Hi everyone, my name is Kerryn, this is my channel RatherBeReading and today I'm
bringing to you my Favorite Books of 2018.
The highly anticipated moment is here - it is finally time for me to tell you guys what my favorite books of 2018
were. I have a Top 10 list for you guys - ranked from my most most favourite, I'll
start with my least-most favorite going up to my most-most favorite. The top half
of the list was pretty easy to put together because as you guys know I am
very stingy with my 5 star ratings. So I only had a handful of 5 stars and so it
was pretty easy to slot those into those top spots. It was the bottom half of the
list where I had to go through kind of all my more 4.5 star rated books and
decide which of those were my favourite and kind of how to rank them.
But I do have a Top 10 list, I've managed to put it together. So I'm gonna go
through that. But as a fun little bonus, before we jump into that, I thought I
would touch on my two least favourite books of the year. I thought about doing
a Worst Books of the Year video, but I feel like people really love those
videos when you're talking about like popular books and being really like
salty about you know books that everyone else really loves. These books are not
books that like everyone talks about on their channel, so I thought it'll be
completely pointless to do a whole video and talk about other books. None of the
books that I hated this year are ones that people really loved so I just thought
it would be pointless. So, the first of my - hair in my mouth - the first of my least
favorite books was Love Bites: 101 Tips for Dating Guys with Fangs by Claire
Hooper. This is, as the title would suggest, 101 tips, and it's literally, each
tip is about 1 to 2 pages long at most. It's just completely pointless. It's
really silly and just, but like not fun silly, just pointless. I just didn't
understand what the point of it was and why it had even been published. I got
absolutely nothing out of reading it. I don't know why it was written quite
frankly and I didn't like it. The other book that I really really didn't like
was House by Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti. This is a horror book. I listened to it
on audio. One, it wasn't scary, but the main problem I had with this was that I
thought it was super offensive. It is Christian horror but it's just, it was, it
was really offensive basically. There is characters that are described as a
'inbred' constantly, even though there's no evidence that they're inbred, and I just,
a lot of slurs, like with things like that. I just really didn't like it,
didn't like any of the characters, it wasn't scary, I just really didn't have a
good time reading it and I really really didn't like it and so those are my
two least favorite books of the year. But now, that brings us, to the Top 10. So
let's jump straight in and talk about my 10 Favourite Books of 2018.
Quick disclaimer: not all of these books are published in 2018. In fact, I don't know
if any of them are, I think like one or two of them may have been, but they're
all books that I read in 2018, not 2018 releases, just so you guys know.
Coming in at Number 10 is Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley. So this book is one that I
listened to on audio. It's a book about a man and his dog basically. We follow a
character who has a dog named Lily and at the start of the book Lily has an
octopus grow on her head. It's kind of like a bit absurdist, I don't know if
that's the right term, but the octopus is basically a tumor and the octopus talks
throughout the book and you get the dog talking, so you know it's a little bit
absurdist in that way, but the main focus of the story is really just this man and
his relationship with his dog. I also liked that the male main character is a
gay character, but the story's not about that, it just happens that he's gay, it's
not a main focus of the story at all and it's literally one of the best
friendships I've ever read in a book and it was between this man and his dog.
It's obviously very emotional for like anyone who's ever had a pet and it was
just - it did, I will admit, in the very middle of the story it did lose me a
little bit because it gets very absurdist in the middle, but after we get
past that point, and I realized what the author was trying to do - Ignore the cat's
tail - I thought it came together really well and I just thought it was really
really beautiful. It touched me emotionally and I really really enjoyed
it and so that gets my number 10 spot.
Coming in at Number 9 is Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson.
This is a YA contemporary story and it follows a
girl whose best friend has kind of gone missing for the summer, she doesn't know
where she is, but she her best friend has left her this list of bucket list
type of like fun things to do over the summer
that she wants her best friend to complete. It's got things on it like kiss
a stranger, go skinny-dipping, go apple picking at night, sleep under the stars,
things like that, and so really the story focuses on the character trying to
like work through this list and find out what happened to her friend. So it's got
a lot in here, so the main character is very shy, very withdrawn, and it's really
almost like a coming-of-age story in a way, because it's really about her
discovering who she is as a person and really finding her own like self
confidence. I thought it was just a lot of - it's very light-hearted fun type of
contemporary, which I don't typically always love light-hearted contemporary I
thought this one was a really really really enjoyable one and I really enjoyed it and,
yeah, I just thought this definitely deserved a spot on my top 10 list, coming in at Number 9.
