 Hey guys, it's Julia and welcome back to my channel. And for today's video, we're going to be talking about my top favorite books of 2019. This video is a bit late, but I'm filming in my dorm for the first time. So I hope you guys like it. I will make, I will improve the background over time and just kind of seeing what lighting works, what kind of day works best for filming for me too. And with the sounds as well, because I had my AC go, I'm not my AC going at the heat going, so I turned that off. The window is open, so you might hear like buses and stuff. But today I wanted to talk to you guys about some of my favorites. And in the year of 2019, I read 72 books, which is okay for me. It's not as much as other years, but I will still, I guess I'm still okay with it. The first book that I wanted to actually talk to you guys about was Never Again. This book deals with the topic of school shootings and it talks a lot about what it was like to be in the building during one. And then on a lot of the campaigning that went towards school shootings and some of the bigger school shootings that occurred in the US. This was just over well done. The writing was well done. The themes discussed are super important. If you're in the United States, I think this book is especially important for you to read, but anyone from around the world, of course. I just thought this was a very insightful book and I'm glad it exists. It's very short, so it won't take you long to get through if you decide to pick it up. Next up here I have I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver. We follow a non-binary main character after they have just gotten kicked out of their home. And it's about them at a new high school, meeting new friends and the new relationships that kind of go along with that. It also talks about what it means to be non-binary and what it means to use kind of they then pronouns or some other pronouns. So those topics were all discussed in that book. My only kind of con with it, there wasn't too many cons with it. Like I think it could have had a little bit more substance to it, but it's a very short book. And if you're looking for like a YA hard-hitting kind of story that offers some really just insightful perspectives, I would definitely check that out. This is probably my favorite of the year, but it's With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo. This book follows a woman who is really into the culinary arts. So she cooks and just loves it and I loved reading about her passion for cooking. It's just so beautiful to read about people's passions and books and things that they really, really enjoy. I just loved reading about her character and Elizabeth Acevedo has a certain type of writing style that is just very lyrical, easy to read, but just really nice and entertaining. And I just really, really enjoy her writing. So the Poet X was good, but With the Fire on High kicked things out of the water for me, I was really impressed by it. It's Your Wife is Perfect for if you like psychological thrillers, if you like stories about people going missing, if you're interested in reading just thrillers where people go missing, there's some domestic violence in this one and some domestic abuse, so just keep that in mind. But this one deals with a lot of hard topics, but it's also, I just love reading past and present and I think thrillers do that some of the best is going between past and present and the way they tell this story of this woman and her journey and her escape. But then also we follow a perspective of someone who's trying to find a different woman and then how these stories intertwine is just really, really cool to me. So I really liked seeing that. So those four books were some of my favorite novels of this year, now let's talk about some poetry. Hey, poetry, first I want to talk about Nocturnal. This one, I remember, it's been a bit since I've read these, so sorry if I have to refresh myself a little bit, but Nocturnal was really, really beautiful and I loved the actual physical copy of this book and I don't have any of them with me, but I love the physical copy of this book because it had this beautiful contrast of black and white and the illustrations were so well done and the poetry was amazing. Definitely if you're not super into poetry, I would definitely suggest Nocturnal. I think it's great if you're into modern stuff or if you want to get into modern poetry, I thought Nocturnal was so, so good. Next up I have Masquerade by Cyrus Parker and this one is, was a really good collection and I really love what this author has released. Cyrus Parker is such a great author and they have written Dropkick Romance, which I really liked Masquerade and then this other one recently shot Glass Confessionals that I read too and I really, really enjoyed. I really enjoyed Masquerade. It talks about, the author is non-binary so it does have some poems that talk about body dysphoria and then overall it talks about just a lot of anxiety, struggle, loss, love. That's modern poetry that's usually what the collection they're about is like love, loss, romance, breakups, life. That's a horrible synopsis, okay cool. Lastly for poetry I have the Mermaid's Voice Returns and this one, this was the final installment in the Princess Saves Herself or the Women Are Magic series by Amanda Lovelace. I'm trying to remember the series name. Just talks a lot about feminism and power and women empowerment but also talks about love and loss and growth. Again, ones that I really like. Out of the three I'd recommend Nocturnal the Most but I am so excited to see what else Cyrus Parker releases because so far I've loved everything by them. And lastly we're gonna be talking about graphic novels and manga so I'm super excited to talk about this stuff because surprisingly I did not expect of 72 things I read for most of my favorites to be graphic novels and manga. So first up we have Dream and the Sun which I really enjoyed. I'm caught up with that series so far. It's a