 I'm not saying that's fair, I'm not saying that's right, I'm not saying that's just! I don't know if I would include that, that's a bit, that's a bit too far for the internet. Anyways, I'm not reading it. I'm not reading it. I am always so intrigued as to what other people's favourite books are because they usually end up being my favourite books. So I did something. I was like, we're gonna investigate this. So I decided to go and investigate it. I asked on Twitter, Instagram and my YouTube community page what your favourite book is that you've read this year. What is the best book that you've read this year? Now, when I asked this, and when I came up with this video, which is reading, I'm gonna be reading your favourite books, whatever the most popular ones are, which we'll go see in a second, I felt like I hadn't found my favourite book of the year. I was like floundering. I haven't read something that's gonna go down as one of my favourite books all time, which I think your favourite book of the year should. Now, I have, which we'll talk about again in a second because it's something that comes up in the poll. But I asked you guys what your favourite book that you've read so far this year was and I'm gonna be reading them. I've done this video before, at least once, and I remember having a few standouts in it. So I just think I have good luck. And you know, as we're coming to the end of the year, I would really like to know what your favourite books are of the year and to give them a go because it might push me to read books that I wouldn't have otherwise read. And I want to keep up to date with what you guys are loving, and if you're loving it, then I need to read it too. So let's go consult my spreadsheet and see what your favourite books of the year so far have been. Here we are at the desk. I don't know if you can tell, but it's very dark out. It's like three o'clock, but like, apparently this is my life now. So I'm here in front of my spreadsheet. Now let me tell you how many different books I went through and wrote down every time a book was mentioned and where it was mentioned. How many books were mentioned? How many books have been your favourite book of the year? 278. 278. It's crazy. It's crazy. So we're not going to go through every single book, but before I tell you the books I'm going to read in this vlog, let's go through the books that were most popular that I have read. So let's see whether I agree with you or not. By far, by far the most popular answer of any book in this whole skadoodle with, this is crazy, 21 people saying it was their favourite book of the year. What is the next most given book? It's one that I'm going to be reading. 13, right? So the next most popular book was 13 people saying it was a favourite book. This one, 21 people said it was their favourite book of the year. And when I was filling out this form, I hadn't yet read this, but I knew I was going to be and I have since read it and it is Babel by I.F. Quang, which is my favourite book of the year. So we're twins. Listen, we agree straight away. This is my favourite book of the year. It's wonderful. It's insightful. It's thoughtful. It's clever. It's emotionally heartbreaking. It's everything. Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique. This is I.F. Quang's best book in my opinion and it's incredible. It's incredible. So I 100% agree with you guys. This is the best book of the year in my opinion. But let's see if anything else that we mentioned in this video can top it. I don't know if it can. I really don't know if it can, but we shall see. Then other books I have read that were mentioned, with eight people mentioning this one. We have Projectel Mary by Andy Weir. This one I loved as well. I gave this I think 4.5. It was basically a five. One of my favourite sci-fi authors, I love Andy Weir. And then the other book that got eight people saying it was her book was House in the Resurgency by TJ Coen, which is another five star, was in my top 10 last year. I think it was maybe like number six. So another book that I have loved and then the final one that I'm going to mention with seven people saying it was I'm Glad My Mum Died by Jeanette McCurdy, which I also gave five stars. So out of the top four that I have already read, yeah, they were all basically five stars. So we're going to be reading four in this video and like, if the trend continues, they should all be five stars. This is a potential mother. Let me also just tell you the ones I haven't got them with me. I didn't get them off my bookshelf, but the next three most popular all got six people saying them, and they are The Invisible Life, Add in the Root, Under the Whispering Door by TJ Coen, and The Seven Husbands, Evan Hugo, which are all also five stars. So I feel like I can trust you guys. I feel like this is proof. This is demonstrable proof that we are on the same wavelength and I should love these books that we're going to be reading in this vlog. Okay, so the most popular book mentioned that I haven't read. As I saw it coming in, you know, as I saw the name appearing again and again, I was like, because this is a book I never thought I'd read. I'd seen it. I think it'd been a book of the month selection and I didn't pick it as one that I wanted to read. I didn't feel super interested in it. I'd seen lots of people liking it. I just didn't think I was going to read this ever. Like I generally didn't and I'm really trying to trust you guys. 13 people said this was their favorite book of the year and it is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It's blurbed by one of the best books I've ever read says John Green and the gem of a novel says Erin Morgenstern. Okay. Like I said when I put this on my TBR Cluedo of the Month, like I never thought I'd be reading this. I really don't know if it's my kind of thing. It says this is not a romance, but it is about love. It's about two kids meeting in the hospital gaming room. I just know it's about I think these characters being in love and their lives and about video games. I don't know. I really don't know what to expect. I mean, I love the cover. I mean, she is gorgeous. I mean, come on. But seriously, I don't know what to expect from this. I don't know if I'm going to love it. I don't know if it's going to be my kind of thing. I mean, I love Erin Morgenstern, but I'm nervous. