 I don't think it's good literature. It was not interesting. It did not have me at the edge of my seat. Oh, those books made me so happy. It was like a trainwreck that you can't look away from. No more joy. Here's the season for best and worst. We're halfway through the year. So far this year, I have read over a hundred books, oops. But a lot of those books have been rereads and so I never count rereads for best of or worst of. I think in the past, I've done the, I so, okay. So we're halfway through the year. So I'm doing five best, five worst. End of the year, I do 10. I think in the past, I've ranked them and I've done it like one of the worst, one of the best, one of the worst, one of the best, one of the worst, one of the best. And done it like that so that we end on a positive note. So that means I'll start with my least worst and then go to my least best and then do my fourth least, fourth most worst and then to my fourth least best and then to my third most worst and then to my third least best and so on. I think you know where we're doing it. Since I don't have a lot of the books that are on my worst list because I've gotten rid of them, I'm not gonna hold up any of the books. I'll just put up pictures. We'll actually start since I have kind of six for my best so I can bookend it with bests. So I listed this as an honorable mention. So I guess it's in sixth place. I didn't really feel like this deserved to be on best of but I read the whole trilogy in two days. And I think that's not nothing. So this isn't officially on my top five best but I wanted to mention it anyway. And so we'll start there and that's the Simon Snow series by Rainbow Rowell. Like I said, I binge read the series, the trilogy all three books in two days. And I don't think it's good literature but obviously it's quite bingeable. And like I said, that's not nothing. Reading something compelling is not nothing. I always give points for that. Even bad books, if they're compulsively readable, that'll get at least two stars because that's not nothing. These characters have my whole heart. I'm obsessed. When people talk about books that just make them happy, I'm always like, I wish I knew what that felt like because like I DNF'd House on the River Cerulean Sea. My patrons made me read legends and lattes but I was bored out of my mind. I just, I so rarely feel that way about books. I like reading Grimdark. But Simon Snow, I understand what it means to say, these books just make me happy. Well, those books made me so happy. I'm still riding that high because it was the last two days of June that I read those books. So I can't recommend them to everybody and I don't even think that they're like books that I would highly, highly recommend to anybody other than people who like specifically, I think would feel the way that I do. They just, they know what they are and they're really good at being that. And I think it's important to know what they are before you read them because you don't have to read Fan Girl even though I was like, I refuse to read these until I read Fan Girl and I actually ended up liking Fan Girl. I think it's important. I was talking to one of my patrons about this and because he wanted to know if he needs to read Fan Girl before reading them. And I was like, no, you don't need to read Fan Girl. You just need to know that Fan Girl is a book in which this girl who is the Fan Girl is the author of like In Universe, the like world's most famous, most popular fan fiction of In Universe. They're basically their version of their equivalent of Harry Potter and it's Simon Snow. And so she's written like a fanfic of Simon Snow and that's what that's about. And so Carry On and the Simon Snow books, they are not the Simon Snow books from the universe of Fan Girl. They are her fan fiction of the Simon Snow books that are in that universe. So when you know that about them, that's how they read. They read like the world's best fan fiction of an existing IP. And so I think if you know that about them, you know that going into it, then you can just have a ton of fun reading it because like that's what it's set out to be. That's the only thing it was ever trying to be. And it knocked it out of the park on being that. So yeah, that's and Simon have my whole heart. And yeah, that was amazing. I just so much joy, so much joy. So now to my fifth worst book, No More Joy. It pains me to say this is Daughter of Red Winter by Ed McDonald. This is one of my most highly anticipated releases of the year by one of my all-time favorite authors, his other series, the Ravensmark trilogy is all my all-time favorite fantasy books of all time. And this, I believe he wrote it before Ravensmark, but it's being published now after. And I don't think it would be being published if it wasn't for the success of Ravensmark because it's not good. And that's why it wasn't published before, but they wrote something good and people like, oh, what else do you got? He's like, well, we can blow the dust off this whole thing. And they're like, sure, because you're popular now. It was really, it was really, really, really bad. And it, it pains me because I really love his other series. I know he can do better. It just was so amateurish and it was poorly, poorly paced and the characterization was, was inconsistent at best, but mostly it was non-existent. And when it was present, it was badly done. And I am a character-driven reader. So like, even if you did everything else right, but she did your characters badly, you're not gonna do too well with me. And he didn't do the other stuff all that well in it, but the characterization was truly egregiously bad. So