 Right this feels like a lot of pressure but it's time to find out what my top 10 books of the year are. I'm to my best books of 2022. I feel nervous. Yeah I've ranked my top 10 books of the year and I'm very excited to share them with you, chat about the books that I loved this year. I feel like we know what the top book of the year is. I feel like we all know that. But I feel like there will be some in the top 10 that are kind of surprises. So I want you to put your predictions down below. You don't have to predict number one. I feel like we know where that's going. But I want you to put your predictions down below for what some of the top 10 will be. I will say that I think there's a pretty clear divide between the bottom five on the list being favorites of the year and the top five being favorites of all time. I wouldn't call any of the bottom five on the list favorites all time. They're kind of ones that I've really enjoyed reading this year but I'm not necessarily gonna think about in like 10 years. Whereas favorites of all time I do view like that. So any questions, any queries or do we just get straight into it? I feel very nervous. Okay. Oh my god. Okay it's happening. Everybody stay calm. What's the procedure everyone? What's the procedure? Stay f***ing calm. So coming in at number 10. This was difficult. I'd say number 10 to 8 could like other books could have edged their way in that I haven't made it onto the list but I made my decision. I actually made this decision very quick. Okay. I was like right that goes there, that goes there and then I've just trusted myself with my initial instinct. So number 10 was The Dragon Republic by R.F. Quang. So I read this and The Burning God this year. I would say this is my favorite in the Poppy War trilogy. So you know many of you will know what this trilogy is. We're following Rin who's an orphan. She goes to this military academy. Train's really hard to get there. Train's really hard when she's there and then war breaks out. I think this series in particular, Rin as a morally grey character, you don't always agree with I think is very refreshing. A lot of books I read nowadays want you so desperately to love the main character, to like love them, to want to get all the merch, especially fantasy, like get all their merch, like make a fan account for them and like I like that this doesn't really want you to do that. It wants you to question the decisions that Rin makes throughout the series. And I love a good like war strategy, like the kind of book that other people might find boring. I love, so I love this book. I can understand how other people wouldn't love it, but I just think the writing is taking up a notch. I think it's so immersive. The ending, whoo! I was a little bit gagged. I was a little bit gagged. I was a little, I remember sitting downstairs reading it and being like, I mean, I cried more at the Burning God, but like that is, you're meant to cry. But I still cried at the ending of this one as well. And it's not quite as emotionally manipulative as the Burning God is. But yeah, I think this series is such a wonderful fancy series. Yes, it's miserable. You know, I talked to my parents about R of Quang, they're like, I don't know if I can read anything by Rebecca again. Don't know if I can do it because of the the sadness, the misery, which is fair enough. My dad read this whole series and he's like, I don't know if I can do it again. It is unforgiving. It is in many ways holding a mirror up to real history. And I think it's educating people on real stuff that happened throughout history, not showing away from war, not showing away from the bitterness and the horrible acts of war that happen and really showing people, I think, what happens. Then coming in at number nine is actually a book that I don't know and I should probably get a copy of this. And it is I'm Glad My Mum Died by Janet McCurdy. I believe this is the only nonfiction in this list. Yeah, so this is my favorite nonfiction I've read this year and I wanted to put a nonfiction on list. I mean, what is there to say that hasn't been said about this book? I read the audiobook, that's why I don't own it physically and I would really recommend the audiobook. So of course, maybe you all know, this is Janet McCurdy talking about her childhood and adolescence and becoming an adult and the effects of the abuse that she suffered from her mother throughout all of that. It's a very difficult read. It's a very, very tough read. But I think it's a book that a lot of people can take a lot from and I think her writing is incredible. I am so happy for her. As someone who watched, like I was the generation where iCarly was it. I would come home, I'd watch iCarly, Victorious, Hannah Montana, like that was my era, you know? I loved iCarly. I'm so happy for her that she's seeing the success that she has. I am so proud of her, I could cry. And she's gonna write fiction and I can't wait to read what her fiction is because I think she had such a way with words and conveying emotion and feeling throughout this book. You know, I would say if you know what the the book is gonna touch on, particularly for me when she was