 Queen of Iconic Catchphrases, Queen of Insanity, Queen of Discovering Dead Bodies! Hello, hello, hello! Welcome back to another video on my channel. I am so excited to make this video so, so excited. Today we're going to be doing RuPaul's Drag Race Queens as books recommendations. I am so excited to bring this video. By the way, I've just seen the lighting change. The sun is not cooperating with us today. It doesn't want us to succeed. It doesn't want us to succeed, but we're going to. I mean, just then it's gone in and out, in and out. It's going to be going in and out a lot. I might try if it changes drastically to adjust the cameras, but anyway, we don't care about that. This idea I've had for a long time, RuPaul's Drag Race, is pretty much my favorite show. I watch it and I rewatch it. I watch everything to do with it. All the RuCaps, Lee Dawson, all the, you know, watcher packing, everything, everything. I'm obsessed with the show. I'm a basic ass, straight white girl, but what can I say? Today I am going through five Drag Race Queens and I'm going to be recommending books to you based on them that I think you would like if you like that queen. I've tried to go for quite an eclectic mix of queens and also quite a mix of books. We've got some non-fictions and fictions and poetry. We've got it all sis. We've got it all just like you want on the show. You want it all. You want all the variety. So that's what we're doing today. Can you tell I'm excited? Evidently. The first queen I'm going to recommend based on is Katya, the Russian haul and the Russian haul gets a Russian book. Miss Katya is hilarious, but we're not, this isn't a funny book, so I shouldn't say that. But when I thought of her, she was my favorite queen, I never wanted to recommend based on her. I had to recommend a book based on Russia. The easy option would be to just recommend The Fair and Light and Girl to you again, but we're not going to do that. We're going to recommend Dead Mountain, The Untold Story of the Dilatov Pass incident by Donnie Iker. I read this based on Books and Lala's recommendation. It's a great piece of fiction based on the hikers who died on the Dilatov Pass. I first heard about this incident on BuzzFeed Unsolved. Is an episode of BuzzFeed Unsolved? Maybe I should do a Books and BuzzFeed Unsolved episode. That's probably the only other thing I watch as much as Drag Race. Any shaniacs? The major is personal mission to investigate the incident, talking to people involved. He even has an interview in here with a member of the group who, because of illness, had to leave early and thus didn't pass away with the rest of the group. They were all found meters away from their tents, clothes strewn everywhere in different groups around, but not super far from their tent. And so the question is what made them flee from their tent? He speaks to specialists in the book to come to his conclusion and to me, the conclusion makes a lot of sense. It seems like the best conclusion I've heard, definitely better than what they went into in the BuzzFeed Unsolved episode, but it was early BuzzFeed Unsolved days. So if you're looking to learn more about Russia, because you love Katya so much, this is a really interesting piece of Russian history and it's a really, really well-researched book. In some points it reads like a piece of fiction because he takes you through the last steps of the group in a really effective way and it's really heartbreaking. There's a lot of pictures of the group in here and they were very young, you know, they had their whole future ahead of them and sadly it all came to an end. So yeah, it's a really interesting piece of Russian fiction or Russian history. That is all of the group and that one here is the one who we speak to, who had to leave early, but that is the rest of the group who all passed away. This case is just filled with peculiarities and you know just very strange occurrences that no one can really explain just like Katya to be honest. But yeah, definitely would recommend picking this up. It's a really, really interesting read. Next queen I'm going to reckon based off of is Miss Tammy Brown. Miss... I'm acting. And excuse your mouth. Queen of Iconic Katros is queen of insanity, queen of discovering dead bodies. Did I ever tell you the time that I found a dead body? I was out riding my bike one afternoon and over in the ditch I spotted a mannequin. I thought it was a mannequin. I thought of all the ways I could dress it up and everything, you know? But by the time I got up close I realized it was actually a corpse, a dead body. Dead bodies. How's this look? Huh? New looks? I honestly don't understand how she's just not the most iconic queen for everyone. She's just like, I'm just obsessed with her and I just, I think it's because I don't understand her. I don't understand her. This in some ways is a bit of a strenuous link and in some ways is the best recommendation I've got. So Miss Tammy Brown, she must be mad. She must be mad. So this is a poetry collection called She Must Be Mad by Charlie Cox who is a very young English poet. These poems have been written through her teens up until she's in her twenties now, up until now. So in it she talks about mental health, body image. It's split into four sections which are She Must Be In Love, She Must Be Mad, She Must Be Fat, She Must Be An Adult, which I'm sure you can imagine already. There's some super powerful poems in here. My favorite one is one about Instagram and I posted Instagram like, hey