Coming in at Number 8 is actually a sequel and
that is Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff. This is another one I listened to an audio. This
is, so I can't really tell you what this book is about because it's a sequel, but
the first book - Nevernight - is about a character named Mia who is, basically
goes at the start of the story to a school for assassins, that's basically
what it's about. It sounds a little bit cliche, and it probably is a little bit, but it's
very dark, it's very violent, very sexual in nature, it's very graphic in
everything, graphically violent, graphically sexual, graphic in its
language, and I enjoyed the first book. I'd given
the first book 4 stars, I read that last year and, sorry last year in 2017, no
did I read it in 2017, I might have read it earlier in 2018, I think I read it
earlier in 2018. In any event, and I really did enjoy that book, but it took
me quite a while to get into, and I think because I was, or had already read, that
book when I read Godsgrave, I was already invested in the characters, so I
was able to just kind of slip back into it really easily. It's just, it's a lot of
fun - in a dark, graphic sexually, bad language, type of way. I really like Mia as
a character. This book made me completely like turn around on things that I
thought from the first book. It is very action-packed. There's so much going on
all the time and I just really love that about it and I just had such a fun time
reading this book. I was constantly going
wait, what, and oh my god, am I really feeling this about this character, and
all of those types of things, and there's just so much happening.
The ending was amazing. I am so hyped for the third book, which I think doesn't
come out till like 2020, or like very end, no it actually might come out this
year, but it's like very late this year. So I'll probably - I might buy these in
physical copy and then do a reread of these before the third book comes out,
but I definitely want to read that third book. This book had me so excited to
finish the trilogy so I was so upset that it was gonna be a long time before I
could finish it, but it's definitely very very enjoyable and I thought it
definitely, you know, deserved a spot on my list.
Coming in at Number 7 is The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson.
Yet another one that I listened to on audio.
I enjoyed this book so much that I actually have read like three or four other
books from Joshilyn Jackson at this point. This one is her most recent release and
it's the one that I've enjoyed the most from her. This one basically follows a
character, who is a white woman, who at the start of the story she discovers
that she is pregnant from a one-night stand that she had and that one-night
stand was with a black man and she, at the start of the story, because of a
family emergency with her grandmother being unwell, has to return
to her very small hometown in Alabama and she's obviously, you know, it's got a
lot in here about racism and privilege, because you know she is going to be
having a biracial baby in an area where, frankly,there are a lot of racist people,
and I loved all the acknowledgement in the story that the main character,
who is white, can never understand the type of life that her child is going to
experience because her child is going to be a different race from her. I loved all
the commentary in there on that and all of the privilege that she has as a white person
and how there are two different towns that she lives in. She lives in the white
town, but there is a whole other side to the town that she never sees, because she
is a white person, there's all stuff in there about that. There is a mystery
aspect to this story as well, that I enjoyed as well, but all of the
commentary in there mainly about the racism and privilege was my
favorite part of the story. I just thought it was so well done and I really
really really enjoyed this book.
Coming in at Number 6 is An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena.
I haven't read any other books by Shari Lapena. I think she's
got two other previous releases. This one is another one that I listened to on
audio and so my library had a copy and so I decided to give it a go. This is
pretty much, in the premise, my ideal book. It is set in a hotel in the Catskills
and there are, it's a small group of people, like eleven people or something
like that, and they all get snowed in at this hotel, when one of them dies, and so they
know that one of them, one amongst them, is a killer and it's all about trying to
find out who it was. I love closed door mysteries. I love ones
with a really oppressive you know atmosphere of we're trapped
here, something is going on amongst us, we don't know what to do,
everyone's panicking - I love all that type of thing. You get perspectives from
basically all of the characters, of the eleven or twelve, or however many people
it is. I thought it was done amazingly well. You shift between all of the
perspectives but I was never confused about who I was reading from. I thought
all the perspectives were interesting because I wanted to get every little
tidbit that I could to try and figure out the mystery. I pretty much figured
out what was going on in this book and that's the only thing that probably bought
the rating down a little bit. So this was a 4.5 star. I think, if I had been
completely shocked by the ending, this would have easily been a 5 star because
I just was enjoying the book so much. It was so, such an enjoyable like ride
that the story took me on, but it didn't really take anything away from the story
that I wasn't completely shocked by it, because it was just like so enjoyable,
and I had such a fun time reading. It's definitely one of the, well I think it is
the best thriller that I read in 2018.
Now entering our Top 5 - coming in at Number 5
we have Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. This is a gothic historical fiction.
So it's set in London in 1862 and we follow a main character who is an orphan who
grew up amongst this like group of like cons and thieves and at the start of the
story she basically gets involved in a con that's going to happen and that's
what we're dealing with. I really really really enjoyed this. It's
very gothic. There's so many twists and turns in the plot that I just, the very
first kind of twist that happened in here, had my jaw literally like go like - what
just happened - it was such a fun ride. Like this story was just taking me all
over the place. With the gothic nature of it too, I completely loved. I think this
author has beautiful writing. I just, if you're into gothic reads and you haven't
read this, you definitely have to. I want to read so many more of Sarah Waters'
works. Hhopefully I'll get to more of them in 2019, but this is definitely one of my
favorite books that I read in 2018.