talking about her ed and her struggles with food, it was kind of triggering. Like it's a lot. She's very, very honest and she like puts it out there kind of not sugarcoating anything, which I think is important. But just prepare yourself because I wasn't prepared, I don't think, for quite how descriptive some elements are gonna be. But I think it's such an important story for her to tell. I think there's a lot of people out there that relate to what she experienced. I think she's just incredibly brave for putting this out there with such honesty. And yeah, I would totally recommend this. I feel like everyone's recommended it, but I would totally recommend it. Number eight on this list, I feel like it's a little bit of a surprise, but it's gonna be Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Julia McAllister. Now this could be recency bias, is that a word? Because I did just read this for my video where I read The Goodreads Troye Somanese for Mystery Thriller. And I feel like I didn't speak about this enough in it because I was kind of like a-exhausted and I was reading like six books in three days or something. And I don't know, I still do find it easier sometimes to talk about books I didn't like and point out flaws than point out what I love about a book. But this is a mystery thriller where a woman witnesses her son stab someone and murder someone. And he's taken into police custody, her and husband go to sleep, she wakes up, it's the day before. And she does it again and wakes up it's the day before that. So she keeps going back in time. And she figures out essentially what she thinks the reason that's happening is because she has to stop that from happening. She has to stop her lovely son, you know, he's obviously, as we go through the book, he's struggling with stuff and he's changed recently but he's, she views him as his child, her child, right? Like I think he's just turned 18. Sometimes I feel like we view 18 year olds as adults but as someone who's been 18 I'm, I was still a child. I'm 22 and I'm still my mum's child. You are very old and you need to play your age and not 12. You are an old lady. So you know she wants to protect him and stop that from happening. And I thought it was just such a unique take. I thought it was so different than anything that's out there at the moment. And I liked that it wasn't Groundhog Day. She was going back and back in time. There's a reveal halfway through this. Oh, I was a bit gagged. I did then predict what, like, how that progresses. But like the little, the halfway twist, again, I said, I think I said in that video, thrillers don't often leave me with my mouth hanging open like shocked. But this did, I thought the writing was great. And I loved that we were following a more mature woman who's like, what, like, I'm trying to remember how old children got pregnant. Like 40s, you know, I loved that we were following her and her ingenuity. And her love for her son, really, this book boils down to her mother's love for her son and her child. And I just loved the perspective, you know, and it's also kind of a love story between her and her husband, just the family as a whole. And I just thought there were some really good reveals, really good, like, twisting with time and like, just having to see her figure it out. Because like I said in the video, if she makes contact with someone who can help her, or she tells someone in her life what's happening, when she goes to sleep and wakes up, it will be the day before or a week before for them. And they won't have had that conversation with her. So she's on her own again. And I don't know, I just thought it was very, very unique. Number seven, if I'm honest, is kind of a double ticket, because number seven is Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. But I will say it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of at this point in the list, because it's kind of for both of these, but really Malibu Rising. I preferred Malibu Rising to Carrie Soto's back, but I did give these both five stars. I give Taylor Jenkins Reid five stars every time, seemingly. I just love her writing. But I'll talk about Malibu Rising, Carrie Soto's back, I think. Partly I loved it, because I read it almost all on the beach in Italy, and that was a great experience, oh my god. Like, having the pizza on the beach, going and swimming in the sea, then coming back and meeting us, it was a vibe. But objectively, I do prefer Malibu Rising. Many of you will know what this is about. We're following the Riva siblings. In the present day as they're throwing a party and kind of discussing where their lives are at the moment, a lot of them are surfers. But also going back into their childhood, especially in the first half, and following the love story of their parents. And Mick Riva is a very famous singer, their dad, and kind of their childhood and how that progressed. And I read this right at the start of the year. So again, that's why it's kind of like, ooh, which one do I put on the list? Because I gave them my five stars, and I wanted to put Taylor Jenkins Reid on the list. This one I did prefer, because I loved in the first half the story of