BEST BOOKS OF 2019

hello everyone so today I am here to do arguably my most favorite video to film every single year and that is of course the best books of the past year of 2019 so I have about 10 books to talk about today um and a couple of honorable mentions so I do rank my books from least favourite up to favourite favourite and again I do have a couple honorable mentions that I just felt like needed to be talked about in this video so we're gonna start with my honorable mentions and just chat through some books that I really really loved but didn't necessarily make my list for one reason or another so my first honorable mention is my most surprising book of the year and that is of course vicious by ve Schwab people might be like how is that surprising everyone loves that book I have hated hated every single ve Schwab or Victoria Schwab book I've ever read and I've read like three or four I want to say and I have dnf'd or one starred them every single time I just I think this woman has amazing stories I think she's so brilliant and I love her I love her Twitter follow her on everything she's a brilliant woman but her writing has just never been executed to my liking personally just my personal enjoyment of books she has never really written something that has been able to capture me I found her writing very juvenile and I did not find it very interesting or engaging so I had this book was like the number one pick I'd ever wanted to read by her and I just kept putting it off and I finally decided to pick it up this year and I absolutely loved it I believe I gave it like a 4.5 or a 5 out of 5 stars like straight up I don't think I gave a full 5 so I think I gave her like a 4.5 out of 5 stars but I loved it it was so good it this was exactly what I wanted out of the each want an amazing premise amazing characters and really good writing so I'm very happy about that but yeah that was definitely my most surprising book of the year because I was fully expecting to give it 1 star or DNF it and I have a couple of honorable mentions that I realized while making this list that there on the Bellas I don't know why I love short books I love reading novellas and everything but I have to like trouble being able to like say that they're my favorite books versus like longer books I don't know why maybe that'll change eventually but I have three novellas to talk about the first two are the Bachmann novellas by Frederick Bachmann the deal of a lifetime and every morning the way home gets longer and longer these are both literally like 60 page novellas that both have made me absolutely sob I love them so much they are absolutely beautiful the deal of a lifetime is actually a Christmas story if you guys are interested in picking up something next winter and it follows a hospital patient and that's all I'm gonna say and the way home gets long and ever that one is about a young boy and his grandpa yeah it's beautiful and so so sad and so tragic I love Frederick Bachmann's so much and also I have in an absent dream by Seanan McGuire this is a novella that snuck its way in at the very end of the year I read it in the very end of December and I loved it so much but I didn't have long enough to sit on it to really be able to say if it's a favorite book or not usually I determine a favorite book and like the rest of this list is determined by what kind of stuck with me even if I wrote a book down that I really really loved at the beginning of the year and it didn't stick with me throughout the year I didn't put it on the end of this list so I really like to be able to sit on a book and see how I feel over time and this one stuck its way in at the very end which is why I want to put it on here because I absolutely adored it and gave it five stars but I didn't get to sit on it long enough but basically this is the fourth book in the wayward serious children I did not like the rest of the books in this series but I absolutely loved this one is about a young girl named Katherine who goes to the goblin market and I absolutely loved it it's so tragic and so beautiful and I highly recommend it you can read it as a standalone if you don't want to read the rest of the series alright but now I'm going to get into the favorite books I had this year and there are ten of them didn't mean to do that but there's ten and I'm gonna start at ten and count down to one the number ten is definitely a book that I feel like I did not talk about enough for how much I loved it and is the woman in the white kimono by Anna Johns this is a book that I just perchance saw on I think like the publishers Instagram or something I thought it sounded amazing so I decided to ask for it for my birthday I listened the audiobook of this and I absolutely loved it this is a book that takes place in two timelines there is a woman in today's time period trying to find out about what was happening in this previous timeline I really like those books seems to be one that just always pops up in some of my favorite books but yeah and in the previous like in the past timeline there is a young girl in Japan who is pregnant and she is trying to figure out how to survive and what to do in this world where she is pregnant by a white man and I'm pretty sure this is in like World War to World War 1 at some point and yeah it's 1957 so it's right after World War 2 and she is in love with this white man and obviously the rest of her family and culture doesn't really accept that in kind of what happens to her in her story as she tries to figure out what to do about this