I just love that your reading covers so many genres and that I recognize many titles but also find a lot of new ones to add to my TBR! I did a reread of Roger Ackroyd this last year and I think knowing how it ends definitely makes the reading experience completely different the second time around! Such a great book!
📚 Favorite book of 2023: The Golem And The Jinni by Helene Wecker: A beautifully written historical fantasy, that explores gender roles and the concept of humanity, while simultaneously serving as the (perhaps unintentionally) perfect depiction of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. Five Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Least Favorite book of 2023: The Circus Train by Amita Parika A catfish of a book, likening itself to The Night Circus and Water for Elephants, but delivering a reading experience that can only be described as the script for an ableist, holocaust heist-movie written for Nickelodeon. One Star ⭐
Aw thank you! It’s quite the challenge, and I always worry I am leaning too much into describing the plot of the book rather than reviewing it, but in a single sentence and avoiding spoilers it can be difficult 😅 I’m glad you enjoy this format!
that one sentence review for monkey beach (3:05) was pure poetry!! 😭❤ love this series so much. it's such a nice & concise way of presenting your reading year! 📚
I love your one sentence reviews so much!! Favourite: The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi: A decadent and sensuous modern fairytale penned down in the most exquisite prose that blurs the line between reality and fantasy and explores toxic, codependent female friendship. Least favorite: Gothikana by RuNyx: An atrocious dark romance that masquerades as dark academia, exhibiting justvthe vibes but none of critique that dark academia is supposed to have, with a writing style so cringy it made me throw up more than once😂
@@PlantBasedBride It was just a case of “right book, wrong time”! I found the pacing to be too slow for me. I wound up dnfing it at 30%, but I’m thinking of trying again this year!
These are always so fun to hear. It feels like it would be kind of fun to do myself as well. Favorite book of 2023: A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson- A beautifully written exploration of those in abusive situations coming to terms with the type of relationship they are in and finding a way out no matter what they have to do. Least Liked Book of 2023: The Secret of Shadow Ranch by Carolynn Keene (Nancy Drew)- A mystery that was too predicable and with no nostalgia attached to the story was overall rather boring.
📚 one of my faves of 2023- She is a Haunting - everything I want from a gothic haunted story. One of the worst- Bear and the Nightingale - all i could think of was Hellfire from Hutch acknowledged of Notedame
Favorites (tie): Cast in Eternity by Michelle Sagara & Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs. Least favorite The Diabolical Miss Hyde. I love these quick review. Quick way for me to do a list of your 5 stars. Love the more in depth videos but an executive summary is always welcome twice a year😅
Haha I know what you mean! Sometimes a quick review to get a feel for a book can be nice, though I, too, love a good in depth long winded discussion on a book 😂
@@PlantBasedBride There are book that deserves/require a good in depth dive into but some deserve no more than a one sentence review. I bought a couple of your recommendations, that I would not have known they existed if you had not mentioned them (Braiding Sweetgrass, Entangled Life, If not winter) They are still in my TBR but I will read them this year. I always look forward your recommendations. I am usually Fantasy oriented in my reading. It’s nice to change pace once in a while, broaden my horizons
My least favorite book last year was definitely Fourth Wing, probably don't need to explain that one 🤣 While I didn't have any true five-star reads last year, I most enjoyed reading Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. I was really let-down by Uprooted and felt very middling reactions to the Scholomance trilogy. So I was happy that Spinning Silver exceeded my expectations and won me back as a Novik fan! The main female characters were all written very powerfully and the detail-work on the money economy and lending was really compelling, especially with the numbers-savvy heroine Miryem taking charge and solving problems with the power of her intellect and an unwillingness to accept her lot in life.
📖 "Unbound: Songs of Chaos" by Michael R Miller. Equal parts whimsical and devastating, an epic exploration of classism, ableism, war and forgiveness; delivered everything I wished was in Fourth Wing and then some. 🐉 "Pretty Girls Make Graves" (and whatever the second book was called) by Steffanie Holmes. A plot and setting with huge potential that wasted 95% of its pages insisting (unconvincingly) that there's romantic love between characters that barely had anything to do with the main crisis.
your book club sounds amazing. I'm here for finding intelligent, kind people to spend time with! ❤❤📖 Fave read of 2023: Adrift by Brideau: an intelligent near-future mystery about a woman with amnesia trying to understand herself and how to live in a climate-impacted world; suspensy with many moments of action but also thoughtful and scarily realistic re: climate change. One million stars. My least favourite read shall remain unnamed but it was labeled on the front as "breakneck action, fast cars, and a thoughtful exploration of Western colonialism" - had virtually no action at all and the most disappointing surface-level exploration of Western colonialism that left so much interesting nuance untouched; how was this a best-seller!?!! 🤯
Ok, Adrift sounds incredible!! Adding it to my TBR right now ❤ and you're right, the book club really is incredible! I'm so grateful to past me for starting it because it's one of my favourite parts of my job!