their parents and their childhood. And honestly, Mick Riva, I hate him. I loved their mother. I thought their mother was a very interesting and unique character. And I mean, I don't often like split timelines. But when you love both so much, it's not really a problem for me. There's something hot breaking about when you know what happens and has happened in the present day. And yet when you're reading the past storyline, you're rooting for something different to happen and like, but you know it's not. So I think that's very fun. I like when dual timelines are used in that way. I just loved Taylor Jenkins Reid's writing. I just love it. What can I say? She just does something to me. I feel like her characters are always so vivid. I really liked then in the second half, rather than going from past to present, it was kind of jumping around the party that they're holding. And I just thought it was done so well. I just loved it. I loved the sibling relationships. I'm really into siblings and families this year as something that I'm reading about. I don't know, I just loved it. I just loved her, Jane, because Reid I can't. Okay, number six is another one similar to Carole Sotisback, where like the reading experience and the time in which I read this does, I can recognize, you know, put it up the powerless that it possibly should be. But I'm going to say Big Little Lies by Leanne Moriarty. I know some of you might be surprised it's so high up. But I didn't even vlog this. I read it for my, well, I did vlog it. I read it for my Patreon book club. So I've logged it over there. So I read this when I had in the summer and I could not focus on anything. I could like not watch TV. I tried to read some different books and I couldn't. But I could read this. There was something about this that just captured my attention. And so I think I'm just very grateful for giving me something to do. And it was just a perfect book to read when you're like feeling shit, the drama. Oh, it's all the drama Mick. I just love it. I loved it. I really loved this. So Big Little Lies, we follow these three different women who all have young kids out this school. And we find out there's like a parent night at the school and a death happened. The gossiping, they're like, you know, having lived, having been a child where there's moms at a school, like the tension and the whispering and the gossiping. In between the chapters, there's different parents getting, we just get little slices of interviews that they've had. But they're like talking about what happened or their perspective on what happened. And it's like kind of like a Greek chorus, like whispering about each other. But again, I thought the reveals in this were great. I actually accidentally spoiled myself for one of the big reveals that kind of like sport the whole thing very early on when I was trying to Google, I think it was like the cast or something I wanted to try and envisage the cast of the show, which by the way, I tried to watch and I didn't like, because this is like campy. This is like real housewives in a way, like this is fun. Whereas the show is like moody and like, you know what I mean? That's not what I want. I want like ridiculousness. Oh my God. I thought this was a classy party. And it to be fun. You know, I didn't really like the show when I tried to watch it. Anyways, yeah, I spoiled myself one of the big reveals and it didn't impact my enjoyment at all because I was still just so excited to see how that was revealed and how it came about and like how the tensions built throughout everyone. I just thought it was really, really, really fun. Turns out I don't like domestic thrills between husbands and wives, but I like like suburbia. I like wives. I just want to read about the wives. Husbands can get gone, you know? Anytime a husband gets involved, it just ruins it. Right, we are now into the top five, which are all time favorites. Those were favorites of the year. These are all time favorites. Number five is The Broken Girls by Simone St. James. I read this on Mara from Book Likewise recommendation. To be honest, any of her books she recommended me could have made it into the top 10. I just didn't want the whole video to be that. The Rook almost made it. The Rook was one that like almost edged out Dragon Republic or I'm glad my mum died a wrong place on time. I was like debating putting it in. But I loved The Broken Girls by Simone St. James. I loved this. So this is actually two storylines, two different timelines, which we know I don't usually like, but listen, Simone St. James managed to do it in a way I loved it. So in the 1950s, there's this like girls boarding school and we've got four roommates who are following and they're kind of bonding over secrets, etc. Then the main story line is the present day and we're following our protagonist and her sister was murdered 20 years ago on the kind of field of the school, the remnants of the school. And then renovations are happening at the school and then the body is found on the school property like a skeleton, essentially. And I just loved how this was written. I really, really loved how this was written. This was my introduction