pregnancy and then of course we also follow the woman in the current timeline trying to find out this story about this woman in the previous title it's beautiful I loved it so so much I remember I was listening to an audio book at work and I had to stop at the end because I was like I'm gonna sob in the middle of stacking books at a library like I can't do this in any book that gets that kind of reaction out of me because it is very difficult to make me cry it definitely deserves a place on this list I absolutely love this book and I have never seen another person talk about it and I absolutely loved it so I highly recommend this book this cover is gorgeous this inside is gorgeous very highly recommend especially if you want just a sad sad book the next book is when I read at the very very beginning of the year and I still think about it to this day I love this book so much and it totally came out of left field for me and that is stronger faster and more beautiful by Arwen Ellis Dayton this is actually recommended by one of you guys I believe Greg recommended me this if I'm not mistaken and I decided to just pick it up because it sounded interesting and I loved it this is Emily for people who like Neal Shusterman kind of those dystopian futuristic worlds that are making a commentary on today's society basically this book is about it's basically a collection of short stories which y'all know me and you know I do not like short story collections I just I have never been able to get into them and I just love this one is this a good collection of short stories over a very long period of time where people on earth in the world start making modifications their bodies so it starts at the very beginning with you know a young girl getting a robotic heart and then a young girl in the next story getting organs replaced because it was an accident and then all the way up to a very very futuristic world where people are completely modifying their entire bodies and you know putting extra arms on or spikes or changing eyes or something like that but in this book you can make yourself look any way you want and also it's just uh it was just so amazing I love this book so much every single story is still so perfectly fresh in my mind it's not often that that kind of happens I feel like even with a book that only has like two timelines one hand life always is remembered more than the other one like even with this book I remember the like 1957 timelines so much better than the original like present-day timeline but with this every single story I absolutely loved I believe my favorites are the second story and then the second to last story but yeah highly recommend for people who like Neal Shusterman such a good book so next up I have two books for number eight but it's by the same author because basically this author just became a new absolute favorite this year and that is Meredith Russa which I have birthday by Myers Meredith Russa and if I was your girl and both of these books I loved for like the same reasons so I feel like it's not cheating that much to put them to get they're on this list basically if you don't know both of these books are about trans that main characters in birthday we follow a young trans girl who is trying to tell her best friend that she is trans and I love the format of this book that we follow the characters one day a year on their birthday because they're born on the same day and we only followed them for that day of the story and then we have to skip to the next year to find out what happens next I really loved that format I've never read something like that before and it really really worked and it was absolutely tragic and absolutely beautiful and then if I was your girl follows a young girl who is outed as trans in her school and she ends up moving and then going to a new school and kind of what happens to her there that one is also absolutely beautiful and absolutely tragic Finn gave me this book for my birthday and I'm so happy he did because I absolutely loved it and I highly recommend them if you think you can handle them there are a lot of trigger warnings I do not have a full comprehensive list highly recommend finding one if you were interested in these books but know that some things could be triggering you think you could think of that could happen to a trans character probably happens between one of these two books and yeah absolutely love it cannot wait for a new Meredith Russo book to come out the next book I have is my favorite manga of the year I love reading manga I read quite a bit of it throughout the year and this one was absolutely my favorite when the I got this year and that is I want to your pancreas which is a one-volume omnibus collection of a story love this title love this cover it made me pick it up in Barnes & Noble when I was looking for something fun to read and I loved it it was so good if you don't know this book follows a young boy who is the only one in his class that knows that this girl in his class has pancreas cancer and also that's where the title comes from might be a mistranslation I don't really know but it does explain it in this book what that is supposed to mean but yeah I love this it was beautiful it was tragic I did not see the kind of plot twist at the end coming also I just always have to say that there's a thing that this character you don't know what his name is throughout the book and I guess what his name was and I was very proud of myself just know so many allusions but yeah this beaut this was beautiful the art is absolutely