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm incredibly nervous. But 13 of you, this was the next most popular after Babel said this was your favorite book of the year. So I'm going to trust you. Listen, we showed through our research before great scientific research that I did that I should probably trust you. I should probably trust you. So I feel so nervous. I think at least one person did say I don't know if it's your kind of book, though. Then we have the book that I'm probably most excited to be reading. Seven of you said this one, and it is the very secret society of irregular witches. I'm very excited for this. Okay. Just the cover is like a ripoff of House of Surrounian Sea. I mean, come on. Look at this. It's basically the same cover. Do we not think? So I've just had a lot of people saying this is cosy fantasy. It's heartwarming. It's sweet. I love witches as well. I mean, come on. Like, witches are a big obsession for me this year. I feel like anything that has witches in the time or synopsis I've got to pick up. So this is probably the one I feel most confident is going to be a five star. But so many people have just said this feels like a hug. And I think I am going to love this one. And then the next two, the last two that we're going to be reading, had six people each say that they were their favourite book of the year. And this one was one that I had previously been very interested in. It was on my Amazon wishlist. I think, no, both of these two, this one and the next one were on my wishlist. So it was one that I knew I wanted to read, but I wasn't expecting to see it come up on this list. And that is the last house on Needless Street by Catriona Ward. Interesting, right? Interesting. I feel like this is one that more people read last year. That's a bad omen. Oh my god. I feel like this is one that I saw more people reading last year, but maybe that's because I saw a lot of booktubers reading it, like towards the end of last year, and then a lot of people have picked it up this year. All I know is that this is about a horror story about their last house on Needless Street and the forest that I think surrounds it, and there's a cat. I'm pretty sure there's a cat. And there's another one that I'm excited to read, but I didn't know that people thought so highly of this as it being their favourite book of the year. I didn't know that it was really to be set apart from like other horror thriller kind of books. And finally, this one, I absolutely did not imagine being on this list. Those are all pretty new releases. I think Needless Street came out last year and the other two came out this year, I'm pretty sure. This last book, when did it come out? 2017? Yeah, this came out in 2017 originally. And this was a sleeper hit because I went through the spreadsheet and I went and filled out all the Twitter releases first, and the Instagram releases second, and then the YouTube releases last. No one said this book on Twitter or Instagram, but six people said it on my YouTube community page. I did not expect to see this. I'm going to be reading Bear Town by Fredrick Backman. Six people's favourite book of the year. I did not expect that. I really did not expect that. I can't believe that. I actually can't believe that. I'm not going to lie to you. I know nothing about this. I really don't know the plot, like I honestly know nothing. We'll find out together. This is not a book again I ever saw myself reading. So I know it's about a small town that's snowy and I'm pretty sure there's like something terrible happens and it affects the whole town. So those are the four books. Oh my god that we're going to be reading. If I had to predict right the order that they're going to go in terms of rating, it would be this. These are two that I already had a big interest in reading. This one has been super popular. Everyone has been loving it. I really don't know what to expect of Bear Town. But those are the four books that we can read. I think I will read them in the order that I mentioned them to you. So I'm going to start with Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow because it was most people's favourite book. I'm incredibly nervous but I will check in with you when I'm a little of the way through it. I have a cuddle. I feel like that's the least we can do. It got to you. Can you see hi? Whoa. Whoa. Absolutely not he says. You want to go? Okay. Hi cuties. Okay, right. Let's chat, shall we? I feel like I'm looking a bit bedraggled. I'm feeling a little bear. Let's have like a nice talk for a second. I'm just feeling a little bit like my brain is all over the place. I'm feeling a bit stressed in life. I think I know it's like the weather and the lack of light and seasonal defect sort of coming in through. I feel okay. I feel happy in myself but I feel like not maximum output. But we're okay. Everything's fine. I am 100 pages into Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Here's