 Hey guys, it's Liana and I'm here today to do my January wrap up. Ugh, there's a lot of books. However, I haven't read anything since the end of January so these are in fact all the books that I have read this year because I was moving. This is my new apartment you may not be able to tell. I guess you can tell. I mean it's different but like same couch, same shelves, same books. This isn't super different from what you're used to seeing. Yeah, this is the first time I'm filming a video here and hopefully soon I will be reading a book here for the first time. That hasn't happened yet but I'm very nearly done unpacking so I'm hoping to vlog next week doing a reading a vlog in my new apartment so you can see it once it's, it'll be not quite finished next week I think uh based on when stuff I've ordered is supposed to arrive etc. But it'll be like very nearly there. Enough for me to vlog. So anyway, yeah January wrap up. That's what we're here to do. Great. So the first book that I read in January and therefore the first book that I read this year was Nosferatu by Joe Hill. Uh, please stop. Yeah this, oh man it's been so long. Uh, moving itself. Like it's, I mean I've been moving for a while but also it's just kind of all that I've been thinking about. So my brain is kind of not in reading mode or filming mode which is probably apparent to you and I'm sorry. Any Hoosies yet Nosferatu I read the first week of January and it will start all the second week of February so forgive me for not being crystal on this. But basically this is a horror book that is about this like vampiric creature um whose name is Charlie Manx and his license plate fittingly is Nosferatu. Well Nosferatu in America the British uh the UK copies say Nosferatu which is funny to me. Like why couldn't they be Nosferatu? I guess that's not how they pronounce it. It's so funny. Anywho, yeah so he steals children and takes them to Christmas land which is basically like it's kind of like his like mental Neverland that's like Christmas themed and he takes kids there because he's like sucking the life out of them so he's like a soul-sucking vampire I guess. So this is a really long book. It spans many years and it follows both uh Charlie Manx and his henchmen and like his exploits kidnapping children as well as this young girl. Well she starts off as a young girl and then you see her as like a teenager and then as an adult um uh and oh fuck what's her name? Victoria Vic. So she's kind of the I don't want to say Nemesis of Nosferatu because that makes him sound like the protagonist but she's like his match. She's kind of like her life keeps putting her in his path and has kind of like woven their stories together so it's kind of like her versus him and that's kind of what this whole book is but it spans many many years and yeah that's basically what this book is. I think it was quite meandering and took forever because I kept thinking okay so like we've caught up now enough backstory so now this is where the plot is going to take place and then we would skip again a bunch of years I'm like okay just kidding we're not there yet and then I'd be like okay but now this is like the age at which stuff is going to happen and then we would skip ahead again and I was like are okay well I don't I can't like latch on to a character's age or time or place because we keep moving past it so I kind of wish it would just kind of like settled and dug its heels into a particular age and setting. I think that format of it does lend itself though to a tv series which is what it's been turned into I haven't seen it yet but I think the style of that storytelling is more episodic which is good for tv. I thought it was good I just really couldn't connect with the characters like I feel like it's important to really connect with Vic in order to like really get into this and I just didn't. I felt really cold about Vic like I didn't dislike her I just felt nothing for her um so like when she was in dire straits or when she was like challenging Charlie Manx I was never like oh no I was just like uh-huh uh-huh I liked some of the minor characters more actually and there wasn't that much of them in it damn it it's been too long since I read it but Lou I think um Vic's fella he's not in it terribly much um he's a pretty important character but I liked him a lot actually and I kind of wish I mean honestly if it had been him or just Charlie Manx I think I might have liked it better uh I just yeah I just I couldn't really like connect with Vic and that kept and this is a long book to be reading where I can't connect with the main character so I thought it was well written I thought it was interesting concept and very atmospheric and and darkly humorous I just I didn't feel anything for Vic that was the main problem the main barrier for me next I had no such barrier I read Robin Hobbs your real assassin which I buddy read with Mark and I did post a review for this already uh because I managed to read it and film a review for it early in January so had that in I can't so yeah that that review went up pretty recently so you probably saw it and if you didn't watch it then you clearly don't care what I think about this book oh that's why I gave it five stars love love love Robin Hobbs writing it breaks your heart in the best way possible and I am so stoked to be reading more Robin Hobbs which is why I hauled like an entire stack of Robin