what up my channel?! welcome back to another
video! i'm jesse and you're watching... i am so excited about this video! this video
is going to be 10 thrillers that i want to read in 2021. now these are going to be thrillers that
i already own that i have on my bookshelves and i just need to get them read... i'm a big fan of
reading what i own and i want to be really a whole lot better about reading the books that i
own in 2021 as well as continuing to support my local library as well as continuing to support
the BIPOC authors who are coming out with very very hyper critical book releases so i wanted
to talk about some of the thriller books that are on my tbr because i got really really into
thrillers last year. i mean i always have been but i just really dug into my love of thrillers
in 2020 and i really want to keep that pace going this year. i'm going to be focusing a lot on
thrillers and adult fantasy on my channel and i'm very very excited about that so these are 10
books on my physical tbr that i really want to get to this year. disclaimer this list of books is
it's white af okay? and i just want to say that up front but i'm really excited because i have
a video coming up that is going to be me gushing about all of the bipoc thrillers that i want
to read in 2021 and these are going to be 2021 releases so i am really really excited to get
those books on my shelves and to get them read. without further ado though let's get into the
video. number 11 on this list is don't look for me by wendy walker! i read all is not forgotten by
wendy walker in 2018 and there's never quite been a thriller that got under my skin like that one
because it touched on some really personal issues and it was such a brilliant psychological thriller
and what i mean by psychological thriller isn't just that it messes with your head but that the
thriller used a lot of very real psychology. one of the main characters was an actual psychologist
and as somebody who studied psych often times the label of psychological thriller or the depiction
of psychology in thrillers bothers me the way that it's done.... i try not to be too nitpicky about
it but it does get on my nerves and it was just so extremely well done in that book it talked about
memory and grief and trauma and essentially that was a book about this girl who has something
horrible happened to her and so against her will her doctors and parents decide to erase the the
traumatic memory from her brain and it's a book about what happens to the body when the body
remembers the trauma but the brain does not. it was.... it was such a good book! it was so good
i have to do a review on it at some point because i have not reviewed it um formally on this channel
at all so don't look for me is wendy walker's latest novel and just look look at the cover!
look at how look at the rain. let the rain fall ...hilary duff??? no? let the rain fall
down! wake my dreams! let it wash away and carry me.... oh my god i used to love her
music because... i'm gay. this is a story about a woman named molly clark who is grieving the loss
of her daughter and one night when she is stranded in the middle of the road she accepts a ride from
a man that she doesn't know now when she gets into the car and the doors get locked she realizes that
she may have miscalculated. but with this man is a little girl that reminded her of the child that
she lost and that was why you know she trusted him enough to get into the vehicle now after the
search for molly has ended a new lead comes in and her daughter nicole begins to dig deeper into
the disappearance of her mother as there are so many things about it that are not making sense
so i misspoke before her daughter was not dead --my bad-- this book is supposed to have some
wonderful commentary on women being abducted and missing girls and i i know even though the
premise isn't necessarily original it's not particularly engrossing, i love this author and
i know i've only read one book by her so i guess it's this is going to be me figuring out if i love
her as much as i think that i do. if she can pull off an incredible thriller once again.... we'll
see .....number 10 on this list is none other than the whisper man by alex north. my first read of
2021 was the shadows by alex north. it was my first of alex north's works and i was absolutely
in love with it. whisper man is the debut book by this author and then this was their second book
and i just loved it.... it was one of those books where you were trying to figure out if the killer
is supernatural or human. it involved dreams and whether or not these kids are you know essentially
sharing an effective psychosis thinking that they share the same dreams and that they can
communicate to each other through dreams or is this something that's actually happening....