to Simone St. James. And I just fell in love with the writing. I thought both storylines were really captivating, really readable. And I just remember the ending. The ending, I think is what puts it this high on the list. The ending is so different and the reveal is so different than anything I've read from before. I think I'm just special. Special. It just takes it there. It takes it a step higher than what is normal. And it kind of diverges from what we've been like, I don't know, the tone of the rest of the book in a way that I really, really enjoyed. There were reveals in this that I loved. I loved following the girls in the past, but also the present day storyline where there was a bit more momentum. But the ending, like some of this I can't remember what happened. I read it quite a long time ago. But the ending really sticks out in my brain. And I'm just so excited to read all of Simone St. James because I think her writing is incredible. Then coming in at number four is Jade Legacy by Fonderly. I loved it. You know, this is similar to the Poppy War trilogy where I read the second and third books in it this year. And I just loved them so much more than the first. And Jade Legacy, oh, it is just a culmination of everything that's been built up in the first two books. So this series is following kind of a mafia family where we're in the society where like they get magical powers from Jade. And we're following one particular family, the Kools, throughout many, many years. And Jade Legacy is kind of the culmination of that. I loved the ending of Jade War as well. So I think how much I loved the ending of Jade War really, and then I started this straight away, really brought me into having so much feelings for these characters in this book. Wen Supremacy, I don't care. Anyone who hates Wen is incorrect. I love her. I just love Wen. Wen and Anden, my babies. I love them. I root for Wen and Anden. And listen, people are going to die in this book, okay? People are going to die in this series and you're just going to be okay with it. But like, I just think the details, like the way that stuff will happen, like a plot twist will happen, that is repercussions from the first book is just so clever. I mean, they're really long, but I was just so into it. It's just 700 pages. Oh my god, I think this is the longest book I've read this year. And as much as I like reading shorter books, I do love a good long book that gives me depth and detail. Love you Jade Legacy. Okay, we're into the top three, which are like definitively my top three favorites of the year. Any predictions for what we're missing so far that we haven't had yet? I don't know if you're gonna be surprised by number two. Number two I read a long time ago. Anyways, let's get into it. Number three is The Bullet That Miss by Richard Osman. You had to be here. Number two, the man who died twice. I also read this year. It has not made it onto the list, but The Bullet That Miss, oh yeah, it was good. You have changed my life forever. The Thursday Metaclub, which is the first in the series, was number one on number two. I can never remember last year. I think they're pretty much tired. Number one on number two was Thursday Metaclub and the Once and Future Witches last year. We're down to number three, but it's still a valiant effort. I love this series from Richard Osman. This is a murder mystery series where we're following a cast of elderly characters at their retirement village. They used to run the Thursday Metaclub. They still do actually. This is kind of what the mystery of this one is, where they try and solve cold murder cases, but then kind of stuff starts turning up on their door in the present day. And you know, these are so funny. They are so humorous. They are great murder mysteries. They're very good, fair play murder mysteries. I feel like they're plotted really, really well. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not lying. This is like, you know, some of the best like modern murder mysteries I've read in having that kind of nostalgia that the classic age of crime I think has, but also having, I don't know, this modern twist to it. I just love them. So we have that amazing murder mystery, but I've spoken so much about how these books can also be heartbreaking. And I'm like choking up because they really show humanity and they really show like loving people and and aging and like what that does to the human side. And like I cried in this. I think I've cried in them all, but like there was a moment in this. If I think about it too long, I'm gonna cry. It happens near the end and I'm gonna cry. And when I read these books, I just want to live my life. I want to go out there and live my life to the fullest and appreciate everyone in my life and prioritize what's important. And I just think it's amazing that a great murder mystery manager to do that as well. So I love you, Rich Dosman. You're the only celebrity who actually had Jim McCurdy's on this list as well. That's like, you know, a memoir. But like Rich Dosman, you are an author baby. You are an author, an author, you know? Don't let anyone take that away from you because you couldn't write. Number