Loved yet another of your videos :) I'd love to join your book club, but.. I'm afraid I won't be able to read the book in one month. (Hectic life atm.) Is joining beneficial? Or should I wait until my life has slowed down?
We’ve been choosing books a few months ahead lately (I’ve been more on top of the admin 😅) so you could ostensibly start a book club pick a couple months ahead if that’s something you need! We’re about to vote to choose our May and June reads in the next week or so. I’d love to have you join us, of course, but I don’t want to pressure you, either! You know your schedule best and getting to participate in the live discussions is the best part, in my opinion. Still, if you join the Patreon you have access to our discord which is an amazing community and there’s a bunch of channels on different topics you can chat with people about books, journaling, crafting, life in general, our furry friends, etc. But you can get access by joining in any tier, so maybe starting at one of the other tiers would be a good way to dip your toe in? ❤️
Hi, I’m not a native English speaker and I’ve noticed you use sapphic instead of lesbian. I wanted to ask if there is like a specific reason behind this. I was thinking maybe it’s a literature thing, a political thing within the English sphere I’m not aware of, a RUclips guidelines thing, or maybe personal preference. Anyways, I love your videos and just thought I’d ask :)
Usually I use sapphic when the orientations of the women in question aren’t specified, since I don’t like to assume they’re lesbians when one or both could be bisexual! Just a personal preference because I find bisexual erasure quite frustrating ❤️
Listening to you talk about the book club made me a little weepy! I am so happy to have found this group and to regularly meet with such wonderful people who share my love of reading. Thank you for creating and fostering such a great space 💜
I’m right there with you! I’m grateful to the weird journey that led me here. I’ve just over 100 pages to go in Our Share of Night and am enjoying it immensely! And now I’m a BookTuber too! I’m as surprised as anyone about that!
I love your one sentence book reviews!! ❤ Also I have a suggestion for you based on your fox journal video, I just recently read a book called Fox & I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven that I feel you'd love! It's a true story so sort of a memoir, but very emotional and beautiful. 🦊
Will there be an update on the reading around the world challenge? I'm curious how many countries you have already visited and how many are still waiting. 😊
Oo that could be fun! Maybe I can share a post on Instagram showing my map coloured in from the past few years of reading 🤔 or I could share an update in my next reading journal video!
As a Turkish person who was reading 10 books a year and now reads 10 books in a month, I started to read books in their written language and it quickly became a passion this year and I am constantly on a hunt to find intellectual, passionate people to get recommendations from because I don't want to lose what I started to love all of a sudden and I don't want to come across a book that will put me in a reading slump. This video of yours was so amazingly poetic and genuine and made me add a lot of the books to my list. Thank you so much
📚Least: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: Misogyny and avarice disguised as a supposedly scary tale of an eighteenth century man who comes across a small Dutch town surrounded by a scary legend. His ride through the countryside alone made me gag. ⭐️ Best: I have 2 for different reasons. 1) Loveless: a young person's journey as they become aware of their sexuality and develop meaningful friendships along the way. (This was recommended by my youngest child who came out to me 2 years ago as aro-ase so it holds a very special place in my heart⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 2) This Is How You Lose The Time War: stunning prose, intricate world and concepts, delivering a most beautiful sapphic love story. I find myself grabbing this book every once in a while, reading a passage and putting it back down - something I don't do with any other book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Love the concept of one sentence reviews! I struggle with sounding mildly insane when I try to describe books, lol. Favorite book: The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley; an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars that has a heart wrenching love story and time travel. Least favorite book: An Offer from a Gentleman by Julia Quinn; the Bridgerton book that follows the story of the second son, Benedict, and paints a manipulative, self-entitled man as romantic.