Hobbs books because it's going to be the year where I just read a buttfuck of Robin Hobbs. Next was a reread of The Blade itself by Joe Abercrombie as I mentioned at some point I'm planning to reread all of the first law books leading up to the release of the newest and last first law book which is the third book in the age of managed trilogy which comes out in September so I'm kind of doing one a month because that pretty much puts me on target for that I also in addition to just wanting to reread it want to film standalone reviews for all the books which I never really did I filmed reviews for the new ones a little hatred and trouble with peace but I've never filmed just standalone reviews for the first law books all the other ones so I mean I probably could film reviews for them without rereading it but I just figure let's reread them let's do the reviews let's just let's fucking do it. This is my fourth time reading The Blade itself. I fucking love the first law so I hopefully I'll be more articulate when I do film reviews. Next I read The Girl to See Give Back by Adrienne Young which I had been on my shelves for a long time I really really didn't like it um it was the like the dullest thing that I've ever read and I'd heard that it wasn't as good a sky in the deep so I was I went into it with fairly low expectations I was just like oh as long as it's kind of vaguely viking in a bit atmospheric like that's the bar that I'm setting for it and it didn't even pass that bar. It's just so it's honestly lacking an atmosphere and I also didn't connect with these characters and I like looked up some reviews after because I was like is it just me like am I having an off day but no a lot of reviews were like they were just so blah like the characters were just like there was nothing to them so it was really you didn't really like feel like you were in this world with them you didn't feel anything for them the magic was kind of like and like the plot like there really wasn't a plot like really much at all and it was a short book but it felt like I was reading it forever and I think I actually read it all on one day or very nearly because it's short and I also just kind of at some point I was like well I just want to be done with this it was just so whenever I read my books I think I mentioned this before while I'm reading it when it's a book that I think I should like and I'm not liking it I'm like do I not like this anymore is this not my thing anymore and then I pick up a book that does it well and I'm like oh just kidding no I do still like this that was just a bad book so yeah I did not care for this it's it's kind of deep was already like like if you love viking vibes then you're probably gonna like it but there's like not much more to it than that this didn't even deliver that so nah that's enough for me the next book I read was a reread and that was The Bear and the Nightingale by Catherine Arden which Bethany actually I think reread in December because when I posted when I went to go read it on Goodreads when I finished it I saw that she had written a review and I pretty I think it's on my TBR that I said that she and I are gonna buddy or either girl in the tower I think I loved this more the second time like I gave it four or five stars the first time I read it when I when it came out and I needed to reread it because like it's been like three or four years now so if I wanted to finish the trilogy which I do I was like I definitely don't remember enough about The Bear and the Nightingale but I remember I remember the time feeling impressed but not feeling much if that makes sense like I remember it was a much more of like in my mind and less in my heart that I was enjoying it like mentally I was like I like what you're doing here I like what this is representing I like how this is interwoven I'm I'm I'm enjoying this like intellectually but I wasn't feeling that much when I was reading it so I think I gave it four stars because I was just like I love the project of this you like well done but I didn't feel anything this time around I felt so immersed so drawn into this world so wanting to keep turning the page I couldn't put it down like I definitely didn't feel like a page turner to me the first time I read it first time I read it I felt like this like cool book but one that I'm just like gonna pick up and read a bit this time around I like I wanted to keep reading so much and I don't know if it's because it's the second time around or because I'm different now or what it is like I don't know if I have read it for the first time now if it had would have been more like my first time reading it and it was just purely the first time through that's how it goes I don't know there's no way I can know I suspect it's a combination though a combination of it being a reread so I know what I'm getting myself into and to just being a slightly different person than I was four fucking years ago any who's you if you haven't heard of this it's a Russian folklore inspired kind of fairy tale-esque fantasy book with much more sort of like a magical realism style to the magic as opposed to like a hard magic or something it's not like wizards and macguffins it's you know it's spirits of the earth spirits of the forest spirits of nature kind of clashing with christianity and uh having grown up on Latvian and Russian fairy tales it feels very nostalgic for me and very