the thing. I have been scared to read this. It's been a couple days where I should have been reading this and I haven't because I've been very intimidated by it. I read, I was very concerned. I read the first chapter and I was like, I wish that I could just disappear. I was like, what if I just DNF the whole book based on that one chapter? But I'm 100 pages and now and I'm really enjoying it. I think having the audiobook helped me get into it a bit more and get used to it. It's, it's, it's something. No, I'm really enjoying it. I'm loving the writing in there. So let's try and describe this because whenever you hear people describe this, they like don't describe the plot. But I'm 100 pages in. I can tell you what's happened. So we have Sam and Sadie who were friends when they were children. They met at hospital. Sam was there for a car accident he's been in and Sadie's sister was suffering from cancer. So that's where they met and they had this shared love of video games and now they're kind of like at university and they're making this game that you can kind of tell because it's being hinted at a lot and stuff that's happened in the future and interviews they give in the future are being mentioned, which is really cool. You can kind of tell it's going to be a success. Like this game is going to be a big deal and I don't know. Like there's just so much about it. I'm really enjoying the writing is amazing. I already feel like this might break my heart. I suddenly like where it's taken me the whole week where I've been like I've been like hang on let's show you the dogs. When Tom's not here I do still sleep with my chartered dogs. This is Patch by the way. He was my bestie the whole time going up. You don't want to know but I chew chewed his tail off as a kid like when I was like three. It's getting weird. Anyways, I was like the whole week. Is it weird? I'm just used to hugging something when I fall asleep. So when Tom's not here I have to hug something. Anyways, I don't know if I'm going to include that. That's a bit too far for the internet. Anyways, now I just want to consume it. Like I'm loving. I'm not a video game girly unless I've told you before. I've played The Sims my whole life. I played the Nazi chew games when I was younger and I was a brats, rockangels, and forever diamonds girly. But I feel like I'm getting more into it. Like I've bought I bought Unpacked which is I wanted a switch game I could play while listening to audiobooks. I got Unpacked which is like an unpacking game and me and Tom play Pokemon together. The new Pokemon game comes out tomorrow so I feel like I'm just in a gaming mood. I'm a gamer girl right now and the book is going to be the perfect time. But I just love the way it's written. There was like this when I think I just picked it back up again last night. Let me try and find oh no maybe the third chapter. There was a line that I just thought oh this is when they meet. In Sadie's art class at school she'd been taught to draw by breaking things down into basic shapes to depict this boy she would have needed mainly circles right. So you can view that as if he's just got a lot of round features but I also think it says stuff about him like Sam as a person and like I actually got a bit emotional. Like I love when there's a line and like oh I wanted to tap and I don't tap but I was like let me tab that line I didn't because I don't know where my things are. But yeah I don't know. I really struggled to get into it initially but I feel like the audio book is really good. I'm really enjoying that. I'm enjoying now this kind of like we know we're telling the story of the past and that we are getting information about what's happened in the future and so we know that this story is going to build up to something and I really like that feeling. I don't know. There's a lot of pressure on it because it is People's Favorite Book like ever but yes you'll probably be hearing from me quite a lot tonight because I have decided I'm going to finish this. So I'm going to go start dinner now and listen to the audio book but I do have Reading Sprints my patron tonight at eight so I will get some good reading done until then. I don't know. I am enjoying it but it does feel like a lot of pressure. I did struggle to get into it first but I mean look at the cover isn't she gorgeous. Wow. Gamer girl era. Anyways I will see you in a bit. So currently on Reading Sprints I just started them and I've got to the start of part. What part is this? Part six. So we're on page like 250-ish. I'm really enjoying it. I'm loving the audio book. The audio book is really good. I've listened to most of what I've read since I last spoke to you listening to the audio book because I was making dinner. It's really good. I will say no patron so it feels like a 4.5 which I feel like I'm giving more 4.5s out than I used to. I used to never give 4.5s. I used to like be 4 or 5. Like I used to give out a lot of like 3.5s but not many 4.5s but I feel like I'm starting to more because it feels like I'm just a little bit disconnected from the characters currently. Like I feel like I could have a bit more of an emotional connection but everyone's warned me that that's definitely gonna happen. I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna cry. Don't cry because then you're gonna make a point. I don't want to cry. I've the last three well it'll be the last three if I cry on this but last two vlogs that I've done I've cried. Like quite a lot. So what I think is so great about this book is the way that it shows how complex individual humans are but really how simple we are right. It