Coming in at Number 4 is This is How
It Always Is by Laurie Frankel - yet another one that I listened to on audio.
So this is a literary fiction story that's basically about a family that has
already got four sons and they are pregnant with a new baby, they're hoping
it's going to be a girl, but when the baby is born, it's a boy. However as the
child reaches, I think it's five or six years of age, the child - excuse me - the
child decides that he, I'm sorry - she - wants to be a girl and so we're basically
following that story. This is own voices from the point of view
of, we follow the parents of this character, and its own voices from that
point of view. The author of this story has a transgender child and I just
thought this was such a beautiful story and it touched on so many interesting
topics about, you know, how hard it is for these parents, not because they have
anything, any problem with their child being transgender, but that they
recognise that their child is now going to have a much more difficult life than
what they would want for their child, and then also all of the complications
around, how young is too young to be able to decide who you want to be for your
whole life? So how far down the path, of like being a transgender person, should
they let their child go, Or encourage their child to go down? You know and it's
just all about this beautiful family, and them wanting the best for their child,
and everything that comes with that. I thought this was so so so well done and
a really important book that I think a lot of
people should read. I've heard a few people talk about this on BookTube, but
nowhere near enough. I definitely think this is a book that so many more people
should read. I thought this was just amazing.
Coming in at Number 3 is Educated by Tara Westover.
This one is a Non Fiction Memoir about Tara Westover's life.
Tara Westover grew up in a survivalist Mormon family, with a father
who didn't believe in health care, in education, in any of those types of
things, and it follows Tara's life from how she went from that to like where she
is now, as an adult, and how she got an education -
hence 'Educated'. I thought Tara Westover's writing was amazing. She's a
beautiful writer. I also, my favorite thing about this memoir, is how unbiased
and honest it felt. Obviously I can't know how honest it is because I don't
know Tara Westover and I don't know her family. But throughout the story
she's constantly letting the reader know - this is my interpretation, this is how I
saw events, this is how I remember events, if you ask someone else they may not see it
this way, but this is how I felt, how I, what I think happened, and I really,
in that way, it felt very honest, and I also think that it was very unbiased in
that she constantly, through most of the story, is giving both sides to different
people's characters, both her mother, and her father, and her brothers, and all of
those types of things. I just thought this was so well written.
I was so invested in Tara and her life and like wanted good things for her.
This is hands down the best memoir that I've ever read and I really really really loved it.
Coming in at Number 2 is The Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo.
So these are YA fantasies, it is a spin-off duology from the Grisha Trilogy and the
Grisha Trilogy is a trilogy that I have read and loved in the past and this one
is spin-off and it's got kind of a heist aspect to it. I loved this. I thought it
was so well written, so much fun. I was, it's got like lots of different
characters, and all of the characters like you know teaming up to like do
different things and it was just so fun and I loved all the different characters and
getting to find about, out about, all their different backstories, and
everything going on with them, and I loved the heist part of it, and you know
what's gonna happen next, and what's the plan, what's the ultimate goal, and all
the little twists and turns and things like that I loved. I unpoplarly -
unpopularily - think Cookred Kingdom is a little bit better than Six of Crows,
but I gave both books five stars. Really really really enjoyed them. I do just
want to kind of mention, as a little like honorable mention, The Language of
Thorns novella collection. I ranked this a 4 point, rated this sorry, a 4.25, so
it didn't quite make my like Top 10 ranking, but I thought this novella bind-up,
is the best novella bind-up I've ever read. So this is made up of little
short stories that are set within the Grisha world um and it's basically like
their folklore and fairy tale type of stories that they would have heard, the
characters throughout the world, would have heard growing up. I thought these
were amazing. There's one story at the end, the last one of them, which can I
find the title? Yes - When Water Sang Fire was my favourite. I still think about that
short story. It was so so so good so I really enjoyed this as well but these
are the two that make my Number 2 spot on my favourites list.