and the boys start dreaming up this man named red hands who tells them that if they commit
brutal murders red hands will welcome them into the dreamscape forever. okay my nose has been
running, i swear i don't have covid. um so if you see me wiping my nose i'm not doing cocaine i
promise. that shit's too expensive. so excited to dig into this book which was a gift from my friend
gare. i love you so so much! in this book we are following a man named tom who is grieving after
the sudden and abrupt loss of his wife of course the loss of his wife has taken a toll on their
young son and so tom decides it's time for a fresh start and moves to a new town with his young
child. every horror movie ever starts with somebody moving to a new town with their kid
.....how about this if you have a kid maybe just don't move?! maybe just stay where you at!!! i'm
just saying i'm just saying! we've seen this movie before! but the town has a dark past --of course
it does of course it has a dark past! why can't anyone ever move to wonderland?! 20 years ago a
serial killer abducted and murdered five residents and this serial killer was dubbed the whisper man
because he would lure victims out of their windows by whispering to them and i'm just gonna say it
---those victims all were white okay? because there is no way in hell that a black person
would be sleeping, just sleeping peacefully, i'm minding my own business you know i've got my
bonnet on and i hear whispers and i think "oh you know what would be a good idea? to investigate
the whisper coming from outside of my window" honestly the reason why
white folks have a majority on what constitutes as a thriller and
what constitutes as a commercial thriller is because y'all keep making the same
stupid ass mistakes and black people we just watch you do it ....we just watch you do
we get our popcorn and we just let it happen. okay so when they move into this new town a young
boy vanishes which starts rumors once again of the whisper man who has now been incarcerated but
perhaps he had an apprentice. and then tom's son jake begins acting strangely saying that he
has been hearing whispers outside of his window. that's some white people shiiiit. white people
shit and i'm so excited for it! number nine on this list is none other than final girls by
riley sager. this is an author that i've been dying to read because so many of you love riley's
works-- rave about riley's works and i'm ready to get into them myself. this book was a gift from
my bestie for our bestie anniversary she sent me a bunch of books and i'm really excited to dig
into this one because sager's books are supposed to be so fast-paced and just easily digestible
and suspenseful all the things that i'm really wanting in a thriller and this is supposed
to be kind of like a slasher thriller which i i'm ready. i'm ready for the blood the gore
the guts the squeamishness give give me all of that. 10 years ago our protagonist went on a
trip with five friends and was the only person to return home. she ends up joining a group for
a kind of support group for girls that have been the survivors of horrible crime. the crime was
so great that our protagonist, quincy buried all understanding of what happened and those
details still have yet to resurface but when one of the final girls in the group is found dead in a
bathtub with her wrists slit, it sets off a chain of events where our protagonist has to really
struggle to remember what happened at pine cottage because her life is in incredible grave danger.
i'm excited for this because it sounds fast-paced, it sounds bloody and gory and i'm excited for
the commentary on the final girls trope which is a trope a well long running trope that has been
popularized since the 80s. a group of individuals going somewhere to a place and they start getting
picked off one by one and the survivor girl is the person who lives at the end against all odds. you
know this girl finds strength that she herself may not have even known that she possessed in order to
be the last one standing and so i'm really excited about the final girls trope in this book and to
see how that goes. kayla if you're watching this i know you're going to be very excited about
this because i have my lovely wife by samantha downing as my seventh book that i would like to
get to in 2021. kayla of books and lala who is a thriller reader that i just absolutely love. she
reads other books too outside of the genre but i just really really know that she was super super
into this particular book and i cannot freaking wait ....what a cover what a cover. this book is
frequently marketed and described as dexter meets mr and mrs smith. i grew up on dexter. i loved mr
and mrs smith .i'm ready this is a book about two people who are trying to spice up their marriage
and they decide the ultimate spice is .....murder. the ultimate spice is murder. murder is the
secret to keeping that relationship alive. get it because you kill people and what keeps you
alive is the death of others? it's very poetic. cj tutor described this as a brilliant dark and
twisted novel and i'm ready. it's supposed to be disturbing and absolutely unput downable with
some great social commentary about relationships and marriage and uh being dead inside and i'm here
for it. number six on this list is a book that i have not seen very many people talk about on but
actually what am i saying i didn't see no one talk about this on booktube although i have seen some
exciting hype for it over on bookstagram and that book is none other than a solitude of wolverines