two, I said might surprise some people. I think this is the second book I read this year maybe or like third something. It was very early on. It was in January, but I can't stop thinking about it. And I think it deserves its number two spot. And it is as good as dead by Holly Jackson. It made it. It's number two. I loved this book. This is a very Marmitey book and anyone who doesn't like it is incorrect. So this is the finale. We've got quite a lot of like, well, No Dragon Republic is second, but we've got Jade Legacy as well. I do like an Ender series. Anyway, this is the Good Girl's Guide to Murder series. It's the final book. We're following Pip in this series as she tries to kind of uncover different mysteries in her town. In this one, she is the mystery. She has a stalker. She's getting letters like, who will look for you when you're the one who disappears? It also makes media this series. And I think something that Holly Jackson does so well is make a really engaging modern day mystery. She plays with like Fitbit, GPS, wireless printers, like so much like modern day tech she uses in her mysteries, which I think is like no other. And this book is going to take you on a ride. If you have read the first two books, be prepared because this is a different tone, okay? This is a different tone to those first two books. Thank you. I'm just engaging. I am not engaging. And I loved it. I was like, I've, this is a book that probably made me feel most stressed when reading it. If you've read No Exit by Taylor Adams, which is an all-time favorite for me, and like how tense and terrible and horrible and sick you feel while reading that book, that is what the whole second half of this book feels like. Cool girl. Oh my god. I, it's so tense because of a very tense situation happening without spoiling anything. But also the kind of, how do I phrase this? Like what Pip has to then do and like the wheels that have to be put in motion and like how anything could go wrong at a certain moment, it snaps. It, it's so good. The fact that anyone like hates this book, I can't understand it. To me, it's, it's absolutely incredible. I love the direction. It's a risk. Like I, she took a risk and I love her for it. I love you Holly. Also, actually, literally right before I started filming this, my copy of Five Survive arrived. I was supposed to be doing a vlog for this in December, but it's now going to come like near the start of January. I'm very, very, very, very, very, very excited. I can't wait. Oh my gosh. Miss Holly. I'm just very excited. So yes, as good as dead, number two on the list. Can't stop thinking about it. Love her. Amazing. And then my favorite book of 2022. I think we all know, we all know what's coming. It's Babel by Ella Krang. Her second appearance on the list. I love her. I don't even know what to say to you. This book is incredible. It is a all time, all time, all time favorite. So this is following our characters at Oxford learning translation and being scholars of translation because in this society, magic exists through silver working. And you have silver bars that will have two words that I'm trying so bad at describing this. It will have two words engraved on it that mean similar things, but also have slightly different meanings. And that will power the silver to have some sort of effect, essentially. But really what this book is about is dismantling the blood and the colonialism and the exploitation that a lot of England and England's institutions are built on and racism. And I mean, it is so above me. It is incredible. I feel like I can't describe it, but this book is so clever. It is so clever. I just love it so much. And this has Footnotes, which I absolutely, I'm just talking about the basics now because I just feel like I'm going to do a bad job of just what this book does. But I love Footnotes. We all know I love a gimmick. I love something that does something different. The Footnotes add this depth and this detail and this whole like weld to it that I just loved. I just think this is incredible. I think this is better than the Poppy War. I mean, Dragon Republic is on this list, but this is everything to me. I loved it so much. I sobbed a lot. I cried a lot, but I don't know. I just loved these characters. I loved the journey that the book went on. I loved what it's trying to say. I love the messages that it has. I think they're so important. I just think this is incredible. I just think it's absolutely incredible. And you all need to go and read it right now. So there we have it. That is my top 10 books of 2022 ranked. Let me know if there's any surprises on this list. I feel like there might be, but I stick to my guns. And these are my top 10 books of the year. Let me know in the comments what your favorite book of the year was, what your top books of the year were. I'd love to know. If you've gotten to the end of the video, put a star emoji because these are obviously the stars of the year. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you for all your support this year with my channel. I cannot tell you how much. I appreciate it. And yeah, I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye!