Hey y'all
it's Ashley at Bookishrealm and i am back with
another
video. So today's video is
super late. I mean i'm sure that a lot of
people have already done this video
where they talk about the best and the
worst books of 2020 so far.
I probably should have done this in like
July.  It's now September.
And then you need to ask yourself how
much does Ashley really care?
I don't. I don't care at all. So
i still think this is going to be
something that's going to be fun to look
at because of the fact that we're
looking at what are my favorites right
now as of September.
And we still have to make it all the way
through September October November and
December
for me to really feel like are these
books gonna stay in their positions of
favorites or am i gonna have some books
that are gonna take over?
Are these the worst books that i have
read this year or are there going to be
more that are more
horrible than some of these that i have
read? So we're going to go ahead and take
a look. We're going to start with the
worst books because i just can't
imagine finishing out
the video in such a negative space
so we're gonna do the worst books first
and then we're gonna go into
the best book so sit tight. If you have
any of these as your favorites that are
my worst don't take it personal.
I just didn't vibe with what the author
was putting out. So
the first one that i have on my list is
Pumpkin Heads by Rainbow Rowell
and this was a graphic novel
that when the best graphic novel
category
for goodreads in 2019. Why?
I don't know because holy crap
it was so bad. I think when i rated it i
gave it two stars.
It was so predictable and it's so
hard when you're working in graphic
format whether it's a graphic novel
comic or manga
it's so hard because you have to be very
mindful of how you do your storytelling
because you have less time
and space to tell your story than a
prose
novel and i don't think that Rainbow
Rowell really
utilized that information in the correct
way because
i knew what was going to happen by the
time we hit page 40
and then i was reading an extra 100 plus
pages for absolutely no reason. The only
reason why i finished it is because i
thought that the artwork was
beautiful. It was absolutely stunning
but it wasn't enough to save the book. I
feel like we read this whole book
to watch these two characters figure out
whether they wanted to be together or
not and we already knew the answer to
the question.
If there was something else that maybe
would have given us a little bit of a
hiccup
as to maybe why they could have
or could not have been together like
more
plot maybe but there was nothing.
It was dry and it was boring and i am
very critical of any graphic work that i
read. I'm like that with all graphic
works so
this was no exception. I still don't
understand how it won best graphic novel
for goodreads in 2019 other than the
fact that i think the goodreads books of
the year end up being more so like
popularity contests than actual
substance of the book but that's another
topic for
another day. The next one that i have is
the Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory and
this is a
fan favorite and i absolutely disliked
it.
This is another one that i ended up
giving two stars and i did not care for
this one because
of the miscommunication trope that
happened. It's just not my thing
especially in this setting i felt like
the characters just
were forced into positions where they
couldn't speak their minds when
actually that's kind of who they were as
people. It was just a very strange
dynamic and then
one of the things that really bothered
me is that Jasmine Guillory seemed like
she wanted to
step into possibly discussing the
conversations that happen
around interracial dating and it was
like she just skidded the surface
and she didn't want to dive deep and she
had the opportunity to do so.
It was just very formulaic and i know
that romance can be that way but
this to me just wasn't executed well and
i was just bored reading it. There wasn't
anything
that i liked about it, i didn't connect
with the characters, i didn't
connect with their romance. I just didn't
feel
great about reading it so like i said i
think i ended up giving that one two
stars and i'm never going to pick up the
rest of the series. I think the fourth
or fifth book in this came out this year
and people who love the first one don't
really care for
subsequent books so i can't imagine me
not liking the first one
and then thinking i'm gonna like the
subsequent books. That that just doesn't
make any sense.
The next one that i have is not
necessarily like worse so
some of these are more disappointments
than just the worst books that i've read
but i just we're just going to lump
everything together.
So the next one that i have is actually
one of the most disappointing books that
i read this year
and that is Children of Virtue and
Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi
and the reason why i put this on this
list is because
i'm a huge fan of Children of Blood and
Bone. I
loved it when it first came out. I loved
my reread and
i bought this the barnes and noble
exclusive edition
when it came out in December of 2019. The
day it came out i went and i bought it
because i was so excited to read it. I
felt like we had been waiting so long
because the date for this kept getting
pushed back and pushed back and pushed
back and pushed back. I think
got pushed back three times so when the
release date finally was set in stone i
was like
oh i'm so excited to read this one.
And it was such a huge disappointment
it was like two different authors wrote
Children of Blood and Bone and Children
of Virtue and Vengeance.
I feel like Tomi was in a different
place when she wrote this book because
the characters that we saw in the first
book
were not the characters that we see in
this book. They're just completely
different
and i feel like she put her characters
through traumatic experience for the
sake of
putting her characters through traumatic
experiences to move the plot along and i
don't like when authors do that. It
doesn't
it feels forced. It doesn't feel like it's
happening organically and that's exactly
how this book
read and felt it felt inorganic.
It felt like we definitely were seeing
situations where
characters would not have naturally
behaved in
those ways so i was super disappointed
super super disappointed. And i'm so glad,
i hate to say this, but i'm so glad
i didn't buy the exclusive water stones
edition because i had it sitting in a
cart and i was like i'm gonna get it i'm
gonna get it i'm gonna get it
and i'm glad i didn't get it because
i didn't like it. I just i didn't care
for it. I was just
i was disappointed. If you want to know
more of my thoughts about this one
i do have a spoiler reread vlog where
i reread the Children of Blood and Bone
and then
i read Children of Virtue and Vengeance
and you can see like
my happiness about the series just builds
builds builds and it's like i reached
this peak and then as soon as i pick up
this book it just goes straight downhill
from there. So
yeah and i think i ended up giving this
one two stars as well.
Yall will notice too like the books
that i don't like
of course i don't own so that's going to
be the only one that i physically have a
copy of. All these other ones i don't
have
i don't have physical copy. Though why
would i? It would take up space for
something that i didn't enjoy.
So the next one that i have is Catherine
House and
i i don't i still
to this day i read Catherine House
probably
in May or June of this year. I'm thinking
May. I'm pretty sure it was May of this
year
i read Catherine House and i
hated it. And i still don't know what the
purpose of that book was.
I don't get it. I didn't get the plasma
shit. I just don't get anything
about that book. It is very strange. I
felt like
it was a waste of like 10 11 hours of my
life that i'm never going to get back
because i listened to it on audiobook
and i felt like i was high and drunk the
entire time
of reading the book because our main
character was dr
was drunk the entire time.
She was like in this haze the entire
time. And it was constantly her drinking
and doing random stuff and having sex
and i was like
well what's the purpose of the book. I
didn't get it
and i know there are quite a few people
who enjoyed it. Like i know like Liv
gave it four stars. Shout out to Liv
because
i don't i don't know how like i just
couldn't get down with that book. It
supposedly takes place at this boarding
school where these kids come
and they basically give up everything
communication and their focus on getting
this elite education
but then it's like these strange things
were happening at the school
but then i still don't get what those
strange things were. When there was a big
reveal it really wasn't a big reveal. It
was just
weird and i like weird books but this
was weird to the point where it was like
it didn't make any sense. Nothing about
it made sense. It made you feel like i
just wasted
x amount of time of my life reading this
book and there was no purpose to it at
all so
i definitely am disappointed by that one.
That one was just
horrible probably one of my least
favorite books of the year.
To be honest that book is going to make
it on the final list for the year.
It will without a doubt. The next one i
have is A Blade So Black by
L.L. McKinney and this is not necessarily
the worst book that i've read but it was
disappointing.
It was just not what i was looking for.
It was a Alice in wonderland
retelling but mixing with like Buffy
the Vampire Slayer type vibes and it's
about this girl
who loses her father which is not a
spoiler it's at the very beginning of
the novel
and she gets dumped into this Wonderland
type world where she has to fight
these creatures that feed off of
depressing and sad emotions of humans.