stunning and it was just such a beautiful beautiful story of friendship and cancer and horrible things happening to these kids but them staying friends and their friendship throughout it I feel like now we're getting into the territory that a lot of people are gonna know that these books are on the list but like where are they on the list kind of question so let's get into number six okay so number six on this list is middle game by Seanan McGuire I absolutely love this book it was amazing oh okay so how to explain this book this is Shana McGuire's epic like 500 something page adult fantasy urban fantasy novel basically following a man who wants to achieve godhood and to achieve godhood he is creating these sets of twins who one is really really good at English and language and the other is really good at math and with these twins he hopes to be able to do this thing to be able to become a god there's like so much like alchemy and transmutation and stuff in this book and I loved it I realized how much I love alchemy like reading that alchemy I love Full Metal Alchemist I love like strange the dreamer who has an alchemist and everything I love alchemy if you guys have more books about alchemy definitely hit me up because I don't know I guess that's something I really like reading about but this was absolutely fantastic it was it was just the characters and the character development and like how much these characters go through is fantastic because we follow them from age 7 up to like I want say late twenties and how this man is trying to manipulate them in their lives and all of that kind of stuff and it's fantastic and I I don't know what more to say about it that can be said it's a better guy who one says you've got and if you don't want to read it after saying that I don't know how else to get you to read it the next booth I have on this list is Wilder girls by Rory powers yes I am books and Lolla okay this is a books I actually got to read early I do not get very many books from publishers but I actually did manage to get er of this book and I got to read early and I am someone who absolutely loved this book I know it didn't work for a lot of people a lot of people seem to need a little bow on their ending I saw a whole Twitter thread about people being like Oh give me all the epilogues and give me all of the like like ten years later and I'm like I don't need that I actually love Wind books just leave you completely hanging and you kind of have to figure out what the hell happens next a k-mer so I know that the ending of this book does not work for everyone but for me it personally worked great and I loved it but anyways this book is a Lord of the Flies retelling with girls basically we follow a boarding school of girls who are trapped on this island a quarantine on this island because they have starting affected by something called the talks and the government has quarantined them there and because they don't know what's happening and they don't know how contagious this is and everything and you know girls start dying and like their teachers start dying and everything and also they all start growing mutations so our main character like you know grow something underneath her eye another girl grows a second spine other people are growing scales and stuff and it's basically them trying to figure out how to survive with each other and like not much help from the government or other people outside of their kind of boarding school and when one of their friends goes missing and gets taken to somewhere they the two main girls want to find her and find out what is happening and what is happening to her and also there is a queer relationship a girl girl relationship that I absolutely love especially because of how it is done and how it is so natural and so beautiful but also is not at the forefront of this book is definitely more about friendship in this book but we do have that beautiful little queer relationship and it's amazing but I if you guys don't know my two favorite classics are Peter Pan but also Lord of the Flies before I read Peter Pan load of Lies has always been my favorite book of all time for classics and I always love books are similar to it in that like survival kind of sense that is why I always love my post-apocalyptic books following a small group of survivors and this just being like almost a direct not a direct but like a Lord of the Flies retelling worked so much for me and I loved it so much I love these characters I love this world I love how unique and interesting everything was and I cannot wait for her next book also there's all my tests I always forget the show my little tabs and stuff and again just so incredibly unique I am so interested to see where Rory powers can go next with this and now we are on to number 4 which honestly if this had been a different year this probably would have been my favorite book of the year but alas it is number four and that is far from the tree by Robin Benway if you guys can tell I've really enjoyed this well is enjoyed a good word for this this book ripped my soul out like again like I mentioned I am NOT one to cry at books and I was sobbing like openly like well usually I'm not lying when I say like cried at books like you know the woman in the white kimono I'm talking like misty eyed like kind of thing I don't usually mean full actual tears sobbing this book made me actually full tear sob multiple times this is an absolutely beautifully written first off I must just compliment Robin been way that she is has the least amount of