📚📖 oh so so good as alway! Your description of the books was on point! I always enjoy getting new recommendations although I may never be at your capacity for books read in a year my tbr is growing exponentially, thanks for sharing lovely friend ❤
Least favourite (of the ones I finished): Plain bad heroines, it's way too long, had unnecessary footnotes, I just couldn't stand any of the characters in the modern storyline and rolled my eyes every time the wasps came back. And the 1912 boarding school wasn't explored enough. Another book I hated was priory of the orange tree, too long, norhing happened and the ending was rushed for some reason (considering it's over 800 pages, that pacing didn't make sense). One of my favourite books were Mr Loverman and Girl, Woman, Other (both by Bernadine Evaristo). Also Firekeeper's daughter by Angeline Boulley
Favorite: The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld. Stunning story about prisoners on death row; both abjectly horrifying and gloriously beautiful. 💚 Worst: The Shack by William Paul Young. Great idea to write a book for his kids; horrible idea to share it with anyone else. 😖
@PlantBasedBride lol, read The Enchanted!!! Here's my staff pick review when I worked at Powell's: Rene Denfeld’s The Enchanted is a book like no other. Set in a crumbling prison, the characters are the prisoners on death row, the grieving warden, the corrupt guard, the lady trying to stay the execution, the fallen priest, the white-haired boy, the horrified mother, and the inside drug lords. Almost no one has a name, and of those that do, their names seem to cause some inner shudder; they are so evil. But, not completely. Underneath their crimes are crimes against them; and the sorrow and pain circle around and around. The prison is enchanted with the golden horses who run on a rampage underneath the prison; molten flames flying off their manes. Yet, also enchanting it are the horrible flibber gibbets who gobble up the heat of the newly dead and the terrifying small men with tiny hammers in the wall. Beauty and horror walk hand-in-hand here. The Enchanted is narrated by a nameless, omniscient death row inmate; who sees far and wide and deep as well. Through him we learn the stories that led the inmates to prison, as well as the unbearable reality that is prison. “The cell coagulates with an acrid smell that the boy doesn’t know but instantly recognizes. It is the smell of terror, and it is coming from him. Something like barbed wire constricts his heart, and it is impossible to breathe. He knows now why he is here.” The Enchanted is absolutely chilling, yet with Denfeld’s spare, quiet prose, it is one of the most gorgeous and stunning things I have ever read. Living in this book for a week, I felt broken open, shattered, and crushed by both the unspeakable horror and the unbelievable beauty. The Enchanted is ripe with themes on crime, punishment, survival, and love; Denfeld will break your heart, but she will also knit it back together for you. If you only read one book this year, make it this one.
Finallyyyy, someone who doesn't praise Fourth Wing to death. 😭🙌 My God, the whole time reading it I kept thinking this was a Divergent knockoff with some dragons added in. How original. 🙄
@@PlantBasedBride it truly was nothing special. Was expecting so much more since everyone talked it up so much. I donated it the same day I read it lol.
Your review of The Maidens was spot on. What a breath of fresh air hearing an articulate and well summarized review of this book.
haha I'm glad I could validate your feelings on it! I don't understand the raving reviews of it at all.
I just love that your reading covers so many genres and that I recognize many titles but also find a lot of new ones to add to my TBR! I did a reread of Roger Ackroyd this last year and I think knowing how it ends definitely makes the reading experience completely different the second time around! Such a great book!
I love getting to dip my toe into a plethora of genres! Oo, I should find the time to reread it at some point ❤️
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Favorite book of 2023:
The Golem And The Jinni by Helene Wecker:
A beautifully written historical fantasy, that explores gender roles and the concept of humanity, while simultaneously serving as the (perhaps unintentionally) perfect depiction of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. Five Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Least Favorite book of 2023:
The Circus Train by Amita Parika
A catfish of a book, likening itself to The Night Circus and Water for Elephants, but delivering a reading experience that can only be described as the script for an ableist, holocaust heist-movie written for Nickelodeon. One Star ⭐
Wow 😯 definitely a huge contrast there 👀
I also loved the Golem and the Jinni!
I absolutely love this review format, you did a wonderful job describing the main premise and feelings of each book. I love your channel! 📚❤
Aw thank you! It’s quite the challenge, and I always worry I am leaning too much into describing the plot of the book rather than reviewing it, but in a single sentence and avoiding spoilers it can be difficult 😅 I’m glad you enjoy this format!
that one sentence review for monkey beach (3:05) was pure poetry!! 😭❤
love this series so much. it's such a nice & concise way of presenting your reading year! 📚
Aw haha thank you! 🥰 I’m glad you like this format ❤️
How do you manage to succinctly review a whole book in less time than it takes to explain to my husband which deodorant to pick up at the store?
Lol 😂 to be honest I have no idea. I am one of the most rambling talkers on the planet 😅🫠
@@PlantBasedBride - Same. My mind doesn't even know what my mouth is saying half the time.
