 Hello, hello everyone. My name is Laura. This is my channel Laura's Little Library and welcome to today's video Which are talking about my five star predictions from earlier this year. Were they actually five stars? Let's find out. So right at the beginning of 2022 I made a list of 10 books that I thought were going to be five star reads for me And I was looking back on this list Earlier in the in November and I realized that I read all the books on that list except for one So I went ahead and I read it. So I read all 10 books on this list Which for someone who forgot about my five star predictions for basically the entire year I was pretty happy about that. I was pretty stoked. I thought I was gonna have to do a reading vlog of reading like four or five of them No Anyway, so now that I have read all of them I'm gonna go through and say whether or not they were actually five stars and see how good my predictions were Which will be very interesting for the predictions that I will make For next year. So I will be doing this again because I very much enjoyed it Make sure you hit the subscribe button and hit the bell to be notified when I post that video For my five star predictions for 2023 One of the first books that I had picked out as a possible five star read for this year was a sequel To a book that I had read previously. I owned the first book. I loved it The first book itself wasn't a five star But I thought the second book very well could be and that was love boat reunion by abigail hingwin The first book is love boat type hay And you are following side characters from the first book in this one and their romance and kind of Planning a reunion. So getting everybody from the first book back together This book was amazing. It features an asian woman in stem in college and Her romance now the real question though was was this a five star read for me? Yes, yes, it was. I enjoyed every single moment of it. I enjoyed every aspect of it I don't think this could have been done any better. Like the nostalgia from the first one But then brought up even higher The glitz and glam of them going back to type hay and having this reunion But also the hardships that they faced and how they support each other through it and just It was a five star. I'm so happy Now the next one I'm gonna talk about was happily ever afters by leis bryant This follows our main character who loves writing romance novels But then when she gets into this really good art school She has this major mental block and has a writer's block and cannot write anymore So she decides to create her own romance In order to inspire herself So was this a five star read for me? No, but it was close. It was a four star read It got a little boring and a little slow at some parts and I enjoyed the premise of it, but then it just got to be repetitive of just nothing happening for not writing pushing friends away It yeah, it didn't quite live up to the expectation, but it was still very good The third prediction I had made was tokyo ever after by emiko gene And this follows our main character who is japanese-american and she finds out that her father is actually the prince of japan and so she decides to go to japan and to meet him and kind of be Learn what it would be like if she was a japanese princess and it's very like uh princess diaries esk but with uh japan and Was this a five star read? Yes. I absolutely freaking loved this book. I started reading it And already I was feeling such strong attachment to the book and the characters that I started a vlog Just for that book for that day that I read that book because every couple of chapters I would have to stop and like express my feelings of enjoyment or giddiness for this book And so that's why I did the vlog so I don't have that linked But I adored this book five star the second book tokyo dreaming is out And I haven't read it yet because I had heard some people don't love it as much as the first one But I really want to so I'm trying to like let some time pass lower my expectations But I'm so excited for tokyo dreaming The next book that I predicted was a five stars was going to be dial a for aunties And this is by jesse q sutanto. So this follows our main character Who is a photographer in this wedding business that her and her four aunts have each aunt specializes in a different area of getting ready for a wedding And she accidentally goes on a very bad date and the guy ends up dead And so she enlists the help of her aunties to help get rid of the body while they're also trying to put on a wedding And was this a five star read Yes, yes, it was I I loved this book the the balance between like whimsy comedy and like Not it's not dark. It's not dark by any means But like the fact that there's a dead body and they were trying to get rid of it like it was just the perfect amount of whimsy and comedy but also like Cultural aspects and like putting on the wedding. It was such a fun enjoyable read I loved our main character. I loved her romance And obviously, I mean not romance with the dead guy, obviously, but she does it does get better for her I'm happy to say and just the relationship that she has with her aunts and that they have with each other Is just so fun and entertaining to read and then since then I have read the Second book the sequel that came out after it and it's been a good time Moving on the next prediction was book lovers by Emily Henry. I was so excited for this book to come out Our main character is Nora who is a literary agent and she has this like Workplace enemies to lovers, but they're on vacation with an editor And they end up going to this same small town unknowingly and it's an enemies to lovers And so the question was this five stars No, I think this was the most shocking one that was not a five stars I Here's the thing It was pitched as enemies to lovers, but I don't think it was I think they had One little like not even a disagreement, but just like she was bummed and he didn't have the best first impression of her And then they were like, okay, so we're co-workers. We're gonna work on this thing and then it bloomed into a romance This was still a 4.5 out of 5 star like it was so Close to a five star I'm so surprised that it wasn't a five star for me But there were just some other elements of the book that I was like I wish this could have been done better or this shouldn't have been as prominent as it was and But I'm still super excited for her next book to come out next year next up was the henna artist and This follows our main character in the 1950s in india And she is a spinster And she wants to really buy her own house. And so she's been working hard as a henna artist for the upper class women Kind of learning all their secrets listening to their gossip. So I thought this was going to be a five stars book Was it a five star book? No, this was like a three star book for me. It was Really slow and completely character driven, which is kind of not my vibe There really just wasn't a plot and I didn't care about the gossip because I didn't really know any of