozy you know pretty legendary if you ask me I love it and this era will always have such a close place in my heart if you haven't picked up yet I really don't know what you're doing and yeah you should know better by now so no never so the next recommendation I'm gonna give I've spoken about this a few times on my channel but it's truly devious by Maureen Johnson now I didn't love this I gave it four stars but I think what it's perfect for is it's the kind of book that you can read over the Christmas break and it's kind of quick it's kind of light but it's got enough mystery and kind of like intrigue that you you get like something out of it I'm not saying you don't get anything out of books that I just like with no mystery or intrigue but I just feel like sometimes over Christmas what I want to read is kind of light books but also something that gives me a bit of like you know and this is what this book is so we follow Stevie as she attends a famous private school where there were murders related kind of to the owner and students uh in the kind of I don't know what years it is hang on this is bad yeah 1930s there were murders and at this school everyone who attends is kind of got a specialism at something and what she is really good at is kind of true crime solving crimes and she believes that she can solve the murders because they're unsolved to this day and so that's why she's there and when she's there things start kicking off you know things start whoa thing oh okay and it's a little bit you're a little bit you don't know who to trust and you're just sitting there like there are a few twists and turns it didn't quite I want it to be a bit more like you know I want it to be a bit more crazy it wasn't quite as crazy as I want it to be but we were almost there and I feel like at a private school setting where there's kind of like old 1930s houses that's a very cozy environment to read about I'm really excited to read the rest of the series I think the third one comes out in January I haven't read the second one yet I need to get my hands on it but really good really good so I recommend you pick it up so my next recommendation bear in mind I haven't read this for like six years but I feel like I would be letting myself down if I did a cozy winter recommendations I didn't recommend let it snow by John Green Maureen Johnson and Lauren Miracle Maureen Johnson is actually the person who wrote truly devious so she's lucky she's getting two recs for me from me today so um this is kind of like it says three holiday romances everyone knows John Green it's done in his marketing style to get people to buy it and we essentially follow three different stories in this same town and then of course they kind of all come together and intersect and as you can see this copy was well loved by 13 year old Megan I just really I really enjoyed it and I think it's just a really fun uplifting easy going book to read over winter and I mean you can't really get more wintery than it right and I think it's really fun to read anthologies over like the winter break because you get to dabble in a lot of different short stories and a lot of different authors and I think that's something really fun to do over the winter break I just think I don't know I just feel like anthology is still wintery to me I don't know well this isn't quite an anthology it's not quite an anthology it's three three authors where anthologies are usually like 10 right but like I don't know it's a lot of cute stories if you're looking for something cute YA I just think if you haven't read this then you should just go for this because it's kind of like the epitome of cute YA Christmas books I thought I'd go with a bit of a different recommendation for the last one um I spoke in my 1k Q&A which I'll again link I'm sure I'm right I need a drink I'll link that up above about how you know nonfiction is something that's really uh important to me and I try and read a lot of but I've been reading much less of since starting back to you and if you've ever wanted more recs just let a go no and um a few said yes so that's all I needed this book I read oh let's let me just hold it up so it's remember this when you're sad by Maggie van Eyck I think that's how I pronounce her name and so I read 15 books last year and I wanted to read 15 really badly and I only read 14 and so I picked this up my uh boyfriend's mom got it for me and I picked this up on the 31st or the 30th or something and I read it on the last day of the year and it was it it just it was really I've spoken about this I think I recommended it once before and this was really just a turning point for me um over last winter and things got worse they got better after this but this was a really big part of um just my journey I think and I would really recommend it Maggie van Eyck she has experienced a lot of different mental health um struggles and she kind of takes you through uh her life and speaks to you about the different methods that have really worked for her so we have sections like remember this when you want to hurt yourself remember this when you're falling in love remember this when you're alone remember this when you're getting help uh remember this when you're in a relationship all of these things and she just gives you really kind of practical ways to work through things in a really accessible way but in a way that doesn't seem preachy right it's just like you're talking to a friend and I think that's really helpful in mental health books to you need to feel like you're talking to a friend in my opinion otherwise it just feels I feel like the advice can kind of flow over your head I mean as you can see I was like highlighting bits of this I really it really spoke to me and I just felt like it came to me a good time if anyone doesn't know I experienced seasonal affective disorder and kind of last year and the start of this year was quite bad for me um yeah like it was just difficult and I think this really was something that I think about a lot in reminding myself some of the things she recommended and I've spoken about this before like how much we all love reading fiction especially when we want to escape from the world we're in but the most and this is like cheesy and not everyone believes this but I believe that the most important relationship you're ever going to have is with yourself right like and you've probably heard that quote so many times but we really do spend the most time with ourselves and if you hate yourself or you're upset with yourself then the relationship like that affects all your other relationships and so I really try to always stay on top of my mental health it doesn't always work and sometimes you really get yourself into a hole but I think that this something like this really helps you see light at the end of the tunnel and um I hope you understand that you know there's not you're never gonna have a quick fix right like mental health is something that we're gonna experience throughout our whole lives and have to work on our whole lives so yeah that's I would really recommend picking this up I read it as I said the 30 thousandth and it just feels really cozy to me in a really really great way it feels like something really warm and positive and really effective so for me yeah I just think of this as a really cozy read maybe that's because of the time of year I read it and how it affected me but if you can get your hands on this I would recommend picking it up so so much especially if you are struggling especially during the festive period I know it can be difficult for so many people um it throws up a lot of emotions and it's a really really hectic time so I think it's more important than ever to take care of yourself during this time and yeah I really really really recommend picking this up so there we have it that is all my cozy winter recommendations I hope you enjoyed this video let me know down below what some of your winter recommendations are I would love to know because I'm always looking for more I feel like I don't read enough cozy winter recommendations so um yeah let me know what some of yours are I can't wait to hear it and I will see you really really soon with another video bye