I love your one sentence reviews so much!!
Favourite: The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi:
A decadent and sensuous modern fairytale penned down in the most exquisite prose that blurs the line between reality and fantasy and explores toxic, codependent female friendship.
Least favorite: Gothikana by RuNyx: An atrocious dark romance that masquerades as dark academia, exhibiting justvthe vibes but none of critique that dark academia is supposed to have, with a writing style so cringy it made me throw up more than once😂
Thank you! And omg, you’ve convinced me to read your favourite. It sounds amazing!! ❤️
@@PlantBasedBride yayy! I hope you love it whenever you decide to pick it up!!❤️
The Maidens - man, it was so bad 😂😂
island of the blue dolphins!! 💖😭
I love that book and I stand by it 😭 Karana was such a badass!
I ❤ your reviews. Thank you!
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Favorite: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Least Favorite: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty
Oo both of these are on my TBR! I’m curious what didn’t work for you about the adventures?
@@PlantBasedBride It was just a case of “right book, wrong time”! I found the pacing to be too slow for me. I wound up dnfing it at 30%, but I’m thinking of trying again this year!
@@PlantBasedBrideI would definitely recommend reading The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi. I thought it was amazing!
I missed your book review videos 📚
More to come this year, don’t you worry! ❤️
These are always so fun to hear. It feels like it would be kind of fun to do myself as well.
Favorite book of 2023:
A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson- A beautifully written exploration of those in abusive situations coming to terms with the type of relationship they are in and finding a way out no matter what they have to do.
Least Liked Book of 2023:
The Secret of Shadow Ranch by Carolynn Keene (Nancy Drew)- A mystery that was too predicable and with no nostalgia attached to the story was overall rather boring.
Oo it’s so interesting to read your one sentence review of A Dowry of Blood! I was underwhelmed by it but I love your interpretation ❤️
📚 Most loved: Know my Name by Chanel Miller
Least loved: Fourth Wing
📚 one of my faves of 2023- She is a Haunting - everything I want from a gothic haunted story. One of the worst- Bear and the Nightingale - all i could think of was Hellfire from Hutch acknowledged of Notedame
Oo I have to add She is a Haunting to my TBR!
Favorites (tie): Cast in Eternity by Michelle Sagara & Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs. Least favorite The Diabolical Miss Hyde. I love these quick review. Quick way for me to do a list of your 5 stars. Love the more in depth videos but an executive summary is always welcome twice a year😅
Haha I know what you mean! Sometimes a quick review to get a feel for a book can be nice, though I, too, love a good in depth long winded discussion on a book 😂
@@PlantBasedBride There are book that deserves/require a good in depth dive into but some deserve no more than a one sentence review. I bought a couple of your recommendations, that I would not have known they existed if you had not mentioned them (Braiding Sweetgrass, Entangled Life, If not winter) They are still in my TBR but I will read them this year. I always look forward your recommendations. I am usually Fantasy oriented in my reading. It’s nice to change pace once in a while, broaden my horizons
My least favorite book last year was definitely Fourth Wing, probably don't need to explain that one 🤣
While I didn't have any true five-star reads last year, I most enjoyed reading Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. I was really let-down by Uprooted and felt very middling reactions to the Scholomance trilogy. So I was happy that Spinning Silver exceeded my expectations and won me back as a Novik fan! The main female characters were all written very powerfully and the detail-work on the money economy and lending was really compelling, especially with the numbers-savvy heroine Miryem taking charge and solving problems with the power of her intellect and an unwillingness to accept her lot in life.
I loved Ariadne by Jennifer Saint. I gave it 5 stars. You gave just 3. I’m curious to know what you didn’t like. 🤔
Wow! So interesting to see how tastes differ. Mad Honey was a total 1 star for me. Hated that book.
📖 "Unbound: Songs of Chaos" by Michael R Miller. Equal parts whimsical and devastating, an epic exploration of classism, ableism, war and forgiveness; delivered everything I wished was in Fourth Wing and then some. 🐉
"Pretty Girls Make Graves" (and whatever the second book was called) by Steffanie Holmes. A plot and setting with huge potential that wasted 95% of its pages insisting (unconvincingly) that there's romantic love between characters that barely had anything to do with the main crisis.
Ooo I'm definitely interested in reading Unbound from that review! It sounds incredible ❤
Most loved book: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi.