But what was so strange about this
entire novel for me was that a
there was a lack of world building. We
literally go from her having no idea
that this world exists to being thrown
into it in a matter of like
10 15 pages and we have no idea what
this world is like
and then there was this lack of her
being able to deal with
trauma related to her father's death
which i feel like was
a problem because that's exactly what
these evil creatures fed off of
these traumatic and sad and depressing
situations these human emotions. A
And our main character never dealt with
her human emotions
so it didn't make sense to have that
conversation about human emotions and
then your main character
just completely ignores that whole
entire conver..
it was just one of those things where
i feel like she didn't follow through
and it would have been a great novel
had she followed through on the
conversation surrounding the passing of
the main character's father.
Yeah it wasn't bad but it wasn't good
but it was a disappointment because i
was really looking forward to that one
and i'm still at this crossroads where
i'm like i don't even know if i want to
finish the series at this point because
it just was so lackluster and i really
didn't feel any type of way towards it
in terms of
excitement or extreme hatred for it. So
it's meh so i probably won't finish the
series honestly. I'm kind of leaning in
that direction a little bit. The next one
is
One to Watch. I recently read this one.
I've talked about this one in my
mid-month wrap up for August
and holy crap i just
was so excited to read this because of
the fact
that there was this game show reality
show
not really game show but reality show
element of
dating to it and i love that there was
going to be plus size representation
looped into it and i was like yes i need
some good fat
rep and it was not that at all. There was
it
wasn't good fat rep to me. It really
wrote the character into stereotypes
that are usually placed
on fat people or plus size people
and i didn't like that and it wasn't so
much about
our main character Bea not knowing
where she stood in terms of her own
self-confidence. That didn't bother me
because
been there done that still struggle with
that sometimes.
I understand having to become confident
for the world on the outside
in order to survive and still not being
100 percent confident with yourself on the
inside.
I get that. I understand that aspect. I
know that that was
a development aspect but
but that still was no reason for
the author to write her into fat
stereotypes and i also didn't like that
there were groups that were included
into this book
for diversity that were really tokens
for diversity and then they ended up
being flat characters and not
really well developed or well-rounded.
And
i just feel like had she chosen
maybe like one or two characters to
focus on in terms of diversity it would
have been a lot better
because we had a Black main character to
me that ended up being
whitewashed because we were just getting
token
aspects of him. He could have been any
character but we slapped
the race of Black on him to prove that
Black people could be a part of dating
reality shows. It just
it didn't work. I didn't care for it. I
think that the
reality aspect of it the reality show
part of it
was really good. It was fast-paced. It
kept me on you know the edge of my seat
but
there was too many technical issues in
terms of representation that bothered me
for me to even consider giving this
three stars so
i ended up giving it two i believe when
i rated it. And
what would this list be without the
infamous
Midnight Sun by Stephanie Meyer. Of
course this is going to be listed as one
of the worst books for me
of 2020. Yes I've talked about it enough.
I'm not gonna really talk about it
anymore. I would like to say people keep
asking me like why did you read it if
you knew you weren't gonna like it?
Because i committed myself to a live
show y'all.
I committed myself to reading these
books and being part of a live show
and i could not be a part of these live
shows and having these discussions with
people if i did not read the books
so that's the reason why. Had it not been
for
my commitment that i did make to help
out i wouldn't have read them
trust me because as i said in the live
shows by the time i got to New Moon i
was already done. I wanted to dnf
so badly every single time but when i
make commitment
i stick with my commitments and i felt
that it was necessary in order for me to
fully be engaged and have a serious
conversation
with the other members of this group as
well as the individuals that were coming
to and discussing the books with us in
the live show. Do i regret it?
No because it fosters some really great
conversations. Will i ever read anything
from Stephanie Meyer again? Absolutely
not.
I would not willingly read anything else
from her trust me and i'm not a person
that reads books
to trash them that's not my mo. I don't
do that.
And the last one on this list is one
that i recently read as well. I don't
think i've talked about this in
a wrap up yet so you will see this
before
my final August wrap up comes out
and that is Real Men Knit by Kwana
Jackson.
I did not like this. I did not like this.