Coming in at Number 1, my favorite book that I read in the entire year of 2018, out of
250 books was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. So this is a story
about a circus that just arrives different places - it's like a magical
circus that will just appear. And we follow two characters who are basically
involved in this like magical contest, and you don't know what that means,
and part of the whole fun of the story is trying to figure out exactly what
this competition... contest entails and like what they need to do. This is
one of the best written books that I think I've ever read and this is Erin
Morgenstern's debut, which is so mind-boggling to me, because the writing
in here - I read the little, like at the very start,
of the book there's like a little, it's called 'Anticipation' it's kind of like a
little like prologue at the start. In my mass market edition it's like three and
a touch pages. I read that and I was like whoa, I am immediately immersed, I
immediately want to know more, I want to read more, I can already tell how
beautiful this writing is, it just sets you up so perfectly for the story and I
just thought this was so amaze- it's so whimsical, but like not silly whimsical,
and I just I just can't get over how beautifully it was written, and I don't
consider myself someone to be who's like snobby about beautiful writing. I can
really really enjoy books that aren't 'well' written but this book was, frankly,
like I said one of the best written books I've ever read and it was easily
my favourite book of the year.
So there you have it you guys. Those are my favourite
books that I read in the year of 2018, and a couple of my least favourites as well.
I would love to chat with you guys in the comments down below what your favourite
books were that you read last year. Or you least favourites as well, I'd love to know
that as well - I'd love to chat down below. Please like this video if you liked it.
Please subscribe if you want to see more from my channel. But that is all I have for this video today.
Bye guys!
For more infomation >> Домохозяйки VS бизнес-леди. Какую женщину хотят видеть рядом успешные мужчины - Duration: 20:53. 
For more infomation >> Adele Grandes Exitos - Adele Sus Mejores Canciones Éxitos - Mix Romanticas 2019 - Duration: 1:06:49. 
For more infomation >> Productos innovadores que todo centro de audiología debería tener -Visualfy - Duration: 9:34. 
For more infomation >> Karine Le Marchand dur dur de tomber enceinte, elle ouvre son coeur - Duration: 1:41. 
For more infomation >> Mandalina suyun içinde neden batmaz / Why mandarin doesnt sink inside water? - Duration: 9:46. 
For more infomation >> 7万一台，国产7座SUV，家用合适 - Duration: 3:13. 
For more infomation >> Zafukovačka optických kabelů NEMSAT 2018 (zapůjčovací kus) ! Zapněte si ve svém nastavení titulky ! - Duration: 1:33. 
For more infomation >> 「じゃがりこ面接」做了之後才發現有夠難的啊www - Duration: 1:38. 
For more infomation >> ПЕСНИ ВЛАДИМИРА ВЫСОЦКОГО ✩ Исполняет Григорий Лепс - Duration: 1:18:37. 
For more infomation >> Síelőknél gyakori sérülés a keresztszalag szakadás - Felgyorsítja a gyógyulást az új műtéti eljárás - Duration: 4:43. 
For more infomation >> SQUAD BUILDING CHALLENGE IN FIFA MOBILE - Duration: 1:27. 
For more infomation >> نصيحة للناس الدين يسافروا لأن!!!!!😰😰😰😵 - Duration: 5:50. 
For more infomation >> Let's Shoot! Ep. 1 | When I drift off, I will dream about you - Duration: 12:59. 
For more infomation >> Ask Ofqual - How can I get a replacement certificate? - Duration: 1:07. 
For more infomation >> Seat Leon 1.6i 102pk Stylance ECC/16"LMV/Cruise control - Duration: 1:13. 
For more infomation >> Relanium - jak działa, dawki, skutki uboczne i ryzyko uzależnienia - Duration: 5:37. 
For more infomation >> 직접 소개한 섬유유연제 품절되자 '방탄' 정국이 한 말 - Duration: 2:40. 
For more infomation >> ENTREVISTA | ESPECIALISTA MOSTRA COMO USAR O PODER DOS SITES PARA FECHAR MAIS PROJETOS - TEMA DIVI - Duration: 23:24. 
For more infomation >> Quem foi Che Guevara? - Duration: 10:54. 
For more infomation >> 'MORO JÁ NÃO SABE O QUE FAZER COM O MONSTRO CORRUPTO QUE CRIOU' - Duration: 1:05. 
For more infomation >> 🎵 Hino 199 - Senhor, Tu és a minha Porção - Tokai - Fernanda Lima 🎵 - Duration: 3:11. 
For more infomation >> Como desativar o talkback com o celular bloqueado com senha - Duration: 2:57. 
For more infomation >> Khouti Qistaan Te Part 2 | Pasport Te Airport | Latest Punjabi And Urdu Funny Video By Pendu Bachy - Duration: 7:30. 
For more infomation >> RH NOSSA | Exame periódico no trabalho - Duration: 0:50. 
For more infomation >> 토론수학 공부 잘하는법 공부법 코디 토론수업 확률과통계 고1수학[건강한학습연구소] - Duration: 1:40. 
For more infomation >> Jak skonstruować użyteczną umowę spółki? - Duration: 3:49. 
No comments:
Post a Comment