Hey there booktube Katie here and you're watching Katie loves to read today I am
making a video inspired by the video made by Rachel over at kalanadi and that
is anticipated releases revisited. So basically I am looking back at two
videos that I made at the end of last year in which I talked about a bunch of
forthcoming releases that I was excited about a few of them still aren't out so
I won't be talking about those but everything else I'm going to be talking
about how I got on with it. It's an interesting idea - Rachel had a very
positive experience with her anticipated releases. I did not have quite so
positive an experience. There were a lot of books I was anticipating that ended
up being either just so-so or an absolute flop. So the first thing I was
anticipating was The Bear and the Nightingale I actually think I read the
Bear and the Nightingale before I made that video. I kind of cheated. I enjoyed it.
It was kind of a Russian fantasy. I actually have the sequel which is the
Girl in the Tower that was sent to me by Ebury recently so I am definitely very
excited to read it it was just a very nicely written book. It a felt quite
first bookish though so I'm very excited about the sequel because I think it's
going to be a lot better. The next book on the list was Crossroads of Canopy
by Thoraiya Dyer which was a fantasy novel which was set in the forests, in the
treetops. I had such high hopes for this book I was so disappointed. It wasn't
terrible but it was nothing like what I expected. The main character was quite
irritating and was constantly just obsessed with sex and that was mainly the
only thing on her mind was sex and how people were perceiving her but I also
found it like to be really predictable from what I remember and I thought the
writing wasn't that great. I don't know if I'll read the sequel to this one,
probably not to be honest which is sad because I was so excited about this book.
The next one was All Our Wrong Todays s by Elan Mastai. This was a science fiction
novel that i dnfed about 20% and it was so misogynistic and I was like No
I don't want any more of this. Next on the list was New York 2140 which is
about a New York in which the sea levels have risen. I started this book
and kind of put it on hold for a while I would not say that i dnfed it. It was
more that it wasn't the right book at the time. It has a lot to do with the
financial services industry and I was working in an internship in the
financial services industry and hating my life (not the people, the people were
lovely) but I hated the job and also it's very info dumpy and quite dense and it
just didn't feel like the right book for the time I was attempting to read it so
I'll go back to this maybe during my Christmas holidays from University. The
next one was The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi which was a standalone
science fiction novel, a space opera of sorts. I had high expectations for this
because I've loved all of the John Scalzi I've read in the past. In the end
it was just kind of meh, in fact I'll just link my review for you down below
because yeah it just it just didn't really work for me and I don't 100%
remember why because I've just put it out of my brain but it was very meh and
very not memorable to my mind but I know a lot of people have liked it so there
you go.The next thing was Down Among the Sticks and Bones, a few people have asked
me actually if I read this because I'm obsessed with Every Heart a doorway
because it has an asexual character. I actually read this back in January
because a very kind birdie named Thomas from SFF180 got me hooked up with
a copy and it was brilliant. I think I talked about it briefly in my January
wrap-up but it's so good. It's so dark and oh it's it's so good I need to
reread it actually quite badly and reread Every Heart a Doorway but I loved
it and I think I gave it four stars just because I wasn't quite as charmed as I
was with Every Heart a Doorway and the thing is like I don't think anything
will surpass Every Heart a Doorway for me because it was a book that kind of
helped me to see myself in fiction and to come to terms with what my own
identity is so yeah that was a special book from that point of view so trying
to compare Down Among the Sticks and Bones to it is very difficult
because it doesn't have an ace character but it's still so good. It's still queer
fiction. I think you should read it if you haven't yet because it's good.
Next on here was Raven Stratagem. I was really anticipating this one. It
was a sequel to Ninefox Gambit which is a space opera which I adored. Raven
Stratagem was fine. It took a very long time to get going it did some strange
things with a character who's possibly ace that I didn't like and yet overall I
just wanted more Kel Cheris and I I wanted more General Jedao
and I didn't get them and that was sad but I think I gave it like three and a
half stars like I think the final book is gonna be amazing because the end of
this, the action sequence was so so good so yeah we'll see. Next on my list was
The Stone Sky which favorite book the year so far. It's so good. It's such an
amazing end to trilogy that I'm heartbroken is over because I wish that
NK Jemisin would have just written these books forever and ever and ever because
they're so good and there's just the perfect balance of great plot and great
characters and great character development and just such raw emotion
and I love it to pieces. So that was all the SFF that I've read which was on my
anticipated releases so now on to the second video. So the first thing I have
down here is Pachinko by Min Jin Lee which I read probably in March and
really really enjoyed. It was a multi-generational story about Korean
diaspora in Japan and it was heartbreaking and really really
well-written and it was one of my favorite books of the year. I think it
was like my honorable mention in my favorite books of the year so far in
June so I think that speaks for itself. It's really really quite great. The
writing is great and I just learned so much about Korean people's experience in
Japan that I knew nothing about so it was wonderful from that perspective too.
Next I read Whereas by Layli Longsoldier which is a poetry collection I
read this during the booktubeathon and I've talked about it a lot but basically
I enjoyed the parts of it I understood and the parts of it I didn't understand
made me think that I need to read more modern poetry so that I learn how to
understand them because I think it's an important collection that was saying
important things and I just didn't have the tools to read it correctly. Next I
read House of Names by Colm Toibin which my dad bought me for my birthday
and I have a review for this. I have very mixed feelings on this I'm really glad
that I read it and that I finally read something by Colm Toibin. It's a retelling
of the story of Agamemnon and his children and yeah I've never actually
read an Illiad retelling so that was interesting in and of itself but the
perspectives in this were weird like we had first-person perspectives and
third-person perspectives and the third-person perspectives worked best but
we never got an explanation for why some characters had first-person narratives
and why some characters has the third-person narratives, super strange.
Next on my list was The Inexplicable Logic of my Life by Benjamin Alire Saenz
I DNFed this one I just wasn't really enjoying it then I found
that it got quite aphobic and I am not really round for that overall you know
it's just kind of I was bored with it which is sad because I really enjoyed
Aristotle and Dante and this one I enjoyed not one bit. Next on the list was
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor which I just listened to as an audiobook very
recently. I enjoyed this one, I love her writing style it's very very beautiful
but I wasn't blown away by it. I think I gave it four stars, it didn't a 100%
knock it out of the ballpark for me though I am very very excited about the
sequel because I think that has huge potential now that everything that has
happened has happened so yeah I will read that next year. So the final thing
on my list was also one of my favorite books of the year so we're ending on a
good note and that was The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I do have a full review
for this one because Walker Books sent me an ARC copy which I'm incredibly
grateful for. It is such an important book, it's a book based on and inspired
by the black lives matter movement but it's so much more than that. It's the
story of this young girl named Starr who sees her friend shot by the police. He's
unarmed and it looks at how the media tries to vilify him because he's a young
black man who was involved in dealing drugs even though he was trying to get
out of that life best thing about this book to my mind is Starrs
father who is just the best dad in all of fiction I like... I will fight you on
that if you try to contradict me but he is one of my new all-time favourite
characters easily because I love him to pieces but I love this book I just think
it's very very wonderful and very necessary and everyone should read it.
Anyway that is my new releases revisited video. Have you read any of these? So you
have different opinions to me or do you agree with me and how have you found the
new releases that you've read this year that you were excited about? Did they live
up to your expectations or were they total flops? Anyway that is it for today
thank you guys for watching and I will see you my next video bye!
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