 Girls of Paper and Fire, Banatata and Nyang. I still haven't taken this Barnes and Noble sticker off. Whoops. Let's just ignore that. Everyone, welcome back to my channel. Welcome if you are new here. My name is Megan. And today I am actually so excited for this video. I am going to be giving book recommendations for beginners to each genre. So I'm going to go through every genre and give you the book I think you should start with if you are completely new to that genre. I tend to read very broadly so I would say I would read at like at least six different genres every month. And so I feel like I'm in a pretty good position to recommend you stuff from every different genre. Whether you're looking to just get into one specific genre more or you're just looking to add a bit of variety to watch your reading, I think this is a perfect video for you. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already and let's just get into it. If you're wanting to get into thrillers more, I have a perfect recommendation because until last year, until I literally started my channel, I had never read a thriller before and now thrillers are one of my favorite genres. So for this, I'm going to recommend to you the first thriller I ever read which I think was perfect for that. And that is The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware. Now this shit scared me. It scared me so much when I first read it. I was held at gunpoint with junior princess in South Africa. My mum being told she was dying. My German shepherd got killed on my driveway. My horse got killed outside my house on the dual carriageway. Harvey had a kidnapped threat. Then I caught my husband cheating again. I was a newbie to thrillers but I don't think it's actually that scary. Also, can we appreciate the sprayed edges? This was like my first ever sprayed edge book and I still think it's so cool with it being keys rather than just a color. This is a thriller about a woman who goes to work in this rich family home as a babysitter and spooky shit starts occurring. And you find out the start of the book that she is accused and is in prison for killing one of the children who was in her care. And she's saying, I ain't kill that kid. I ain't kill that kid. And so it's the story of figuring out whether she is telling the truth or not. Ruth Ware's thrillers I think are perfect for beginners. She writes in a really accessible way. Her new book coming out I think in like a month or two depends on where you live, one by one. I have read and loved and I think that is also a brilliant starter if you want to get into one in the next few months. It's just full of twists and turns and excitement. I gave it five stars and it is a big reason as to why I got into the thriller genre more. So we definitely have to recommend this for that. I guess my most next genre is fantasy, but for this I couldn't choose one. So I've gone for a young adult and an adult. For a young adult, I would have to recommend girls with paper and fire, bandit, tassel and a yang. I still haven't taken this Barnes and Noble sticker off. Whoops, let's just ignore that. So this is about a girl called Leigh who is forced to go and be one of the paper girls, which is one of the demon king's concubines. So these girls are forced to sleep with the king and oh my cat wants to get out of the wardrobe. Lux! I'm coming! Okay where did I get to? While she is there, whilst these girls are having to deal with rape essentially, this book really deals with rape and sexual assault in such a well done way I would say. She ends up falling in love with another one of the paper girls and it's just a good old gay time. So if you're looking to get into young adult fantasy, this is it. Like this is I think just like a quintessential fantasy book. I think it's one of the most vivid fantasy books I've read. I love all the characters. I love the world and I love the way it deals with serious topics. And if you're looking to get into adult fantasy, it would have to be The Bear and the Nightingale by Catherine Arden. I go on about this book 10 times a day. I love this book so much. This is about a young girl named Vasya who discovers old Russian magic and house spirits and dark magic and it's just the most whimsical dream like wonderful, wintery book. And I'm gonna have an announcement coming out soon about this in the next couple weeks. So keep your eyes peeled, especially if you're wanting to read this. I don't want to say too much but you basically know what it is. The announcement for a read along with this is coming soon. You just know early if you've watched this, you're just in the know. This is one of my favourite books all time and I can't wait to read this again. I think this is perfect because Vasya is very young. In this and then she grows older as the books go along. I think it's the perfect transition between young adult and adult fantasy if you're wanting to make that transition. Let's do non-fiction really fast because I know not a lot of people read non-fiction but I feel like it's a great thing to get into reading even just a little bit. So my recommendation if you don't read any non-fiction right now, it would be Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay. Now this is just a series of personal essays educating you on topics such as race and gender and class and politics and I just love Roxanne Gay. Like this is one of the most engaging collections of essays I've read and I think if you're new to non-fiction rather than reading like a more academic book or a more kind of like researched book on topics such as race and gender, a great place to start is like a personal story. Her just really taking you through her life and the stuff that she has struggled with and viewing these topics as an insider. I think it's just a brilliant perspective and I want to read everything that Roxanne Gay writes in the future. There was loads of sections I highlighted in this which I never do. I never highlight books but I just felt so compelled to with this. It's so insightful, so educating but in such an accessible way. It feels just like you're reading someone's diary, a really clever person's diary in a way. So if you're completely new to non-fiction I honestly think this is like the perfect place to start. I don't think you could find anything better than this to start