shows how a person can like have all these different emotions of conflicting feelings but at the end of the day there's certain feelings and wants and desires like to be loved and to be safe and to you know that unite all of humanity. What I'm really enjoying is there'll be certain like repeating motifs for characters and like what they're feeling that I think has done really well. I feel like we are in a bit of a slow patch at the moment and I can feel that it's gonna the ending is gonna be a lot but I'm really enjoying it. The audiobook's great and it's just so I'm loving the gaming aspect. I didn't think I would like I was a bit nervous about it but it reminds me of when I read like Andy Weir like Project Hail Mary or The Martian and like I know Jack shit about like being an astronaut and space and science and yet I love those books and I feel like I understand them. This makes me feel like I understand gaming in the same way. Like I feel like it's really it's hard to like create a book about a certain like niche subject for the general masses and to do it so well that everyone feels like they can understand it. So yeah I'm just I'm really enjoying it. I really am. Is it gonna be a five star? I don't know. It's close. It could be. Don't think it's well listen let me not speak too soon because I am gonna cry at the end. Let's just all get ready. I don't think I think it's a bit late. I'm not gonna finish it tonight so I'll probably be finishing it tomorrow but I'm nervous. I'm nervous but let's let's go finish it and see where we end up. All right. All right. All right. All right. Who's that? All right. Who says it? Who says it like that? All right. Oh Diana. So I finished tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow last night and I'm gonna give it four stars. Controversial. One thing about them tables they turn. I really enjoyed it. I would say the first half of it was a 4.5. The second half was a four for me. I much preferred the first half. The first half had that feeling about it where I was like oh I'm getting excited you know but a few problems. I didn't cry right and everyone told me oh this is like the most oh no this is like the most emotionally devastating book and I was like okay right let's go. Like I cried everything as we know. It didn't make me cry. Now it could be because the most emotionally terrible part. I was listening to the audiobook and like cooking so maybe I should have like read that bit physically but I don't know if I was connected to the characters and the way that this wanted me to be. I preferred the first half. The first half had that like stardust feeling about it you know where like it feels like everything's a bit special and then I feel like the second half diverges from where you want innately the story to go but it doesn't do a good enough job of convincing you like this is why the story has gone this way. I like what this said. I don't necessarily want to say what the ending says but about relationships and about yourself and about how who you are leads into your relationships and the nature of relationships etc etc but I just didn't love the ending. I can see why everyone loves it so much but it was just it was fine. I really really enjoyed it but it was not my favourite book of the year. Sorry. I'm glad I've read it though. I'm glad I now know what everyone's talking about and I think this is a really fun game to read if you're interested in games. Oh by the way in the spirit of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Pokemon came out yesterday. We have both because me and Tom are playing it together so we started playing it last night and I was like oh my god it this made me think I was like engines. I think about the engines like all this gaming terminology. This is the game and I'm doing the game and like thinking about the people who made this and how they made it I'm like wow. Incredible five stars. So we're going to be playing lots of Pokemon this weekend probably but today I am starting. I would like to read this whole book today. I'm all I'm focusing on this weekend is reading because I have a lot of books to read for the next few videos I have in a short space of time so I want to read this whole book today The Secret Society of Regga Witches. I've already got my bookmark ready to go. She's prepped and prepared. I just know this is like cozy fantasy which everyone's obsessed with at the moment. It feels like a fairly new sub-genre that everyone's into. Like I feel like this and Legends and Lattes are like the only two that everyone's talking about. Obviously TJ Klune is very cozy fantasy but I've read his two more cozy fantasy books. I don't think Wolf Song is necessarily that. So all I know is that it's like a romance I think and about witches. By the way this was not a romance. Anyone who calls it a romance in my opinion is wrong. It wasn't a romance. In the traditional sense of the word in which everyone thinks that means romance. You know what I mean? Anyways I want to try reading this whole thing today. We're also going to go out on a quick walk because I have not been out in the house so both today today Saturday both today and tomorrow I would like to read a whole book and go out on a walk. That's my two aims of the day. So we'll see how I do but yes I'm very excited for just a cozy witchy lovely book. Oh my god it's like all knotted together. I need to sort it out. This happens whenever I have to put my hair in my coat because guess what we got rained on a lot. That's why we're keeping it very low lighting in here. We're just going to deal with my hair looking at this because where most of my makeup has