Least loved book: Babel
your book club sounds amazing. I'm here for finding intelligent, kind people to spend time with! ❤❤📖
Fave read of 2023: Adrift by Brideau: an intelligent near-future mystery about a woman with amnesia trying to understand herself and how to live in a climate-impacted world; suspensy with many moments of action but also thoughtful and scarily realistic re: climate change. One million stars.
My least favourite read shall remain unnamed but it was labeled on the front as "breakneck action, fast cars, and a thoughtful exploration of Western colonialism" - had virtually no action at all and the most disappointing surface-level exploration of Western colonialism that left so much interesting nuance untouched; how was this a best-seller!?!! 🤯
Ok, Adrift sounds incredible!! Adding it to my TBR right now ❤ and you're right, the book club really is incredible! I'm so grateful to past me for starting it because it's one of my favourite parts of my job!
Loved yet another of your videos :)
I'd love to join your book club, but.. I'm afraid I won't be able to read the book in one month. (Hectic life atm.) Is joining beneficial? Or should I wait until my life has slowed down?
We’ve been choosing books a few months ahead lately (I’ve been more on top of the admin 😅) so you could ostensibly start a book club pick a couple months ahead if that’s something you need! We’re about to vote to choose our May and June reads in the next week or so. I’d love to have you join us, of course, but I don’t want to pressure you, either! You know your schedule best and getting to participate in the live discussions is the best part, in my opinion. Still, if you join the Patreon you have access to our discord which is an amazing community and there’s a bunch of channels on different topics you can chat with people about books, journaling, crafting, life in general, our furry friends, etc. But you can get access by joining in any tier, so maybe starting at one of the other tiers would be a good way to dip your toe in? ❤️
Hi, I’m not a native English speaker and I’ve noticed you use sapphic instead of lesbian. I wanted to ask if there is like a specific reason behind this. I was thinking maybe it’s a literature thing, a political thing within the English sphere I’m not aware of, a RUclips guidelines thing, or maybe personal preference. Anyways, I love your videos and just thought I’d ask :)
Usually I use sapphic when the orientations of the women in question aren’t specified, since I don’t like to assume they’re lesbians when one or both could be bisexual! Just a personal preference because I find bisexual erasure quite frustrating ❤️
do you read non-fiction?
I do! I definitely prefer fiction but I read memoirs and other nonfiction pretty regularly.
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said more then one sentence for some of these. 0/5 leaving booktube forever
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Listening to you talk about the book club made me a little weepy! I am so happy to have found this group and to regularly meet with such wonderful people who share my love of reading. Thank you for creating and fostering such a great space 💜
Aw well I’m so glad you’ve joined us! I love hearing your insights on the books we read and you bring a lovely energy to our meetings ❤️
I’m right there with you! I’m grateful to the weird journey that led me here. I’ve just over 100 pages to go in Our Share of Night and am enjoying it immensely! And now I’m a BookTuber too! I’m as surprised as anyone about that!
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I love your one sentence book reviews!! ❤ Also I have a suggestion for you based on your fox journal video, I just recently read a book called Fox & I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven that I feel you'd love! It's a true story so sort of a memoir, but very emotional and beautiful. 🦊
Oo thank you for the suggestion! ❤️
Will there be an update on the reading around the world challenge? I'm curious how many countries you have already visited and how many are still waiting. 😊
Oo that could be fun! Maybe I can share a post on Instagram showing my map coloured in from the past few years of reading 🤔 or I could share an update in my next reading journal video!
@@PlantBasedBride An update in a video would be nice for those of us who don't use Instagram. 😅
As a Turkish person who was reading 10 books a year and now reads 10 books in a month, I started to read books in their written language and it quickly became a passion this year and I am constantly on a hunt to find intellectual, passionate people to get recommendations from because I don't want to lose what I started to love all of a sudden and I don't want to come across a book that will put me in a reading slump. This video of yours was so amazingly poetic and genuine and made me add a lot of the books to my list. Thank you so much
📚Least: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: Misogyny and avarice disguised as a supposedly scary tale of an eighteenth century man who comes across a small Dutch town surrounded by a scary legend. His ride through the countryside alone made me gag. ⭐️
Best: I have 2 for different reasons.
1) Loveless: a young person's journey as they become aware of their sexuality and develop meaningful friendships along the way. (This was recommended by my youngest child who came out to me 2 years ago as aro-ase so it holds a very special place in my heart⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2) This Is How You Lose The Time War: stunning prose, intricate world and concepts, delivering a most beautiful sapphic love story. I find myself grabbing this book every once in a while, reading a passage and putting it back down - something I don't do with any other book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I love love love How To Lose the Time War! I haven’t read Loveless but it’s been on my TBR for a while ❤️❤️❤️
Love the concept of one sentence reviews! I struggle with sounding mildly insane when I try to describe books, lol.