voice in a book that I have ever read like I feel like you can always hear the author in a book you can always hear them like that is why it's so interesting to read certain authors like Murakami you can always hear Murakami you can always hear it could see it but like this woman it was like we were actually from three different people because basically this book follows three separate characters Joaquin Maya and grace and they are three siblings who were all put up for adoption and went to very very different lives because we have Grace who is the oldest girl who was adopted by a family who really really loves her and really didn't tell her much about her adoption and then she gets pregnant and has to put her daughter up for adoption and then we have her younger sister Maya who is a lesbian and kind of how her life is basically she went to a family who thought they couldn't conceive and then right after adopting her they conceived their own daughter and kind of how biological versus non-biological familial relationships work and then we have joaquin who is the only half mexican of the family and how he was never adopted and he stayed in foster care his entire life and kind of his trauma from that this book again sobbed multiple times I remember I was reading this before I went to Ohio and I specifically made sure I finished it like I sat down and made sure I finished it before getting on the plane so I wouldn't sob on the plane this book is just gorgeous it just absolutely rips your heart out and just like as a person who I have always wanted to adopt a child I just it was and I know a lot of people who are adopted and everything it was such a hard book to read and then also just grace with her baby and everything it was I thought it was so intense and so beautiful and I highly recommend this book if again kind of like Meredith Rousseau if you think you can handle it there are a lot of trigger warnings obviously alcoholism abuse all of that kind of stuff and I just I think this is an incredibly important novel and it's incredibly accessible because is actually written for why a audience but that doesn't matter it's an amazing book if you have any interest in it please pick it up I cannot talk highly enough I feel like as I get higher up in the list of like favorite books it's just like I don't know how I don't know how to express how much I love this book it's kind of like when people I like oh why do you like three souls so much and I'm just like did you want me like ripped my heart out show you it like what you want and now my top three books firstly I feel like I need to prompt like premise this with the fact that I realized I have a favorite genre this year I have always talked about the fact that I don't have a favorite genre I don't like saying I have a favorite genre I never understand when people are like I only read why a fantasy I only read why a contemporary I just feel like that is too boxed in I like reading everything I love every general except for maybe nonfiction but this year I realized I have a favorite genre and it's the genre I don't think I ever would have even guessed would be my favorite genre but my top three books and many books that I read this year that I loved we're all a part of horror I've always said I don't like horror because I'm a baby I just I don't watch I didn't watch scary movies I don't read scary books I just not a fan of horror but this year I started watching horror movies I started reading horror novels and my top three books are all horror novels in my top three books we're so hard to order I went back and forth on this for a month like I've been trying to put this together for so long and I think I have finally settled but it is so hard we're gonna get on into it and I'm gonna tell you guys my top three favorite books which are all horror that being said they are all kind of speculative like psychological paranormal a kind of horror I guess so if you have any recommendations based on these don't hit me so number three is the Luminess dead by Caitlyn Starling I feel like when I first read this I could not shut up a bit this actually the full review for this book because I was trying to get it back into doing book reviews and then I immediately stopped it because I didn't want to do it anymore but I'll link it up about because I do have it this is a psychological horror basically following a young girl who gets hired for an exhibition on this kind of sci-fi e-world where they go into these caverns like caves to mind stuff but in these case are things called tunnelers which are giant creatures that no one really knows what they are or what they look like or what they do all we know is that they kill a lot of people who go down into these caves of course she kind of lied on her application saying that she had done a lot of this before when in reality she hadn't so she's kind of in over her head when she realizes she is the only one on this exhibition and there's only one person running the exhibition when usually there's a whole team of people keeping a person safe on an exhibition and as things go on and things go on longer and longer she realizes that the person who is talking to her named em who's running this whole thing is hiding a lot of things and these caves might not hold what they think they do this was so spooky if I had have read this during like October I totally would have had just straight-up nightmares by read in the middle of summer think it is so slow in tension building that is another thing I have realized with these three books