come off. Also feeling cold in my bones. Like I've had to put two tops on. I feel like anyways it was a very nice walk though regardless. It wasn't the rain wasn't heavy so at least says that. It was still a pleasant walk anyways. I am now halfway through the very secret, yes the very secret society of regular witches. I'm enjoying it but I'm not loving it as much as I wanted to. Oh no this has now gone downhill. I think because of the nature of this video I'm like expecting great things from the books you know and I'm just enjoying this but I'm not loving it the way that I was hoping. Let's talk about the plot. So our main character Mika is a witch and she's in this secret society of witches who meet like once every three months. That's her only witchy connections. There's a lot of rules to being a witch, a lot of secrecy but she sees an advert one day for a witch is wanted to come take care of these younger witches. So she goes to this house. This is the house here and it's these three children who are witches and need help controlling their power and there's like four adults living in the house with them who look after them and it's her job to kind of teach them how to control their power because the more witches that are together the more unwieldy magic becomes but it's very much just like a found family, close friendship, a little bit of romance like kids being loved. Kind of sorry. In this I love love the idea of it obviously it's freaking witches. I love witches. It's freaking bats. I love Halloween. But perhaps because I have all these expectations going into the book I'm just not feeling as connected to the characters as I want to be you know. I'm just fitting it a bit of a distance and I feel like it's doing a lot of telling rather than showing. I don't know there's a lot of law we're being told, we're being told. This person tells us a bit of knowledge, this person and I just feel like we're not being shown a lot of that. I don't know. I don't know but it's a very quick read. I think I should definitely be able to finish it today. It's like almost six o'clock. We've got some family friends around for dinner which I need to go pop down and see because I haven't said hello yet because I've been reading and then at eight I do have a GeoGuessr live show with my patrons where we're gonna play GeoGuessr but I think I should be able to finish this tonight. Who knows? I might go to love it but at the moment I just feel like it's not like it's like when you have an itch and like you've got something I don't know in your hand that you like you feel should scratch that itch but it's not scratching the itch. You know what I mean? Like I've bought something about, I don't know this is like getting, this metaphor is getting out of hand but like I've got the worst itch in the world and I've bought something of Amazon, not Amazon because we don't like Amazon but like you know online that is like this will fix your itch, this will scratch your itch but then it's ever been scratched before and then it doesn't. That's kind of how I'm feeling about this like it's so close you can feel it it's getting so close we're getting out of hand it's just as unrealty as my hair. I don't know there's a lot I'm loving about it I love the found family I love witches I love a little bit of romance but I'm just not loving it all as much as I was hoping to so yeah see you in the morning when I'll finish this. I don't have to sit here and listen to this. Right I'm just gonna say it quickly we're gonna rip the band-aid off I'm giving it three stars I'm giving it three stars three stars everything's okay we'll survive this everyone we'll get through it um I'm really sad right I wanted to love this so much and yet I didn't my one pro that I can tell you is I love that it's set in Norfolk because I support Norwich and I've been there a few times and I just you know I get the vibes that's that's a good thing right this is cozy fantasy which is magic found family romance it's a freaking grump sunshine romance like in everything the fates have aligned that this should be my perfect book and it just wasn't I just felt like I could never get over how it seemed to me like it was telling me what it wanted me to feel rather than actually making me feel that way you know I just felt like it was very heavy-handed with the deep meanings and feelings and realizations that it wanted us to come to and I just I just didn't I felt like I never broke that barrier with the story I never got into the writing I never felt attached to the characters I never felt like the meaning was beyond surface level and I'm so it's been the worst week of my life now maybe it's something like what happened with the appeal right was I originally rated it 3.5 stars because I was so disappointed because I thought oh that's going to be one of my favourites all the time and it wasn't and I've upped it to a four since then I don't often change my feelings about books but it does happen so maybe I'll look back on this one day and be like that was a 3.5 or a four but I don't think I will and everyone out who's giving it five stars and I'm like I'll just see myself out it's a me problem I don't understand I bet you're all watching like what like what like you're like Megan this book is literally made for you when I do the freaking five star order I'm like I love found family I love witches sisters like grumpy sunshine romance I mean what more is there but I just I just never got into it and I just felt like it wanted us to feel things and be like this great found family people getting over their trauma kind of book and I just never believed it do you know what I