yeah, I would not have finished that book if I had not received an ARC in exchange for a review and if I had not agreed to talk about it with Alan. I would have the NFD at that. It hurts me to say it because I really, really love Adam McDonald's other books. So I will continue to check out books from him. I might read the sequel to Daughter, depending on what I hear about it, because I think it would be more likely to be new material whereas Daughter of Red Winter, the first one, was what he wrote from before. So maybe it'll be good again when he's writing fresh material now. So I might, I might give it a go, but yeah, Daughter was terrible. My fifth best book of the year was Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne. I'm two for two with John Boyne. I, there is a particular book of his that I will not read, but in general, I would like to read more from him. And Ladder to the Sky was an unexpected hit with me. It was a book that I got from Book of the Month a while ago, and I just, you know, I like to get through those when and if I can find space in my TBRs to kind of like clear out that backlist. And when I got it, I was like, it's John Boyne. I really, really liked Hearts and Visible Fury. So we'll try another one from him. I didn't really know too much about it. I hadn't really heard of it. And it was, it was just so well done. I haven't really read anything else like it. It's kind of hard to describe. I struggled with describing it in my wrap up the month that I read it. So it sort of tells the story of a particular writer's life, but from the perspectives of different people who have affected his life and career over the course of that life and career. It almost has a kind of like a thriller mystery quality to it, and I can't, because it's not a thriller and it's not a mystery. But there are things about it that are like one. And there are unexpected revelations in each of the perspectives that like cover a certain period of this person's life. It was just, and the characterization of each perspective that is telling you the story, these different people who have known this writer and what they have to say about it and who they are as people. It was just so well crafted. Talk about a character driven reader, character driven writer. It was so well done. And the audiobook is narrated by a bunch of different narrators because each of those perspectives who's telling a certain part of this person's life is read by a different narrator, which is a great choice in my opinion. I highly recommend the audiobook. Well, yeah, that book was just, I like as I was reading it, I was like, I don't know exactly what this is or how to describe it, but I am savoring this. This is just so extremely well executed. Just wow. My fourth worst book was The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd, if memory serves. Didn't write it down, whoopsie. I have a review for this on my channel, quite lengthy one, a spoiler-free one. This book briefly just literally makes no sense and like nothing was thought through. And this wasn't even, like I've said before, a book being bingeable, a book being, you know, readable, being compulsively readable is not nothing. So this book, they literally really no sense, which it does, makes literally no sense. But it had that genocide quo of like, okay, this is dumb, but like I wanna know what's gonna happen. I didn't. It was not compulsively readable. It didn't even have that going for it. I forced myself to finish it. It was not interesting. It did not have me at the edge of my seat. It was just, it was awful. It was poorly paced, poorly executed. The speculative element of it was not thought through at all. It was, it was, it was insanely bad. The title itself is a problem because this book is really not about cartographers. And it's very clear when you read this book that the author either has no idea what the word cartographer means or she doesn't, she doesn't care and she's using it however she wants to use it. But the whole time I was reading it, I was like, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. I just, it's gobsmackingly bad. And I just, I don't understand how it got through so many people saying yes to it. Because at its core, there is the something of an interesting idea there. And there are so many little things that could have been changed about it to make it at least functional. It wouldn't be good, but at least it would be functional. And nope, it just shows violence. Like I feel like you have to try to make it make this little sense. I guess A for effort because it makes no sense. My fourth best book of the year is A View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman. I do have a video about this on my channel as well. I put off reading this because it selected nonfiction. And I, even though Neil Gaiman's my favorite author, I was like, well, I'll get to his nonfiction when I get to it. But I was going to see him again for the first time in many years. And I was like, well, let's, I should read a Gaiman and ideally one that I haven't read. And so I picked A View from the Cheap Seats. And I'm so mad that I took me this long to read it. It was, it was so, so, so, so, so, so, so good. It like, it is the life pick me up that I needed that anyone needs. It makes you fall in love again with the idea of reading, the idea of writing, the idea of literature itself. Makes you want to read all these authors that Neil Gaiman is talking about either loving the works of or loving them as humans because he knows them or both. It's just so cozy and yet inspirational. It's poignant to get funny. It's Gaiman at his absolute best. It's so