is they're all not like jump-scare horror they're very tension it's in Spence and just building kind of thing because that's mostly what this book is because a lot of it is psychological so it's a lot of just suspense in tension and especially the fact that it is just one person alone in these caves and not knowing what is there and it is so spooky well I also absolutely love the characters the character got is the main character is Geyer who is the one who is down in the caves and then M is the one that she is talking to there is a little bit of sapphic romance in this love my lesbians and it's just this entire world is so interesting and I really love how you're kind of thrust into it like there's not a lot of quote-unquote world building as in like here's a bunch of information about this world it's more just like boom here you go you're in it and because we don't even get much like um like coming to the actual plot what's it called exhibition oh I don't know it's called it's just like literally the first shop there she is already in the caves like working and it is so spooky it is so interesting every like I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading this it is a decently length book it's over 400 pages and I hurt in like two days I remember I was sitting in the bath reading one time and my book my boyfriend thought I'd died because I was in there for two hours because I could not stop reading to even get out of the tub like it was such an amazing ride absolutely gripped me right from page one I need to go back and reread this because I read it too quick to be able to annotate anything I just I didn't even want to stop - doggy or page kind of thing I loved this book it was probably one of the first books in a long time I just had that absolutely cannot put down feeling about this book which is why it's number three number two of course I again it was so hard - number three through one it was so hard but okay number two is bunny at by Moana Awad oh my gosh amazing book can you see on my tabs oh I hope this book so much I read it twice I listened to this on audio I immediately got myself a physical copy reread it and annotated the absolute crap out of it like I love this book so much this is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read one of the weirdest books I've ever read and the most relatable / to me personally I have a bur read which is weird to say if you know what this book is they're in this book basically we fought a young girl who is in her master's degree program for writing if you guys don't know I'm in my masters of English literature so I really related to her on the master's degree level because a lot of what she talks about in here actually I feel like you can't relate to unless you're literally into your masters because it was like whoa you didn't have to come for me I Anna her cohort there are is a group of girls I think there's four of them that she calls the bunnies because they are kind of culty they call each other bunny and they are there they're cold they're cold it's four girls and they're cold they call each other bunny and Samantha always just thinks that they're really weird she doesn't want to talk to them even though there's only other real people in her program which let me just tell you not being friends with people in your program is really hard because you guys do everything together and art like that that's your kind of backbone and your support system so the fact that she's like I don't want to be friends with these people nope is a big deal and then she has her best friend Ava and basically this just weird wacky starts happening to Samantha when the bunnies decide to befriend her and take her under their wing and everything and basically it goes into them creating something and goes into like I don't want to give too much away but like they start to try to create something and kind of there's this weird like blurring the lines between reality and fiction and you finish the book and just go wait what was real what wasn't and then you reread the book and you're still like what was real what was it there's a sprinkling of magic there's a sprinkling of reality there's everything in this book is absolutely beautiful and so wonderful and I love this so much and it is again so relatable on a very just normal human level but also so incredibly insane on a lot of other levels I don't want to overuse this because I'm also gonna say this for my next book like number one but if Murakami was a American woman this would be his book if you like how weird and wacky Murakami is and kind of never knowing what is real what is fake and what is happening and kind of having that weird dreamlike essence over the entire book this is your book you need to pick this up because I like litter the entire time I was reading I was just like this is Murakami's like white American daughter that's all I got but yes I obviously love bunny I will say this book is not for everyone I don't know how many people would love this but if you like the same book I do I think you'll love it and such an amazing book I can definitely see myself rereading that just constantly maybe I'll make it a thing each October I'll reread my three favorite horror novels in number one I'm sure you all know what its gonna be so let's just end the suspense my number one book of 2019 is imaginary friend by Stephen Chbosky oh I can't I love this book so much it's been so long since I've felt like this at the book this 700 page book I read in three days yeah it was it was a lot I love this