I was so looking forward
to a contemporary romance by a Black
author that focused on something
unconventional like
knitting and not that knitting itself is
unconventional but the
aspect of knitting being a primary focus
of a romance is not something that i had
encountered. I was so
disappointed. I was so disappointed
because
i just feel like it wasn't well
developed.
It was not well developed at all. I felt
like
the characters were siblings as opposed to
actual friends to lovers.
I felt as though we were
dealing with some immature characters as
well
that just could have been
i don't know developed in a different
way like Jesse who is the
main character and this is so bad this
is how bad this book was was that i
can't even tell you
whether that's truly his name but i'm
pretty sure that it is.
He was just a A1 player,
didn't care about anybody but himself.
When he was given the same energy that
he exuded
it was one of those situations where
it's like oh whoa was me and it was like
no no not woe
is you like you you've been a crap
person.
So i just didn't care for him as a main
character.
I liked the diversity. I love the
discussion
on having a strong support for
small business owners especially those
that are prominent in the Black
community
but other than that
it was just not good. It wasn't good.
I feel like nothing happened. It was
boring. With a lot of these books that
you'll see this consistent theme with
books that i just don't like for the
year nothing happens in them a lot of
times it is just there's nothing going
on and that's what makes them so dry and
Real Men Knit is no exception.
Literally for the first i would feel
like 50 60 percent
of this book nothing happened. It felt
like the same
daily routine of her going to our
our main character going into the shop
with Jessie to be there to assist her
and that was it figuring out how to keep
the shop going, opening up the shop
and Jessie's sleeping with women. It was
boring. It was so boring.
I just oh my gosh it was so boring and i
was like 30 percent
and i was like do i dnf do i dnf do i
dnf or just finish it. I have a very hard
time DNFing. I always get this completion
anxiety thing going on where like
i feel compelled to finish books once i
start them
and i wanted to dnf that one so bad and
i didn't.
But definitely one of the worst books
i've read in 2020.
Okay so finally on to my favorites
of 2020 so far there is the likelihood
that some of these could get bumped out
of this list or this list could just get
longer who knows
but some of them do have potential to
get bumped out so
let's go ahead and jump in and talk
about
the best books of 2020 so far. So the
first one that i have here is
Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko. I will not
talk so much about this one because i do
have a full review and a dream cast of
this one
posted on my channel but this is about a
young girl by the name of Tarisai
who is supposed to infiltrate the crown
of prince's council of 11.
And it's because she's been raised by
this person
called The Lady who is supposed to be
her mother
and the mother wants her to
go in and kill the prince once she's
made it on the council and as a reader
you don't know
why she wants that to happen but you
find out
and i think what i love so much about
this book is that
it just was it was just crazy. There was
so much that
happened and especially in like the
latter half of this book
that just blew my mind that i did not
see coming that i absolutely loved. And
i appreciated that this book A:
didn't have a love triangle like a lot
of YA fantasy has been doing.
I think some people now are getting the
hint to kind of steer away from that
and B: it not only focused on
romantic relationships but also
friendships. There was a
huge emphasis on friendships in this
book
and that was so good. It was so so so so
good. I loved that aspect of it
and there were so many discussions about
family
and about these relationships that we
have with our parental figures.
And it was just great. The magic system
is great. I cannot wait until the second
book comes out
and i'm like damn i read the first book
so quickly
so now i have to wait until the second
one comes out. The next one that i have
is This is My
America which i need to get my hands on
a copy of this one first of all which
i may get myself for my birthday but
This is My America
is absolutely hands down one of the
top notch if i had to go top five
for 2020 This Is My America would
definitely be on the list.
So This Is My America focuses on a young
girl by the name of Tracy who's
attempting
to get her father off of death row after
she has been wrongly convicted
for a murder that he did not commit and
this is all proof that Tracy has
and stuff that's been discussed amongst
witnesses that
have come forward as possible alibis for
her father.
And this is a book that looks at mass
incarceration from a different angle
which is why i love it so much.