really fluffy romance where a girl lives with a bunch of guys and her relationship with them and the lessons that she learns in high school and kind of her dynamic with her friends and then with romance involved kind of thing. It's not the best series like if you're looking for a manga series that's super like hard hitting and thought provoking, that's not the way to go with this one but if you're looking for something fun and enjoyable Dream and Sun is definitely that for you and also this author's other work, Orange is absolutely amazing too. The Tea Dragon Society, I love honestly my favorite graphic novel I think that I've read in such a long time. Like my top three things that I've mentioned today, the Tea Dragon Society is definitely my top three for my favorites. Things that I really love about the Tea Dragon Society include the artwork and also just the storyline with these little Tea Dragons, I absolutely love it and think is adorable and I love, I think it's really nice the diversity as well. There's some romances in these and they're just really nice and really enjoyable reads. If you're looking for something really wholesome if you're in a bad mood, this is perfect. The Tea Dragon Society is perfect, so is Dream and Sun and so is the next one I'm gonna talk about. That's gonna be Heartstopper. This blew me out of the water. I read this at my friend Kayla's house, Kayla from Literature Reads and she let me read the graphic novel and I absolutely adored it. It's been going around kind of everywhere but it's a male male romance graphic novel and it's really cute and wholesome. And the third one came out and I really want to get my own kind of physical copies of these books because I'm really excited about them but I really, really, really, I don't want to get my own copies of these but they're so, so good and the art style is great. I fell in love with the characters and the plot and the writing and overall it was probably one of my favorite reading experiences of last year was reading that graphic novel. So some honorable mentions that I wanted to mention with the graphic novels is Fence. Such a great one, it's the sports graphic novel. There's a bit of male male romance brewing kind of a slow burn romance that's coming and character and kind of his competitive side and the people that he meets and the people on his team. So it's a fun one for sure. It's Teen Titans Raven. I love this one and it was after Raven loses her memory and kind of her finding herself and discovering herself again and just trying to figure out who she is again and I thought this was so, so nice. I actually went to a panel last year for Book Expo that had this little conference thing that I went to where they talked about Raven and I saw the author talk about it and there's just so many things that I really, really enjoyed about this graphic novel. I think this is really great, especially for people of the middle grade audience or like going into young adults. I think it's great for everyone of course but I think it's really, really great as like a coming of age story. I also just think that this book can really impact adolescents in a really great way just due to the messages that are portrayed in the story. Fucking dork. Also, Mooncakes. This was such a cool one too. It was a graphic novel about a witch is involved in a non-binary werewolf and it's really fun and cute and kind of quirky. Really nice graphic novel. Honestly, these ones were just more fun graphic novels in manga as opposed to super in-depth and analytical. And I think you can, I don't know, I'm trying to read things that too just bring me enjoyment because sometimes I found that I read things just so I could really critically review them which I do like doing but I also want to read just things that I really like to and talk about things in more of like a less formal setting. Like this is more of a chill video for me and that makes me less anxious than filming a sit-down video where I feel like everybody is gonna judge me for what I'm saying or for how I look. So there is a lot of anxiety with this upload but I just wanted to mention it and leave it in just so you guys know like, hey, I'm a real human, like, and I think sometimes online everything looks so filtered and perfect that you forget that these are real people and that they have eyes and they have things to do and they have people that they care about in their life and everyone has their own shit. So I just think videos like this are more relaxing and I think I would just love for you guys to be able to kind of chill with me and chat about books. And sometimes I will do more for more critical reviews or if I do a rare review I'm going to make it more structured but if not, I kind of just want to casually talk about some of the books this year and casually talk about the books that I've read with you guys and if you want more in-depth reviews either you can request kind of full video reviews that will cover everything in depth or ask for my thoughts, message me, do whatever you want. Like sometimes I might do more in-depth ones on good reads if I don't end up doing them here. I'm not sure but we're gonna figure it out you guys are all along for the journey with me but that is me talking about some of my favorite books of 2019. I hope you guys don't mind that I don't have them all with me but it's fine, we're going with it. So I apologize that I don't have them all with me but I'm hoping to do some more videos soon so yeah, thank you guys so so much for watching this video. You've noticed I have a new little watermark as well as a new banner and I'm getting a new intro very soon so I hope you guys have been doing well. We'll have the artists and the creators for my new banner and that's all that stuff down below just so you guys can check them out and credit them because they did a great job. Let me know what your thoughts are on this video if you stayed this long comment a butterfly, we're doing that. Thank you guys so so much for watching, bye.