mean I also think right this has been comped a lot to House of the Sun and Sea which I'm not saying it's like a repeat I'm saying the publishers have definitely tried to market it as that I'm not saying that's what the author has tried to do but it does have some of the vibes right but that's fine like a new genres new types of books spring up and different books kind of take inspiration by the books that's like natural right but I feel like personally and this might be a flaw of my own I'm not saying this is for everyone but once I read a type of book be that a genre be that a trope be that whatever like when I read that again in a book I'm looking for that book to do it better and different right so that's why I often say now when I read sometimes thrillers or mysteries I say if I had read this two to three years ago I would have thought this is the best thing on earth and it would have been a five star but now it's a three and that's not very fair of me but just as a reader I'm always looking for the next book to up here to give me something new to give me something different to be something magical and I think perhaps if I had read this a while ago it could have been amazing but I've just I just feel like I was looking for it to take us somewhere that it didn't do you get what I mean I'm not saying that's fair and not saying that's right I'm not saying that's just it's just the way it is so I'm very sad I was like by the end I was just scanning I really was just not into it and I'm very sad about it I think it's a me problem everyone else seems to love it let's just leave it there okay so then today we're going out back to go out for another walk again today because I'm really glad this weekend I'm getting out the house but I'm also doing a lot of reading which is one of the things that I really need to get done I got a lot of vlogs I want to make period at the end of this year today we're going to read The Last House on Needless Street by Catcher and Award I'm hoping to again read the whole thing today we're going out on a walk and I can I've got the audiobook and I'm going to read it in the car so hopefully I'll get quite a ways through it I really don't know what's in the bout so we'll find out together I just know that this is a horror there's like a murderer and it's a cat is the cat the murderer hmm if any cat was gonna be a murderer it'd be her so yes I'm very very excited for this I'm hoping we're gonna have better luck with this and we did the last one let's go out on another walk I'm already excited for my crispy chicken sandwich I'm gonna have at the pub I come to you bearing really bad news I'm DNF-ing it yep yep yep yep yep I'm DNF-ing it I'm DNF-ing it yeah I'm a hundred pages in right this is a 300 page book I've read a hundred pages I feel like I've given it a good go I have not enjoyed a single moment of reading this so we're basically following Ted who lives on the last house in Needless Street with his daughter and his cat okay his cat we get a perspective from that's the only saving grace in this book for me is like the cat is very religious keeps talking about the bible and the lord it's just like funny okay I like the talking cat but I don't know so Ted has obviously been through some stuff he's not like 100% mental health good vibes you know what I mean you can tell from his perspective that something's a bit off and we also get the perspective of Dee whose sister went missing many years ago and she suspects that maybe Ted did it or Ted was a suspect kind of back in the day I have not been scared or creeped out like I haven't been like this isn't horror to me yet like I haven't been scared yet I've just been like confused but the thing that I'm dnfing because of and I just got approval from my patrons I was like did anyone else dnf it apparently some people have dnf it apparently some people finished it and wish they had dnfed it I thought I was like like committing a heinous act by even considering dnfing it but I could tell I'm pretty sure I know how this is gonna end I'm pretty sure I know what the twist is gonna be and it's gonna piss me off it's gonna piss me off I I'm not reading it I'm not reading it haha this is not for me no right I spoke about this recently my one-star audit this is maybe I mean I am only a hundred pages in this is my guess as to what is gonna happen but I mean I I'm only read a hundred pages in so can you count that as a spoiler if I'm right then you know that's not my fault I haven't read it but I feel like it's gonna be and I'll talk in vague terms here I won't state explicitly what I think is gonna happen but you know someone has mental health disorder or illness and that's a twist and that explains what's happening in the book and I just don't vibe with it I don't vibe without being a twist I don't vibe with it being a twist and I'm not enjoying it and I'm not enjoying reading the whole book when I'm pretty sure I know what's gonna happen I mean I'm very rarely dnf but like I just feel like I did not enjoy any of this book and also like it opened with some gory stuff and here's the thing someone who's a bit of a wimp in my horror I don't mind gore as long as like the book isn't trying to confuse me or trick me anyway in its narrative voice which I feel like this book kind of is like it's you really don't know what you contrast as to what is being said and what is happening right and like I can deal with gore as long as I know why that's happening what's happening what the truth is do you know what I mean whereas if if you're causing the anxiety about what the truth is and about gory stuff it makes me uncomfortable like I don't think