It focuses on how mass incarceration
not only affects the individual that's
being incarcerated but then also the
families that are left behind and it has
this
discussion about how the Black family
the nuclear Black
family has never been what it should
have been.
From the time of slavery we come from
generations of families that have been
broken because that's how we started.
When you think about what happened
during the slave trade how
families were brought here and then
completely torn apart
never to see each other again and then
you start throwing in things
like mass incarceration centuries later,
it just we've never had that opportunity
to be a successful nuclear family so
i think that this really touches on that
aspect in terms of mass incarceration
and it looks at so many different things
and it
turns into kind of a mystery element
when Tracy's brother
is actually then accused of killing a
white girl from his school. And she's
running into the same
cycle of Black men and
their treatment in the justice system or
lack
thereof. If you have not picked up This
Is My America
please pick it up. I know that i think
some people were
worried about it being compared to The
Hate U Give and Dear Martin by Nic
Stone but
this book is beautiful in its own right
and
it is definitely looking at something
completely different. Where those two
are really great insights to police
brutality
and uh the Black experience in America i
think this definitely looks at
mass incarceration, the Black family unit
and
the Black experience all tied into one.
The next one that i have here is The
Deep
by Rivers Solomon and
i can't even begin to unpack this book
and i don't think i'm going to try to
unpack this book
because we did a five hour live show
unpacking this book and talking about so
many different things related to the
Black experience. So i'm just gonna link
that in the card symbol above because
it was such an important conversation.
I'm pretty sure that everybody
knows the premise for this book which is
the fact that this
is about a group of mermaids
that are descendants from
pregnant
slaves that were thrown overboard but
let me just clarify that that is just
the premise. That's it. It's not what this
book is about
completely. This book covers so much more
so much more and it
hands down fave oh my goodness
definitely one of my favorites of the
year.
I need to reread it but it's
a difficult book and i'm not going to be
rereading it anytime soon. I need to give
myself a break
because it's heavy and to be just a
novella
it is such a heavy book but it is such a
great book. The
next one that i have is Red at the Bone
by Jacqueline Woodson. This is
another one that i need to get a
physical copy of and reread
because i listened to it on audio and i
know that there were elements of this
that i
that i missed. But this is
centering around a family and
it starts off with a young girl
getting this dress for her coming out
celebration her time to be shown to
society
i mean that's a really pompous way to
put it but it
was basically kind of like that
like a small cotillion type situation.
And come to find out
her mother was supposed to wear the same
dress and she never got the
opportunity to wear the dress and then
we get
thrown into this story of
identity and how our
past and how our lives
are impacted and in some ways determined
by the experiences of those that came
before us.
And it makes complete sense but we're
talking about Jacqueline Woodson here so
the beauty with which this book is
written is
is unimaginable. The the literary quality
that comes out of Jacqueline Woodson
is just amazing. I just
she's amazing she's an amazing human so
i expected nothing less but i just
didn't know what to expect in reading it
and it was such a beautiful story. A hard
story in some parts
but you really do learn about the pieces
and parts of this family and how they
function together
and why people have behaved the way that
they have behaved.
And you learn how things can end up
being cyclical. Things are generational.
What we experience helps us
or deters us from impressing certain
things
upon those in which we end up looking
after whether they are
our you know biological children or not
or whether they're
just young people that we are taking
under our wing. And
it is a super important conversation so
that's one that i definitely want to
reread soon as well i just need to get a
physical copy because i think i need to
annotate that one. The next one that i
have here
is Genesis Begins again by Alicia D
Williams and this is another one that i
have a review of
on my channel so i won't talk too much
about it but this
is an exploration of colorism
and texturism from the perspective of a
young girl named Genesis who comes from
a
very very broken home, very very
trauma-filled home.
And this book is not a book that is
about happy endings. It's not a
sad ending but it's not an ending where
everything is tied up neatly in a bow
and served on a platter.
It definitely has some very very
difficult conversations
especially the way that colorism and
texturism impacts the Black community
and how it impacts our young black
children
and how that just drives them to do
certain things because mentally and
emotionally becomes too much.
And that definitely happens with Genesis.