familiar to me very beautiful to me so I think if you love folklore wintry vibes then this is fantastic the next book I read was another reread that was Love by Leo Carew this is my fourth time reading this as well and I will be reading it a fifth time later this year because of reasons that will soon become known to you oh my god I I did actually post a review for this the first time I read it I have since then mentioned it many many many times so I think you know how I feel about this and if you don't the fact that I've read it four times and I'm gonna read it a fifth time it's really all that you need to know that's peace for itself the next book I read was The Black Company by Glenn Cook this is not I mean the black company is just like one third of this because this is a bind up of the first three books in the chronicles of the black company so don't be too impressed I didn't read all of this I read it because it was my pick for the Blades of Otis Blades and Otis River's book club which me and Amanda host and the live show where we discussed this and Mara and Bethany joined us was on my channel earlier this month so you may or may not have seen it again I suspect if you didn't watch it then you don't care what I think about this all of us hated it to a greater or lesser degree I was on the greater side and I think Amanda hated it I low key hated it Mara like basically hated it and Bethany was like didn't love it so we were not impressed with this or grimdark but um I'm sure I'm glad the grimdark took off even if the the progenitor of the genre was kind of the worst next I read Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCauherin McCauherin McCauherin by this lady and this is based on a true story there's this island this really remote island in Scotland where I guess the reason they go there is like they're harvesting this particular kind of bird and from the bird they're able to like use its feathers use its oil like it's a really like highly sought after resource or it was back then anyway back when we needed things like oil for lamps so there's this small island where these people live and then an even smaller island near there where it's literally just the birds are there so then like once a year like a boat would go over to bring over some people to like they drop them off where they would spend you know a week or two weeks or how long it is like gathering all the birds and then like a week or two later then the they'd send the boat back to pick them up except they didn't pick them up so these young men were stranded on this island with no idea like why no one has come for them and they're just stuck on this rocky island with nothing but these birds so like they have food and there's some kind of a water source so like they're able to survive but on this like just basically this little pile of rocks in the middle of the ocean and so like they're like did the world end and we were left behind because we were on this fucking island so it's um it was an interesting book and I it's written this style that feels very much like one of these people is telling it because it's told in this very kind of like filled with colloquialisms and filled with like this very regional patterns of speech where it doesn't feel like an omniscient kind of person is telling you about this it really feels like it's being told to you by someone who's like from this rural place and their world view is of this place and the way that they speak the way they explain things the way that they describe things is colored by where they're from so it's a really it's kind of a strange writing style for that reason but I quite liked it and made it made it more immersive in my opinion so I would recommend it it's an odd little book and it's more interesting I think to me for the fact that it was a true story and there's a little author's note at the end explaining which parts took liberties with and which parts are absolutely true so I would recommend it the next book I read was Things in Jars by Jess Kidd and I was quite disappointed with this oh wow this was a book of the month January 2020 and I read it in January 2021 kind of cool I don't know if it's cool but interesting is it interesting I don't know I just something I noticed and decided to share you're welcome I I expected this to be more mysterious and more curious and more atmospheric and it like had all the things like it had if this was a recipe it had all the ingredients that I expected and wanted it just didn't really like taste very good all together so like uh it's about it's sort of this like Victorian you know like back when like there was this like fascination with the sort of oddities of nature and like curiosity cabinets where like people would actually collect sort of deformed creatures in jars and like they thought that maybe there were unicorns and mermaids and they'd collect bones that like seemed to be the bones of a mermaid and like this was like a thing so this book is kind of taking that um up a notch to where like there are some kind of magical things possibly going on so the main character she's kind of like a a PI investigator type but she sees a ghost so like he this ghost follows her around and so she's investigating this kidnapping of this girl who may or may not be some kind of like a sea creature siren mermaidy type thing whether or not you believe that and so it has all those things like the