I can handle both and that's like a me thing that's a me problem in horror but dnfing it I am so sorry everyone this is terrible on a subscriber's favorite books video this is awful this is heinous of me wow this is big guys I never dnf are you not ashamed of yourself I just didn't feel like I was enjoying it so we're left with one more which is the which is the one that I had the least hope about loving and we haven't done great so far in the vlog so I'm gonna read Bear Town and yeah there's a lot resting on this book it has to go well because the rest of this video has led us down and I don't know what's going on I feel very kind of drift of reality okay so we have a lot to talk about so the past couple days were pretty tough days for me and I didn't really feel up to filming but I did feel up to reading and I've read the whole of Bear Town while I've been away drum roll please I'm gonna give this four stars I did really enjoy this this book is focused on this isolated town that's in the forest it's very claustrophobic like it's very like snow 10 months of the and there's this hockey team that the town really revolves around and there's a lot of focus particularly on the youth team that is got is like making the semi-finals of this big competition and then something happens that really shakes the town and you know divides the town and I'm not gonna say anything more than that I feel like that's what you should really know going into this book but I loved the writing in this this is my first Frederick Bachman and I thought the writing was great like no I don't think you understand I'm up for that I love the style of writing and the kind of like technique that the book uses we're following so many people throughout the town so at first it's really overwhelming at first I had no idea like I really have to focus on remembering everyone is but you know that's really important because as the book progresses like everyone kind of disagrees and is on different people's side and you really get to see everyone's perspective I really loved that how we kind of followed like 20 characters or something like that in this town I thought in touch with a lot of important themes I don't know how much I to say as a spoiler because I really knew nothing going into this and I think I think that enhanced my enjoyment of it okay we can say this this is what it says on the back it says a story about family's friendship loyalty inequality female vulnerability male back slapping and parenthood a novel with a big heart and I would I would agree with that I really really enjoyed it the only reason it's not a five star is again it didn't make me cry and I feel like I'm quite predisposed to crying at the moment like pretty easy to make me cry so the fact that it didn't again I just felt like I wanted that bit more it wasn't quite a five do we think I should continue with the series though this is the first in the series but I'm not gonna add it to my series spreadsheet yet because I haven't decided for me it feels almost like a perfect standalone and I don't know if I want to continue on the series like I feel like the whole story is wrapped up pretty well so if you've continued the series let me know do you think I should continue or just kind of leave it as it is I feel almost more inclined to read different Frederick Beckman's than to read the sequel to this you know but I really really really really really enjoyed it I loved the families I loved so many the characters in this I loved so many of like the character growths that we saw in this I had some really like there were some characters I loved like I loved Kira who's one of the mothers I loved Benji I loved Amat there were so many great characters in this so we didn't find a new favorite book guys we had two four stars but yeah considering all the other books that I had read that were recommended by a lot of people were like all five stars I can't believe we didn't get at least one so this is probably my final ranking I know I did a terrible job of talking about Beartown but like I said I read it when I I have not retained a lot of the information that I just went into my brain the past couple of days so yeah I would say I preferred Beartown a little bit over tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow because the ending it was great throughout I think whereas I felt differently about different parts of that I was really disappointed by the very secret side of regular witches let's not talk about it I know a lot of you are gonna be mad at me let's just pretend it hasn't happened we are going to pretend we didn't hear that and then last house in the street IDNF now I don't want you to think I think this is a bad book I don't I have read up a bit more and I think what the author I think is gonna try and do in this book I mean obviously I haven't read it I haven't finished every other first hundred pages like I don't think it's bad I don't think it's wrong I don't think it's whatever like I'm not judging this book or this author it just wasn't for me and I wasn't having fun reading it but yes I hope you enjoyed this vlog regardless sorry if I didn't love one of your favorite books I'm really sorry about the witches one I feel like you're permission to hate me but yeah I hope you enjoyed this video if you got to the end comment the teddy bear emoji I really like the teddy bear emoji so comment that I've got to the end let me know your favorite book of the year so far if you haven't told me already or if you have told me already let me know again in the comments down below thank you so much for watching and I'll see you very soon in another video bye