There are
a lot of trigger warnings in here for
parental
abuse that is both mental and emotional.
There is abuse from a grandparent as
well
there is some discussion of bleaching,
there's bullying. It's it's a lot
but it is probably one of the most
important books that you could read
from a younger standpoint in terms of
colorism and as you can see i mean it's
awarded up. I mean it's Newberry Honor
Corretta Scott King and William C Morris
debut
award finalist so very very well done
book.
This is also one that i need to reread
but i'm going to need to be in the right
mindset to read this one as well because
this is a tough one but definitely a
great one. If you want to know more
definitely check out that review that i
have
linked in the card symbol. And in the
same vein we have the
Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett and this
is one that was also written with
colorism in mind except it touched a
little bit more on the
whole idea and concept of white passing
and it's about
these two sisters who live in a town
where everybody
basically could pass for white but
the two sisters have different ideas of
how they want to maintain their identity.
And one
decides to marry a dark-skinned man
and the other decides to continue to
pass for white and marry a white man
and we get to see their life experiences
and
how their lives have to be lived and
then we also get to see that from the
experiences
of their children. I think this book is a
good conversation
in terms of how painful white passing
is not only for the families that are
left behind but also the ones who
have to end up in situations maintaining
that level of white passing because of
course historically if anybody find out
that you're Black
and you're white passing i mean that's
like a death sentence.
It's also this conversation of having to
give up
your identity your traditions your
culture.
You see Black people and you can't even
relate to people who are like you and
then it becomes this cycle of
people forgetting where they came from
because you can't teach them stuff about
an aspect of your life that you're
trying to hide so
very very complex novel. Very very great
representation.
I absolutely enjoyed it. I like Brit
Bennett
in general as an author so this was no
surprise but that's also one that i want
to reread. A lot of these on this list
i'm going to be honest i want to reread
but i just have to be in this mindset to
read them because a lot of these cover
some pretty pretty tough topics. The
next one that i have is Anger Is A Gift.
I will be getting a copy of this one. I
don't know when but i think probably
i'll buy myself a copy of this one for
my birthday as well.
And this is by Mark Oshiro.
And this is a about
so much.
This is a book that made me so
emotional. It took me on an emotional
roller coaster. I so thoroughly enjoyed
this.
It covers so many different topics like
police brutality,
the policing of schools. There was so
much representation in this book that
didn't feel tokenized
it just felt like the natural part of
the characters. There were characters
that were white that were Black that
were LatinX. Characters that were
bisexual
asexual. Characters that were
lesbian characters that were non-binary
it just
was so it was done so organically
and i really appreciated that and i
really appreciate the conversation that
Mark had
in relation to policing schools and how
dangerous it is to police schools
and how it's detrimental to children
to police schools and that the schools
that are policed are often the schools
that are populated by
Black and Brown children and how that
psychologically
hurts them in the long run. So
i could gush and gush and gush about that
book. I'm just gonna stop there because
it it's once again if i had to do a top
five
this would be on that list. The next one
that i have here is Grown. I actually
have a full review of this one on my
channel as well and this is by Tiffany D
Jackson.
This is her latest thriller-esque
type book that focuses on a young girl
by the name of Enchanted
who aspires to be a singer and she ends
up
with this R&B artist by the name of
Korey.
And Korey takes her under his wing and
it goes
so downhill from there. A lot
of what you read in this feels like it
is inspired
by the events that happened with R Kelly
but i think that Tiffany Jackson has
said that
this happens a lot in any situation
where we have this power dynamic that's
being abused
and this is also a strong conversation
about the fact that Black girls and
women are treated so differently in
terms
of reporting sexual assault
abuse violence anything that goes wrong
with us
even when we go missing people don't
care as much.
And that's talked about a lot in this
book where
police, the media, they don't care
until it's somebody from a different
race and then then everybody wants to
listen
and how we're not believed and how
we are not taken seriously when we've
been through some traumatic experiences
so
we don't tell. We don't say anything. I
think about the whole conversation
surrounding Meghan Thee Stallion. She
didn't say anything and a lot of times
we don't say anything
in protecting other people because we
are not believed. People don't take us
seriously.