with. Period. Okay I mentioned thriller but if you're looking for murder mystery which murder mystery I see is a separate genre to thriller. It's kind of like a sub-genre. Like I know that but I love murder mystery and you already know what I'm gonna recommend. You already know. I don't even need to say it. I don't even need to say it if you're a regular. I'm gonna recommend The Guest List by Lucy Foley. I love everything about this. This is a murder mystery set on this remote island and you find out at the beginning that someone has died and you don't know who it is and it's just a work of art. Like it's the most suspenseful, thrilling look at these horrible people. They're all horrible. They're all so horrible but it's brilliant and you don't know for the majority of the book who has died which I think just makes it all the better because for a long time the person who I thought was gonna be the murderer was who died and it's so good. So if you're looking maybe you already read thrillers but you don't necessarily read like murder mysteries like Agatha Christie style. This book is the best place to start. I cannot wait to read everything else that Lucy Foley puts out and I have two copies. It's just come out in paperback at Waterstones with these sprayed edges and I'm just thinking to myself Megan you don't need a third copy. You don't need a third copy. What reason would there be to have a third copy? And I just love the vibes of that kind of classic murder mystery style so the perfect place to start. Contemporary. I don't tend to read a lot of contemporaries but I think the perfect place to start if you want maybe some lighter. These books aren't necessarily light like they deal with serious topics but if you just want some easier to read books I would have to recommend Elizabeth Acevedo's books. I have read both The Poet X and Clap for New Land. I'm gonna be reading with the fire on high very soon and these two are both told in verse which means for like the quickest reading experience ever but Elizabeth Acevedo has this way with words. Her stories are so captivating and beautifully written. She deals with family really well. This is about a young girl who wants to be a poet and it's to do with her relationship with her mom and how that is difficult and this is about two sisters who don't know their sisters until their father dies in a plane crash and it's about the story of family coming together and finding out about a family that you never knew existed and it's just some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read. I literally read it and I'm like where do your words come from ma'am? Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique. So yeah if you haven't read a lot of contemporary I think this is honestly the perfect place to start. If you're wanting to get more into kind of fabulism which is kind of like contemporary but with little fabulism elements to it, like little magical elements to it, this is often confused with magical realism but it's important to remember that magical realism has its ties in like Latino roots and so it can only be magical realism if it has that. It's very tied up with colonialism and stuff like that whereas fabulism is kind of like the equivalent but without those roots and I love fabulism. It is one of my favourite genres. I don't read enough of it, like I definitely don't read enough of it. I want to read more but my recommendation would be Dig by AS King. This is such a weird book but it's amazing. If you don't read any weird book you're a bit safe you know like you like to play it safe. If you want to read something a bit weird a bit out of your comfort zone it's Dig. This is about a family of potato farmers. It deals with topics like family again is a big role in this, white supremacy plays a massive role on this particularly in kind of like small town America. It's one of those books you know like where has this come from like it's just pure brilliance so if you're wanting to get into some more weird stuff it's getting weird. Some more fabulism elements I think this is the best place to start and like it's really weird like it really goes there but with fabulism unlike some of the other genres where I'm like oh it's the easy version of that genre with fabulism I think you need to just be thrown in at the deep end just like tucked in to fully appreciate the weirdness. Next another one I'm not gonna spend too long on because I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but if you're wanting to get into more poetry I have to recommend my love my queen Charlie Cox. This is She Must Be Mad by Charlie Cox. Her poetry is some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever read. I've read this twice now and there's so many parts of her poetry that just sticks with me. This is split into four sections and they are she must be in love she must be mad she must be fat she must be an adult and there is just so much in the contents of this that are just stunning and amazing and wonderful and I feel like I can relate to a lot of what she says so if you are a young woman or person living in the current digital age I think that this pulls on a lot of the feelings that a lot of us have if you maybe struggle your mental health or your body image and stuff like that I think this is a great place to go to to read and to like understand that a lot of people feel the same way as you so I love poetry I want to definitely read more. Next for historical fiction I have of course going to recommend Taylor Jenkins Reid's books The Seven Husbands of Evan Hugo and Daisy Jones on The Six. Me explaining why Taylor Jenkins Reid is now the queen of historical fiction. There is science and scientific proof it's biology. I think these are a really accessible way into historical fiction because they're both kind of modern I feel like I want to reread The Seven Husbands of Evan Hugo soon or maybe even Daisy Jones on The Six. I've heard a lot of great things about the audiobook of this and I think I'm gonna read this again soon audibly but this is about obviously the film star Evelyn Hugo who has seven husbands it's about following her life through those marriages and the true love of her life, finding out who that is and Daisy Jones on The Six is a like autobiographical account of this fan from the 60s and 70s and it's told completely