everyone, this is what I think of Instagram because I just felt like it just completely described my thoughts and, you know, she's just wonderful with her words. So this is a really amazing, amazing poetry collection. For me, she really explained what it's like living as a young woman in the social media age, especially if you have mental health problems which, you know, so many of us do, we all have a relationship with our mental health and all the pressures that are put on young women and girls today to live up to and how toxic that can be. There was so much in here. I just slew through it. I gave it five stars. It just, it just touched me and it made me think more deeply about a lot of topics and I really feel like this is a really brilliant way into poetry for a lot of people. I've read very sparse amounts of poetry and never buy like a proper, I've never really gone into poetry. I've read it but not, not loads. So this has really made me want to consume and read more poetry. So I would definitely, definitely recommend picking this up and remember, we're all a bit mad, but Tammy Brown excels. My next recommendation is based off of Aquaria. Sorry to keep you waiting, Adam. Queen of fashion. Queen of season 10. Queen of the Met Gala. I don't know. Well, she was on. It wasn't the best look. Let's be honest. We all live in Rihanna's world. But my recommendation based on her is the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Everyone recommends this book. Everyone says you should read this book. Everyone talks about it on Booktube. But girl, this and Aquaria are both classy bitches. Bitches whose aesthetic is thought out precise. Crafted even. You could say that both images are crafted. They both, to me, they both play so much emphasis on their image and how it makes people think about them. And girl, I just think that the same, like I think Aquaria should play Evelyn Hugo. I think Aquaria could play Evelyn Hugo. I mean, she's not, Aquaria's not the fishiest. But like, I just think she's got that aura. I just think she's got that aura. I mean, the popular choice would be Blair St. Clair because she's got that kind of like old Hollywood vintage. But to me, personality-wise, there's more similarities between Miss Evelyn and Aquaria. So if you don't know, this follows old Hollywood film star Evelyn Hugo telling the story of her life to a young budding journalist who has been tasked with writing her autobiography. We learn that she hid a lot throughout her life. There's a lot that the public didn't know, and it's now all time for that to come out. For me, this was a real story that stuck with me. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't stop thinking about the characters, how I wanted to know more about them, how I wanted to be in this world for longer. I can definitely see myself re-reading this at some point. The only drawback for me with this book was that I didn't love the character of Monique, the journalist, by understanding why the journalist was there. But part of me just wished- oh, I'll just take up, sorry. Part of me just wished that it had just been Evelyn's story, but then it would have had a different dynamic. I appreciate the retelling, but I loved Evelyn's story so much I wasn't as bothered about the journalist's kind of sub-story. But other than that, I mean this is a really, really brilliant read. Everyone goes on about it, so you know it must be a brilliant read, so you know you need to pick it up if you hadn't. It's a really fast read as well, like you'll fly through it, really character-driven, oh my god it's just, it's just brilliant. So definitely pick this up if you haven't yet. Now my next recommendation is based off of probably, quite possibly, well definitely my boyfriend's favourite queen ever, and one of my favourite queens ever, and that is Nino Bonino Brown. Sue me. Apart me. Fight me. Queen of YouTube, best, best, best YouTube videos. If you haven't, if you haven't watched Nino Bonino Brown's YouTube videos, what are you doing? Because she's just hilarious, she's just the funniest. So Nino Bonino Brown has spoken out a lot about her mental health both before, after, and during the show, and really powerfully I think, but she definitely struggled a lot on the show, and that was a storyline that was crafted for her, be it good or bad. I think conversations around mental health are so, so important, so for this I'm going to recommend, remember this when you're sad, lessons learned on the road from self-harm to self-care by Maggie Van Eyck. So I followed the author on Instagram and Twitter, she has just had a baby, and her discussions around mental health and having a baby have been really interesting as well, but in terms of the book this was before She Had a Baby, I think the last chapter is about being pregnant. I definitely recommend following her on there as well as reading this. I read this in a day, I read it on the last day of the year, last year, to get to my goal of 15 books last year, which is crazy that I only read 15 and I had to like rush read this. This is a memoir where the author takes you through her mental health journey and experiences throughout her life. Each chapter focuses on a different topic, so for example we have remember this when you're scared of your brain, remember this when you can't stand your body, remember this when you're having sex, remember this when someone else hurts you, etc. So it's all about her life experiences and how she's learned to deal with different situations. For