by alice henderson. this is a story about a woman who is stranded in the middle of the wilderness
and she's fighting for her own survival while also being stalked by somebody who wants to
kill her. one of my favorite tropes. one of my favorite tropes is somebody being stuck in the
wilderness and having to fight for their life. i stay away from the wilderness and so i like to
watch other people go into the wilderness and have adventures that i will never have because i'm a
chicken. "while studying wolverines on a wildlife sanctuary in montana "---see that was your first
mistake--- biologist alex carter is run off the road and threatened by locals determined to force
her from the land after searches for the unknown man come up empty local law enforcement
is strangely set on dismissing the case raising alex's suspicions. then another invasive
predator trespasses onto her preserve the hunter turns out to be another human and the prey is the
wildlife biologist herself. she realizes too late that she has seen too much and has stumbled onto a
far-reaching illegal operation and now has become its biggest threat." i am very much hoping
that there's going to be some environmental social commentary. i'm hoping that it's going
to be thrilling and that we get to see some survivalism skills and that this really brilliant
woman um also has to use her wits in order to survive. all of those things culminate in this
just fantastic interesting premise that i i cannot wait to get into/ are we on five? i think we're on
five but i don't know for sure so let's just say number five on this list is none other than pretty
little wife by darby kane. this is a book that i have seen so much hype for and i'm pretty excited
and this is another book that involves marriage so another domestic thriller..... i'm really
bored of the domestic thriller marriage trope within the within the thriller genre but i do like
to see people doing really interesting things with it such as in my lovely wife and while the premise
of this book isn't necessarily remarkable or particularly original, the reviews about this book
are what is keeping it on my tbr and making it one of the most highly anticipated thrillers that i
have on my shelves. so this is about a quiet woman who is not at all what she seems . she lives in a
small idyllic town where people are going missing and then when her husband goes missing she
becomes the subject of a lot of scrutiny.... this gets even worse when lila is the last person
to see her husband's body and when she goes back to the scene of the crime... it's gone which
really doesn't make her look any better um i'm excited for it. number four on this list is
a book that everybody and they mama was reading in 2019 and that is you by carolyn kepnes. this of
course is a book that garnered a lot of attention especially because it was made into a netflix
series-- a very bad netflix series in my opinion-- that show sucks okay? and i'm really
hoping that the book is going to be better. this is a book that is told from the second
person perspective. so this is a story about a man who falls in love with a woman that he's
stalking and eventually begins to date her and she slowly starts to realize this motherfunker is
crazy. he's willing to do absolutely anything to keep her including murder. now book number three
on this list is one that i have not seen a whole lot of hype for and i'm guessing that this is
because it is a rather backlist title so i don't know if this book was ever popular on booktube
however i recently hauled it and i'm very excited about stillhouse lake by rachel kane. i adore the
cover and this book features one of my favorite tropes in the thriller and horror genres which
is a remote desolate location where somebody has to fight for their life especially if it involves
the water and being set on the water. i don't know why that just intrigues me so much ....again it's
probably because i don't funk with the ocean. i don't funk with large deep piles pools of water
where i can disappear into easily. where something can reach up and grab me i don't want to feel
any seaweed on my toes. i don't want to feel nemo swimming between my legs --none of that. like i
just don't mess with... if i can't see the bottom of the water i'm not i'm probably not getting into
it ....this is about a woman named gina. she's a shy midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and
two loving children and all of that into the air when she finds out that her husband is a serial
killer .....so the marriage is not as good as it seems. he ends up being incarcerated and she
moves with her children to the still house lake and she decided to escape to this remote place
because she's still receiving death threats and internet trolls and all this vitriol for people
from people who are accusing her of affiliated with her husband's crimes and blaming her for
not knowing that he was a serial killer etc so she's in this very remote and secluded location
when she starts receiving letters threatening letters from an all too familiar address and
a body turns up in the lake, gwen must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being
exposed or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her-- one thing
is certain-- she's learned to fight evil and she'll never stop. book number two on this list
again i have no idea if i have counted correctly because i've been putting these books away as
i've been talking about them so if my math is off .....welcome to messi jesse. this is my channel.