through interview format so these are all different entries with the band members or family members of the band and stuff like that and I think if you want to read some more historical fiction these are such an easy place to start they're so popular so accessible these are definitely books that are very important to me and if you haven't read them yet which I don't know how you wouldn't know you must be like under a rock but if you haven't because maybe you've been scared off by historical fiction I genuinely think these are the best place to start. I'm gonna be very quick with this book again not because I don't think you're interested but because I speak about this book far too much I speak about it all the time and I don't tend to read a lot of sci-fi which is the next genre I'm gonna recommend but if you are new to sci-fi like me I have to recommend The Illuminae Files by Amy Kofman and Jay Kristoff this is the first one Illuminae this is told entirely through multimedia format so emails, chat logs, surveillance camera footage, classified reports and it's amazing it's so good you are my ride or die you're on my home skillet this Scott you know what I mean but oh my god pure brilliance like pure brilliance like you've never read something so good it makes me want to read sci-fi more I love sci-fi like every time I read it I just don't read it that often if you are tentative to dip your toe into sci-fi because I get that it can feel a bit intimidating it feels like a very like clever person genre this is like dumb as hell like it's dumb like it's clever like there's a lot of science-y stuff but also this book like is self-proclaimed dumb as hell I think this is the best place to start with sci-fi next is classics and I do not nearly read enough classics as I should but my recommendation for who to start with in classics has to be the queen herself Jane Austen now I read a project this years ago like probably half my lifetime ago but I definitely want to reread it soon but persuasion is one that I read more recently and Jane Austen's books just feel like comfort reads again they feel so safe I love the way she writes I love Jane Austen's humor she's one of the funniest writers ever like it's just not in the tongue I guess that we recognize the phrases that are used aren't stuff we recognize however she's funny as fuck like Miss Jane Miss Jane had a great sense of humor she drags some of her characters to filth to filth to filth they're books that you kind of fly through and are all about people's relationships and that awkwardness of that era where you couldn't like come out and say stuff it was all in the subtext of stuff I just feel like classics are so often intimidating but Jane Austen's books are actually so easy to read and such a fun read as well next is romance and I haven't read a lot of romance I've only read three romance books and I hated two of them so the one that I loved was Meet Cute Club by Jack Harbourn this is about two guys who fall in love I mean it's a romance book so like but one runs a book club and the other works at the bookshop that he goes to buy books for for the book club there's a lot of books there and it's kind of just about them falling in love it's a very quick easy read it's so fun so lighthearted and it's everything I had been wanting from a romance book it doesn't take itself too seriously the characters fall fairly well like fleshed out in a very small amount of time and you become so invested in their romance I love how one of the guys is more uptight and one is a really kind of like fun loving fun guy I'm a fun guy and I just really like that dynamic in romance is romances yeah in romances perfect if you're like me and don't read a lot of romance I myself am very new to horror I've only read a few I've read a few adult and a few young adult and I generally think if you're new to horror the best place to start is young adult I think that's similar with a lot of genres young adult horror I'm going to recommend the starting place is Wilder Girls by Rory Power now I know this book was controversial like not everyone loved it I loved it this is about girls who have something called a tox infect their school and it mutates in the girls in a lot of different ways it kills a lot of the girls and this is particularly about three friends who have remained very close in kind of the survival that these girls have had to go through and then one of them goes missing and they go the other two are like well we have to go find her and it's just like a little bit gory a little bit horrible a little bit scary but like not fully there so I think if you want to dip your toe into horror this is a great place to start because it's not really horror like it's kind of verging on horror I feel like there's not jump scares or anything it's just got this very sinister undercurrent I loved Wilder Girls and I could not wait to read Burn Our Bodies down by Rory Power I don't think that's horror and I think it's adult but I'm still very excited to read anything she writes all the same okay and then last I've saved the best for last it's graphic novels and you know what I'm gonna say I don't even need to say it but it is Heart Stopper by Alice Oseman now baby I knew that was gonna happen my favorite graphic novel series in the world Nick and Charlie falling in love being the cutest cinnamon rolls in the world pure perfection never been a better graphic novel this is all you need to read I can just end the video here we are honestly done like this but if you have if you watch my videos even if you don't why haven't you read it like you should just know the world should just be pointing you towards this these two boys falling in love is one of the most magical stories ever I love it so much if you haven't read it yet you're doing something wrong that is my entire pitch so there we have it that is all my recommendations for beginners to each genre I hope this has been helpful let me know which genre you want to get into reading more down below for me I definitely want to read more horror I think and more sci-fi are the two genres that I want to kind of like get into much more so if you have any recommendations for those let me know also and yeah I hope this has been helpful I will see you very very soon in another video don't forget to subscribe and I love you lots okay bye