the curiosities the oddities of nature this like badass heroine who's like this lady investigator it just it just didn't work like it wasn't funny to me it wasn't mysterious to me i felt nothing for the main character i was just kind of going through it and being like it's a lot of cool window dressing but like i'm not feeling this i i do not feel intrigued i don't feel immersed i don't feel like curious about what's going to happen it also it did kind of like spoiling itself it kind of kept showing you different perspectives like of the kidnappers and of the sort of different pieces like the different people who are have a stake in this i guess and i feel like that made it less mysterious like sometimes that can work it's not like i always hate that sometimes it can add something to where you know more than the characters do because you're seeing all the sides to this this was not one of those times like what little mystery there was was immediately ruined by the fact that you know what's going on even though she doesn't so it just yeah it really it wasn't terrible or anything and i can't really put my finger on why it doesn't work for me other than i mean the writing style was a little weird and choppy i just i felt nothing i just like kept not caring about anything that was going on and that was really frustrating to me i was just like blah blah blah okay you found the thing blah blah blah you're in danger blah blah i just did not care and the last book i read was this thick heavy monster the evening in the morning by ken fallott now i was i did really like this but it wasn't exactly what i expected i knew this was another of the kingsbridge book so like he wrote pillars of the earth and then he wrote a prequel which was world without end and this is like a pre prequel which is still like it's this like fictional place called kingsbridge that he's invented where he's telling different eras of history i've never read pillars of the earth or world without end but i've seen the adaptations of them now it is true that this is sort of the era of vikings but there wasn't much viking ye about it so when i went into it that's more what i was expecting was more um i i mean because he's telling these kingsbridge stories which are from the perspective of the people on sort of the english-y like not that it's called england at the time but you know like that would be the side of things you wouldn't obviously be on the side of the vikings or at least i didn't expect it to be but i expected more interaction with vikings they're they they appear and they're mentioned and people are affected by the existence of vikings so it's like it's there but it's they weren't really a prominent part of the story but that doesn't make it a bad book it's just not what i was expecting i picked it up because i was looking for vikings no one is shocked and it's definitely not a viking book it's not it's very much in the in the vein of the other two stories like the adaptations i've seen which i understand are fairly loyal and i had a comment from someone when i said that i was going to be reading this saying that like ken fallot basically retells the same story he just like names the character something else and sets it in a different era but it's basically the same story over and over again and having seen billards of the earth and world that end and now having read this even though i didn't read those other two when i like got further into it i was like two thirds through and i was like you're him she is her you're him like i recognized these like these archetypes that he's created for his stories and it works it's a good story i can kind of see why he does it uh i mean i mean he might even know he's doing it but like i was like well i know yeah like i see that that's going on here i can't disagree but it is compelling i did think it was a really good book and like it was slow to get into when i when i was still figuring out all the sort of pieces of it but i i really did enjoy it and it kind of stuck with me more than i expected when i finished it i was like that was solid and i found myself thinking about it more like in the days after which i wasn't expecting to it didn't feel like a book that would like stick with you but then it did so it's it's quite a sprawling epic historical epic i will say it was kind of odd to me the descriptions of like intimate encounters being written in a way that felt like it was a history textbook but when then we also just like paused to be a bit randy for a second like it just felt it made me feel so uncomfortable because it didn't feel like a passionate lovemaking scene and it wasn't like a clinical kind of you know fate to black like fyi sex happened like it was in between it was like a professor describing passion but like it was weird so i could have done it without that because i was just like why though any hoosies overall i did really enjoy it and it made me kind of want to go and now read Pillars of the Year somewhere without it because i really like this and those are all the books that i read in january and also all the books that i've read so far in 2021 let me know in the comments down below if you've read any of the books that i read if you like them or if you hated them or whatever you want to let me know i post videos on saturdays other random times as well but on my saturdays so like and subscribe and i'll see you when i see you bye