Favorite book: The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley; an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars that has a heart wrenching love story and time travel.
Least favorite book: An Offer from a Gentleman by Julia Quinn; the Bridgerton book that follows the story of the second son, Benedict, and paints a manipulative, self-entitled man as romantic.
I loved Ariadne by Jennifer Saint. I gave it 5 stars whereas you gave only 3. I’m curious to know what you didn’t like 🤔
📚📖 oh so so good as alway! Your description of the books was on point! I always enjoy getting new recommendations although I may never be at your capacity for books read in a year my tbr is growing exponentially, thanks for sharing lovely friend ❤
Aw thank you! I hope you enjoy three books you do pick up from this video 🥰❤️❤️
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This is so good ☺☺☺
Thank you!
Matt's Fantasy Book Reviews does 30 second reviews that are usually hilarious! (He's not terribly concise usually either.)
It's incredible that you read so many 5 STARS ! ❤ I'm adding several to my TBR ! Love your channel !
Ariadne was five stars for me. I'm still curious about Silver Nitrate too.
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Least favourite (of the ones I finished): Plain bad heroines, it's way too long, had unnecessary footnotes,
I just couldn't stand any of the characters in the modern storyline and rolled my eyes every time the wasps came back. And the 1912 boarding school wasn't explored enough. Another book I hated was priory of the orange tree, too long, norhing happened and the ending was rushed for some reason (considering it's over 800 pages, that pacing didn't make sense).
One of my favourite books were Mr Loverman and Girl, Woman, Other (both by Bernadine Evaristo). Also Firekeeper's daughter by Angeline Boulley
I agree on Plain Bad Heroines but you’re breaking my heart here with Priory 😭😂
Island of the Blue Dolphins was my favorite book as a child! I'd completely forgotten about it until this review!
It will always have such a special place in my heart ❤️
Favorite: The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld. Stunning story about prisoners on death row; both abjectly horrifying and gloriously beautiful. 💚
Worst: The Shack by William Paul Young. Great idea to write a book for his kids; horrible idea to share it with anyone else. 😖
Ok, you have me intrigued! I feel like I need to know more about both of these lol
@PlantBasedBride lol, read The Enchanted!!! Here's my staff pick review when I worked at Powell's:
Rene Denfeld’s The Enchanted is a book like no other. Set in a crumbling prison, the characters are the prisoners on death row, the grieving warden, the corrupt guard, the lady trying to stay the execution, the fallen priest, the white-haired boy, the horrified mother, and the inside drug lords. Almost no one has a name, and of those that do, their names seem to cause some inner shudder; they are so evil. But, not completely. Underneath their crimes are crimes against them; and the sorrow and pain circle around and around.
The prison is enchanted with the golden horses who run on a rampage underneath the prison; molten flames flying off their manes. Yet, also enchanting it are the horrible flibber gibbets who gobble up the heat of the newly dead and the terrifying small men with tiny hammers in the wall. Beauty and horror walk hand-in-hand here.
The Enchanted is narrated by a nameless, omniscient death row inmate; who sees far and wide and deep as well. Through him we learn the stories that led the inmates to prison, as well as the unbearable reality that is prison. “The cell coagulates with an acrid smell that the boy doesn’t know but instantly recognizes. It is the smell of terror, and it is coming from him. Something like barbed wire constricts his heart, and it is impossible to breathe. He knows now why he is here.”
The Enchanted is absolutely chilling, yet with Denfeld’s spare, quiet prose, it is one of the most gorgeous and stunning things I have ever read. Living in this book for a week, I felt broken open, shattered, and crushed by both the unspeakable horror and the unbelievable beauty. The Enchanted is ripe with themes on crime, punishment, survival, and love; Denfeld will break your heart, but she will also knit it back together for you. If you only read one book this year, make it this one.
Finallyyyy, someone who doesn't praise Fourth Wing to death. 😭🙌 My God, the whole time reading it I kept thinking this was a Divergent knockoff with some dragons added in. How original. 🙄
Haha yeah it was nothing special. I don’t know why it got such a massive amount of hype online!
@@PlantBasedBride it truly was nothing special. Was expecting so much more since everyone talked it up so much. I donated it the same day I read it lol.