book number two on this list is none other than the dangers of smoking in bed by mariana enriquez.
who is the author of things we lost in the fire another book that i really really want to read.
i have seen amazing amazing reviews for this book and just look at this deeply disturbing cover.
what more does one want. "this is a collection of creepy short stories of the macabre populated by
unruly teenagers crooked witches homeless ghosts and hungry women. they walk the uneasy line
between urban realism and horror. the stories in her collection are as terrifying as they are
socially conscious and offer breath and body to much that goes unspoken-- fetish, illness, the
female body, the darkness of human history with bracing urgency. a woman is sexually obsessed with
the human heart..... a lost rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom... a pair of
teenage girls can't let go of --" i'm sorry wait a second. can you imagine? can you imagine waking
up and there's just like a like a creepy baby crawling into your bed to cuddle with you? oh my
god that sounds so disturbing. okay can somebody write a story about a baby who is abandoned okay
and then the baby crawls out of the grave and it just is seeking somebody to love it and so it
....just okay. "a pair of teenage girls who can't let go of their idol. an entire neighborhood is
cursed to death when it fails to respond correctly to a moral dilemma" honestly this sounds like peak
social commentary. it's giving me early science fiction social commentary vibes. it is giving me
her body and other parties by carmen maria machado vibes. i am so excited about this. book and this
arguably could go my number one slot ....i'm so freaking excited the number one thriller that i
want to ensure that i read in 2021 is none other than malorie by josh malerman. the sequel to the
bird box. now the reason that this is my number one slot is because i read bird box at the start
of the year. i read bird box at the start of the year it blew my freaking mind. i saw the movie
when it came out i thought it was great but i wasn't moved enough or really interested enough
to seek out the book because if i'm going to be honest i assumed that the book wouldn't be as good
as the movie which is an assumption i never make! we all know that books are better than the movie.
i don't know why i assumed this. um perhaps it was just because i enjoyed the movie so much? i don't
know what it was maybe it was my own snobbery. i don't know. i read this book and i freaking loved
it and part of the reason why i love it so much is because i didn't think that i would and so
each now on top of that the suspense the horror, the world building, all of that was magical. it
was phenomenal. it was creepy .i was disturbed and on the edge of my seat. i was guarded my my
haunches were up throughout the entire entire book.... nothing ....there are very few books that
are as great an example of suspense as this one is in my opinion. the storytelling the writing
the character work the mystery all of that was phenomenal. so if you're not familiar with bird
box this is a book about these creatures that come to earth and if you look at them you lose your
mind and kill yourself .....so nobody has actually seen these creatures because nobody has seen them
and lived. the world has been absolutely destroyed by this. people are afraid to go outside. they
can't look out their windows they can't even drive in a car and so what and the only way to
serve to survive is to either blind yourself or to live blindfolded and people are trying
to go about their lives with blindfolds on. it is an incredible survival story. i really loved
it and the sequel came out last year i believe. i am dying to read it so mallory is going to
be definitely my top release of the year. all right so those are the thriller books that i
am going to be reading in 2021. stay tuned for my bipoc thriller releases video where i'm going
to be talking about all of the amazing thrillers that black indigenous people of color writers are
coming out with in 2021.... that's gonna do it for this video. if you would like more content from
me subscribe to my channel and follow me on my instagram. all my social media links are in the
description box below. stay safe wear your mask, and i hope to see you in my next video if you made
it this far in the video, let me know by telling me of a thriller that you are absolutely dying to
read this year-- pun intended, or you can drop a raindrop emoji in the comment section because
of the rain let the rain fall on this cover.