book so much every time I describe it I have to just say that it literally felt like while I was reading it that Stephen Chbosky went inside my brain my personal nightmares and went hey let's make a book out of this let's freak the out of Cait file specifically and just to get my analogy out of the way this is Haruki Murakami meets Stephen King I haven't read that much Stephen King but from what I have read and just like horror aspects and stuff I say this is Murakami meet Stephen King that is my analogy I'll stop talking about everything being like Murakami now imagine a friend oh I know that this book is not for everyone because some people I recommended this to have absolutely loved it like me and give it five stars and then a lot of people that I gave it to absolutely hated it oh this is the first time I've actually held this physically in a very long time because I kept just shoving it on people and a lot of people really didn't like it I know my dad is currently reading it and he just keeps texting me like kidding what the hell and I'm like don't worry about it how do I describe this book this book is basically on the surface about a single mom and her son Christopher who they are quite poor and she really just wants the best for her son she wants to make his life easier than her own life so she moves them to a new town that has an amazing school system she enrolls him in this school even he technically shouldn't be going there and he goes to this school and then a couple weeks or whatever into the school year he goes missing for six days in the woods and they have no clue where he is that can't find him six days later he comes back and he seems completely fine except for the fact that he is a genius now and also he has an imaginary friend that he calls the nice man and this nice man is trying to tell him to like build a tree house and so Christopher gets his friends together and they go and build a tree house in the middle of the woods that are being knocked down to create new houses and stuff and they build this tree house and that is basically all I can really say this book is so tense and suspenseful again I just love suspense and tension I don't care about jump scares or anything like that those don't really freaked me out I love the suspense I love the building tension I love just that oh what's gonna happen kind of feeling this isn't really a spoiler because it starts at the very beginning of this book but I just I feel like I need to tell anyone else who's like me I have aggressive phobia of deer yeah I was attacked by deer when I was 10 and I am aggressively terrified of deer I have panic attacks when I see deer if they really really freaked me out and the one of the biggest scare tactics in this book is deer I remember hailey X you read this book before me and she texted me she's like I don't know how to tell you this but you might not be able to read this book and I was like this is my most anticipated book what are you telling me and she was like yeah one of the big scare things is deer and I was like what what it's terrifying it's absolutely terrifying and it's scary to people who aren't scared of deer to just to warn you it's not like it's gonna freak me out it freaks everyone out but oh this book was amazing the ending see it coming at all it was the biggest plot twist of the frickin century absolutely loved it I loved all of the characters we followed because we follow Chris's mom we follow Chris we follow an older man named Ambrose who is like kind of connecting us to an older story that happened in this town in the past and then we also have a cop who is kind of data in Christopher's mom and all of their different stories how they connect and basically this town and how this town connects to each other I love this book so so so much the writing is beautiful it is deeply entertaining deeply terrifying and absolutely will stay with you forever to me at least even if you don't like it I feel like this is just one of those books you will never forget reading I love this so much I have considered rereading it for three months since I finished it and I loved it so much again it's just one of those things that it's so hard to talk about books that you just truly truly love this is gonna be one of my her books for the rest of my life like I and I know that and that is such a weird feeling to know and yeah this was my her book of 2019 it's not for everyone but doesn't matter it's my favorite book so yeah that's my giant stack of books that you can't even see the top three books on that stack but anyways I've been filming for way too long as I normally do during these best books that you're video but I hope you guys all enjoyed this video and don't tell me down below if you have read any of these books what books have I convinced you to read as well as what is your number one book of 2019 I am always looking for new recommendations again if you know any horror books that are similar to these that focus more on the suspense and tension and also psychological kind of fortune abhor definitely tell me I'm like now that I know that I like this genre I need all of it but yeah I hope you guys all enjoyed this video and I love you all and I'll see y'all soon bye [Music]

Channel: Kate Pfeil

Views: 10,914

Rating: 4.939394 out of 5

Keywords: book, books, booktube, best books, best books of 2019, best books of the year, 2019, 2019 wrap up, book wrap up, book review, book reviews

Id: Smv1ymyIT6g

Length: 35min 27sec (2127 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 06 2020