me I read this at a really difficult time, I just don't think I've spoken about on here yet before, but I I don't want to say I suffer with because I don't like that word, but I experience seasonal affective disorder or seasonal depression, whatever you want to call it, so I definitely struggle in the winter, definitely, and the past winter it wasn't the worst I've ever had, but it wasn't a good one. You know living away at uni for the first time was really tough and yeah it was just it was just a difficult time, but my mum's uh my mum's my boyfriend's mum got this for me and it just helped me a lot. It was definitely one of the one of the stepping signs towards getting myself better this year. I mean it didn't happen overnight, I saw a lot of difficult times after I read this book, but it was definitely a piece of the puzzle for me and if you are struggling you know I think reading stuff like this from authors, from individuals who have gone through exactly what you're going through, I think it's really helpful to know that we're all not alone and we're all going to struggle with stuff and I think it just is really something that helps, so sometimes it is good to tear away from the fiction and wanting to escape from another world because I do that when I'm sad, I want to escape to all these other worlds, but sometimes it's better to ground yourself and to you know improve your relationship with yourself and read something like this that will really focus on the relationship you have with yourself. Have I said yourself enough? Probably not. And my last recommendation is, okay this is my favorite drag queen, this is my favorite drag queen. Robbed! She was robbed! Shangela, Shangela, Shangela, Shangela, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best queen ever in my opinion. Now, an option, an option, an option could be Game of Thrones because she made all those Game of Thrones references right? I haven't read it and you know, we want to go back more into the deep, the core, the core of Shangela to get this recommendation. She is the Nancy Drew of drag, she's the Nancy Drew of drag. I am the Nancy Drew of drag. I want to know the realty and if I smell a stunt, I'm gonna call it out. So what else could I recommend but the secret of the old clock, the Nancy Drew story. Oh who's it by? Caroline, oh god, give me a mo. Secret of the old clock by Caroline King. Now I don't own the physical because I read the audiobook and for me, that's why I think I gave this five stars. Shocker, I know. You've probably heard people talk about re-reading Nancy Drew and going, go, then, then stand up. But I think it does. I loved the audiobook of these. They will not be to everyone's taste but the audiobooks have music or tell you music in it, sound effects, like a cast I think they have. It's a really well done audiobook in my opinion. I like when more effort is put into audiobooks and it's not just someone reading it, it has different kind of elements in it. I think it makes a really big difference and it's probably why I enjoyed it so much because it was more, I think a book like this, it needs that. It needs to be more of an experience. I liked that nostalgia, that old timeyness. I've spoken about it before. Nancy Drew games, the PC games were a massive part of my childhood and I'm replaying them now. I love them so much. They're so good, they're so good. For me, reading and listening to these books, it also has that element where there's something about Nancy Drew, like it's almost like a Harry Potter equivalent for me. I have Harry Potter as well but it's like another thing like that for me that is just so nostalgic and just makes me feel happy. I don't know, it makes me feel happy but I think you should really give the audiobooks a try if you haven't because they're so immersive and so well done and you really feel like you're in like the 1950s or whatever. It was on script. I listened to the first two on script but they've gone. They've just disappeared for months and I'm so heartbroken. I had the first seven I think on script and they've all gone. So if you work at Scribd or know someone who works at Scribd, please link me back up. I need to listen to the rest of them because I don't want to read them. I want to listen to the audiobook so Scribd please put that back on there. The mystery is often quite easy to figure out. Like you're not like on the edge of your seat. This is the most complex mystery I've ever had. I have no idea what's going on. Like you kind of know what's going on but in my opinion that's kind of the fun of it. They're a nice palette cleanser. If I'm between two heavy books or reading a heavy book, I like to listen to the audiobook alongside it because it's just something easy to listen to and yeah I just think they're just fun and old and just like it's just a bit of fun essentially. Some of my five recommendations based on RuPaul's Drag Race Queens let me know if you enjoyed this. If there's any books that you would recommend based on other queens I would love to make this into a series if it's something that you enjoyed because I think there's so many other queens with links to books out there. Please make sure you subscribe and ring the bell if you're enjoying my content as a new creaser. It really helps me out. I'm really appreciative of all the support I've received so far so yeah I'm just so thankful. I'll see you guys soon with another video. Until then, watch some Drag Race. I'll listen to some Nancy Drew. Who knows? Anyway, bye.