People don't see our trauma as being
real
and it's such a hard conversation but it
is
covered in here and it's done so well so
check out that review. It's non-spoiler.
I'm gonna be rereading this again this
month and i'm so excited to get into it.
The next one
that i have on this list is Long Way
Down by Jason Reynolds and this one
takes place over the course of an
elevator ride from the top floor down to
the bottom
this whole book. And it's written in
verse and it's
about this young boy who is
debating whether he wants to
put himself into the cycle of violence
after someone ends up killing his
brother. He's out for revenge. He's ready to
kill. He's not gonna snitch. He's not
gonna tell anybody but he's going to get
his revenge and on his way down he
is visited by individuals who have been
part of this cycle of violence
and it is such a powerful book in that
Jason Reynolds
is forcing readers to really understand
that it's easy to judge
these kids who end up in cycles of
violence
who end up incarcerated in juvie and
think oh my gosh they're bad kids
but you have no idea the back story.
There was an author's note where he
talked about there were kids
who he visited that were in juvenile
detention who ended up for perpetuating
cycles of violence for things that had
happened 40 years before they were even
born.
Imagine being looped into something that
you have no knowledge of that happened
40 years before your birth
and you end up paying the consequences
because nobody is there to teach you how
to break the cycle
and that's what that's all about is that
be mindful of how you label and judge
and
talk about kids who are in these tough
situations
because you don't know their background
and you don't know what they've been
through
and why they're in the positions that
they're in. And it's such a powerful book
to be so short and to have been written
in verse
and i listened to Jason Reynolds read it
and i'm glad that he did read it because
he wanted to make sure that everything
as far as like it being written in a
poetry aspect that
even the cadences and whether he paused
and stopped everything that was done for
effect was done by the original writer
and that there was no misconception of
translation
from page to audio and i really
appreciated that
and i loved it. I love Jason Reynolds. I'm
a Jason Reynolds fan girl
so i definitely will be getting a copy
of this. If you've never read Long Way
Down if you've never read Jason Reynolds
definitely give him a try.
And the last one on this list which is
the only one that does not deal with a
difficult topic
of some kind or a tough just because all
of these books that i've listed some
more have
dealt with tough topics and difficult
conversations and have
like tough relationships going on in
them
but this one really was just for fun and
i really loved it
and it was Desperate Measures by Katee
Robert which is the
Jasmine and Jafar retelling
where they're actually together and they
end up hooking up and it's like
these people that we know from Disney
movies hooking up with villains.
This was so good.It was so hot.
It was so good. It was just pure
bliss reading this book and i have to
admit and i feel like i blush every time
that i talk about this because of the
fact that it just
had some really hot scenes in it
and it kind of ruined my childhood
because i was like
i never thought about Jafar like that.
I never thought about Jasmine like that.
But it's so interesting and Aladdin
actually is the villain
The the actual villain. I mean Jafar is
the villain but the actual bad person in
the book is
Aladdin which i think is hilarious.
If you want some really
interesting romance books to check out
definitely check out this series.
I love it. I forget the name of the
series itself but the first one is
Desperate Measures and each subsequent
book
focuses on individuals that are
actually part of some type of Disney
movie
hero and villain type situation. And
it was my first time experiencing
certain types of kinks
and i enjoyed a couple of them more than
i thought so
i don't know what that says about me. All
right y'all so that is it. Those are
the worst and the best books that I've
read of 2020 so far.
It's gonna be really really interesting
comparing
these lists when i actually do the final
videos in December for my
definite like my definite list of my
favorites and
the ones that i absolutely did not like.
So yeah.
All right let me know in the comments
below like what are some of your
favorite books of this year. What are
some books that you really disliked of
this year?
Are there any books that i listed that
you really really want to read?
Are there books that i listed in the
worst that you really liked?
Or the ones that i listed in the best
that you really don't like? That's such a
tongue twister.
But yeah as always if you like this
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