good. And it will just fill you with joie de vie. My third worst book of the year was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmas Garmin. This was another book of the month called Failure. I do have a review for this on my channel as well. This was like the worst example or one of the worst examples of like feminist fiction where that is the entire point of it. And even that point of it is not done well. And that point is actually undermined by that being the only point to it if that makes any kind of sense, which if it doesn't, let me explain. Like if you are trying to make a point, you are better served not letting your reader who is reading a book of fiction know that you have an overt point to make because yelling at the reader is really not a great way, you know, to go about that. So it's just stuffed with like soap boxing dialogue and utterly unrealistic events and circumstances and conversations where you're like the only reason this is happening is because you want these characters to soap box at each other and they're by extension at the reader. The characters like from scene to scene, particularly the main character, they're not consistent. They behave in whatever way the author needed them for that scene in order to either make a joke or make a point or both. But it is not consistent for what that character would be doing based on what you've previously seen them do. The plot is not believable. Her idea of what the times were, it's not really accurate. There's literally misinformation in there. It's really bad. It's really bad. It gives like feminism and feminist books a really bad name because now when I see that a book is calling itself that, I'm like, it's gonna be bad, isn't it? And I don't want to feel that way. I want to think positively of feminist fiction, but too often it does what this book did and undermines and does a disservice to the very name of feminism. Also, it is marketed as like a whimsical late read akin to the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and there are two on page SAs in it. So reader be warned. My third best book of the year is Jade City by fondly. I thought I would have finished that trilogy by now, but because of life, because of books, because of TBRs, because of other obligations, that has not happened. But I hope to very, very, very shortly finish Jade War because I did start it and to start and finish Jade Legacy. But Jade City, I've been read that book. I really, really loved it. I'm pretty obsessed with it. And I do desperately want to read Jade War. It's not that I don't like it or that I don't want to. Jade City absolutely deserves the hype. I do have a review for that also on my channel. I think basically if I have done a review or a separate video for a book, then that's how it makes it on this list. Like you just, that's what goes on these lists, which means just stands to reason and it had an effect on the either positive or negative. Jade City, like I get why it doesn't work for some people. There are specific things about it. Like that has to, those have to work for you. And if that's not the kind of thing that you like, if that's not the kind of character you like, if that's not kind of the kind of story you like, then it's not going to work for you. So I totally get why it's not everybody's cup of tea, but it is absolutely my cup because those are all my favorite things. And it's some new things that are now my favorite things. I did not know that they were my favorite things because I had not seen them before and now they are my favorite things. So yeah, just absolutely deserves the hype. Those characters, amazing. I am terrified to read the rest of the books because I've heard that there are things that upset readers who love these books. So like, maybe that's why I haven't finished Jade War. Maybe I'm just afraid. Maybe I'm just chicken, but it's so good. And it is also compulsively readable, which again, that is not nothing. My second worst book of the year is For the Killing of Kings by Howard Andrew Jones. Really the other ones, didn't write it down. I did a live chat with my friend Heather ranting about it. We were both sent this book by the publisher. We were sent the trilogy by the publisher and we were like, absolutely not. We were not reading more than this one book. I tabbed mine and I tabbed every single page because there was something either wrong or dumb or offensive on every single page and those were the things that I was tabbing. So if you wanna see our extensive live rant, I'll leave that link down below. It was shockingly bad. I think I was saying that it was offensively bad, which it is, it was shockingly bad. Like even grammatically like there was an error on every single page. There were so many times where like words were used wrong, sentences were constructed incorrectly. There would be a word that I was like, that's not what that word means. You can't use it that way or I know what you mean it to me but that's not an appropriate usage of that word or that word means what you want it to mean but you can't, it doesn't function grammatically in a sentence the way that you're using it right now and then like the real building and the characterization was shockingly bad and for a book that supposedly has a matriarchy that is hilarious because it was one of the most sexist books that I've ever read. It was, yeah, there's a reason we ranted about it for like two hours so check that out if you haven't. My second best book of the year was East of Eden by John Steinbeck. A surprise for me, a surprise for you, a surprise for everybody. I read this for my books and inspired music project. So I