the characters or what was going on So There is another book, but I don't think I'm actually gonna read it So I can see how other people love it, but it just was not down my alley Like I still think it's a well written book It was just not down my alley, but also Look up the trigger warnings Then we had the last graduate by Naomi Novik and this is the second book in the skullamance trilogy I read the first book and I loved it. It was actually my favorite book of 2021 And so I was like, well, obviously if it's my favorite book then the second book is definitely gonna be five stars, right? so it follows our main character and it's a Dark academia kind of magic like it's harry potter, but really dark It's amazing. So they they go to the school. There are no adults. No teachers The school is teaching these kids and it's all very like school is also kind of trying to kill them at the same time The second book was that a five star read? No Very close though again. It was a four point. It was like a four star 4.5 I I loved the continuation of our characters, but there were just some misses like kind of Again, I think the books like slowed down the pacing was off. I wasn't as invested in the problem That was kind of the main plot of this book. I was like, why is this really a problem? I don't quite see how it affects things Um, but you did dive a lot more into like the school's history and how How it why it works the way it does which was really cool. I still highly recommend the first one I mean, I still rated the second book very highly and i'm super excited to read the third one It just the second one wasn't quite a five star read Then the next one is the merciless ones by namina porna. I just talked about this in my november wrap up This was the last book I had to read for my five star predictions This is the second book after the gilded ones And it follows our main character who lives in this society where they test women's blood And if it runs red then the normal humans is totally fine But if it runs gold then they are demons and they must repent for their sins And they get taken away to fight for the king and his army against these creatures who are terrorizing The land I very much enjoyed the first one and I very much enjoyed this one But the big question was it a five star read? No, so again, if you watched my november wrap up, I do go into detail about this book There were just a lot of terms That was very difficult to keep track of and then it made kind of understanding the book a little bit difficult and I wasn't quite as attached to the characters in this one like I was the first one And like the ending was really good, but it took a while to kind of get reinvested into it. So Still four out of five star reads still very highly rated just Not a five star moving on the next five star prediction that I had was carl ball by Stephanie garber This is a well-loved trilogy a lot of people here on booktube Love it and on bookstagram. They really like it. So I thought, you know, it's about time for me to read this So it follows our main character and her sister and they don't like their family life They do not get along well with their father. He wants to marry them off for money And there's this big carnival event that happens and you can only go if you're invited These two girls get invited to go to this big event And so they run away and they find that not it is not as they seem as the main character sister gets Taken and she is the object of the game Literally they have to find her sister and that is how you win the game So first book in a trilogy I actually ended up binging the entire trilogy and I'm now working on Stephanie garber's other series Which is connected to this main trilogy. I'm caught up on that series Which normally takes me forever to work away through a series. So There's the question. Was it a five star read? Yes I love this. I love this so much the like dark Whimsical vibes were perfect the twists and turns the who are the characters really which boy does she fall for Everything was just on point. How do we get there? It was like I said dark whimsical Carnival game like if that sounds like something you're interested in Please pick it up if you haven't already. It's definitely worth all of the hype Now we are on to the final book on the list. So my final five star prediction for 2022 Was the late of secrets by trisha levin cellar This follows our main character who is a blacksmith with high general anxiety And she runs her blacksmith shop with her sister One day a warlord comes by and requests a very powerful weapon and our blacksmith Mates the weapon even more powerful than she meant to And she realizes that she cannot give it to the warlord So she runs away with it with her sister and a couple other people And they have to figure out how to defeat the warlord with this super powerful weapon So the question is was it a five star read? Yes, yes, it was I loved this. So I read blade secrets. I read master of iron that came out And then I read all of trisha's levin cellar's backlist because I loved these two books So much the anxiety rep in our character was amazing. So anxiety is different for everyone I also have anxiety But I was able to identify with a lot of feelings with our main character Her anxiety is very similar to how mine works. So I just felt so seen in this book and so represented and to have A character with anxiety like I do Be the main character in an epic fantasy book It blew my mind. It made me so happy I loved the sisterly dynamics. The romance was amazing The you learn so much about the world and then the second book was also amazing. So again Even if you're not like super into fantasy I would still recommend this because even for those who aren't super into fantasy I feel like this is a really good book To read it just blew me away. I was so happy with it the world building the characters the magic I got emotional reading this book. Like it just it hit me so hard All the right places Those are the 10 books that I read As five star predictions for this year Half of them were actually five stars. So half were and half weren't But none of them were terrible. Like my lowest rated one was a three star But most of the ones that weren't five stars were four stars So I was very close to predicting the books that I would love So that was really cool and it kind of gives me a little bit of confidence for like My upcoming list of 10 books that I'm predicting are five stars. So yeah, I'm excited And if you're excited for that video again, hit the subscribe button Hit the bell to be notified for when that video goes up I'm also posting three times a week going into January because I have so much content that I was just very inspired to do So yeah comment down below some of your favorite five stars from this year Also, I have bookish social media link down below that you can find me there Give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and are looking forward to more videos like this But until I see you all in the next video. I wish you happy reading