would have read it probably someday in my life but that's, I wouldn't have read it anytime soon if it wasn't for that. And boy am I glad that I did. I was absolutely blown away by East of Eden and it was a new favorite book of all time for me. And it's one that really kind of stays with you. I love the themes in it and I thought that the characters in it really stay with you and really leap off the page. It's just a multi-generational kind of family drama like sort of a before the turn of the century and then after the turn of the century being 1900. And it just, it was such a page turner. Like it really kept my attention and my interest and I didn't want to, it's a long book but I didn't want it to end. Found it so affecting and so poignant and so meaningful and so relevant even to this day about what it's saying about family and about love and about purpose in life and about responsibility to yourself, responsibility to your family, responsibility to your friends, responsibility to your fellow man, about legacy, about personal journeys. It was just, it was an incredible, absolutely incredible classic for a reason. So glad that I read it. I not highly recommend it. My worst book of the year so far is Darling Girl by, don't recall the author's name but Hilary and I chatted, vented, ranted about it at length on my channel. We both picked it to read from book of the month, kind of knowing it would probably kind of suck. I went into it being like, this will probably be meh, might even be kind of bad is my, was my expectations. I was like, I hope I'm wrong, hope it's great but it'll probably be meh because like Peter Pan retellings are pretty bad most of the time. Hilary read Peter Pan this year and fell in love with it. So she and I are both huge fans of Peter Pan. I don't think I know anyone who's a bigger fan of Peter Pan than she and I. So I was like, well, now that you've read Peter Pan welcome to the world of hating every single retelling. And just in time, book of the month, off our day Peter Pan retelling. And I was like, hey, you wanna read this with me? And she was like, sure. So we read it and it was far, far worse than we could have ever imagined or been prepared for. It was truly the worst Peter Pan retelling that I have ever encountered in my life. And I've experienced some pretty bad ones. That was, we compared it to a lifetime movie. We compared it to a Disney channel original movie. We compared it to like a dark romance that we would expect to find labeled as trending on TikTok. We were at a loss for words for parts of it. It just, yeah. It was kind of tough to explain parts of it cause also it doesn't make any kind of sense. Like it's not like the plot doesn't make sense. The way that it's meant to be tying into Peter Pan doesn't make sense. Its own new rules and new ideas don't make sense like with each other. Like we're not just talking about what doesn't make sense compared to Peter Pan. Like the new ideas presented in the book, like they are immediately contradicted by the book. And the characters like that you're meant to be rooting for the main character is like a terrible person. Yeah. It was like a train wreck that you can't look away from. It was so bad. It was so, so, so, so, so bad. So yeah. So you had a 10 to not recommend. And my best book of the year so far is Paper Menagerie by Ken Leeu, which Hillary is responsible for. She picked it for when we did our TBR swap. That was one of the books that she picked for me to read. And it was so, so good. That happened to also be the month that my patrons chose that book for me to read as well. So like everybody colluded to make me read that book. And thank you to everybody that made me read that book because it really, really is incredible. Made me a Ken Leeu fan immediately. I was so impressed by every single story in Paper Menagerie and I was impressed by the variety on offer. And the variety in terms of the subject matter, variety in terms of the prose style, variety in terms of the story structure. There was just so much talent, just oozing from Paper Menagerie. And in addition to all that, there was also like parts of history that he was drawing from that are lesser known parts of history. So I was learning also while being utterly wrecked. I cried like three times reading it. It's a harrowing read. It is not a light read because each story is really, really intense in its own way. Not all of them make you cry. A couple of them will make you cry. But the other stories are just really intensely thought-provoking or poignant or both or dark and disturbing. There isn't really a light read among them. Maybe the very first story in it is, I guess, a light read. But I'm just absolutely blown away by Ken Leeu. I am gobsmacked. So I, I mean, Paper Menagerie is fantastic. 11 out of 10, if you haven't read it, read it. It's a chef's kiss, just perfection. And those are my best and worst books of the year so far. If I read over 100 books the first half of the year, I don't want to read 100 books the second half of the year. I was trying to read less this year so I'd have time for like other stuff in my life. I don't know why this is happening. Maybe I should set a goal of reading 200 books and then I'll read five and I'll actually have time for other stuff because apparently reverse psychology is how I function with myself. But anyway, let me know your thoughts and feelings about the books that I've chosen. Be ready of them if you want to read them. Whatever you want, we know. I've got studios on Saturdays. Other random talks as well, but I think Saturdays are like a subscribe. Join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.