(light music) - Hello, so, welcome back
to my YouTube channel. I'm not gonna lie to you, I (laughs) sort of disappeared from the internet for a little bit. The thing is, right? Since uploading this video, I had to go into hiding because it turns out that some people are very passionate about the classics, sometimes aggressively so, (laughs) actually quite a lot of the time. And you know what? I have to hold up my hands and take the blame because, yes, I did say that the first "Lord of the Rings" book is just a bunch of creatures walking, on the internet, without clarifying that I
actually really love "The Hobbit," (laughs) 'cause those Tolkien fans, holy hell, they were coming for my neck. Jesus was crucified on Easter weekend, and so was I after posting that. So anyway, having not
learned my lesson at all, we're back, baby, with more book reviews and hot takes. So far this year, I have read 55 books, which is, yes, unhinged. But today, we're gonna be putting that to good use. As you can see from my stats on the story graph, the main books I gravitate towards are emotional, reflective, dark, and sad. So, it's therapy I need, (laughs) not fiction. I've mostly read medium-paced books. I gravitate more towards
fiction than nonfiction, and also shorter books more than long ones. Just keep that in mind when it comes to the reviews, like, this is an entirely
subjective operation. But a lot of these books, I haven't actually spoken
about yet on YouTube. So today, I basically
thought I would tell you about the first 51 books that I have read in 2022 in order. Now, I can't decide whether to order them from best to worst or worst to best. I feel like it would be nicer to end on a positive note, right? By the way, the mathematicians
of you out there might have noticed that I am gonna be speaking about 51 books when I've read 55. And the reason for that
is that the final four were all the heart-stopper books, which I'm gonna be doing
a whole separate video on, which is coming soon, or might be out before
this one, who knows? I like to keep you and myself guessing. So, (laughs) let's dive in and let's start actually with the only book I
didn't finish this year because I hated it so much. Everyone, give it up for "The Illicit Happiness
of Other People." Boo! (laughs) This is incredibly ironic because I was recommended this book as part of a tailor-made
book recommendation service, and I hated it. I didn't find the
characters or the storyline at all engaging. I found the humor was quite cheap, and it was always punching down rather than punching up, which I think is actually funnier. And so, the only place
that I found happiness here is in the title. Moving on! The worst book that I've
read because of TikTok, "The Spanish Love Deception." Now, the TikTokers lied
to me several times. That was the true deception here. Are they paying BookTokers to say this book is good? Because what the hell was that? The two characters lack depth. There is nothing to them aside from just being
conventionally attractive. I don't wanna read books
about attractive people getting to be more happy. You can keep that, so. (laughs) Anyway, it's enemies to lovers, but also just not convincing at all. The plot is just completely obvious from the opening line. The writing is poor. Sorry, this is really savage, but I suffered, I suffered with this one and I am bitter about it. BookTokers gotta win my
respect back after that. And the next books were,
like, two out of five stars. So, in a third worst, we have "Looking for Bono." This is a kind of tongue-in-cheek book, and it's a satire about celebrity saviors kind of coming to the aid
of impoverished communities, and also performativity, and the disconnects
between certain charities and the actual real communities that they claim to want to help. So I liked the concept, but in the book, we basically follow this man from Nigeria who calls on Bono from U2, asking him to help draw
attention to a water crisis. This random man sort of
becomes an overnight celebrity. And it's all about how people kind of abuse his authenticity, but also try to make him more palatable for wealthy audiences. So it's an interesting concept. However, this book is so repetitive. It goes round and round
and round in circles. I've seen less circles
in a box of Cheerios. And to me, this is a short story that should have been, like, 45 pages, not a whole 300-page book. All the characters are
incredibly annoying, even the ones we're
meant to be rooting for, and it just made me not
want to pick up the book. So, there's that. Next, we have "Honey Girl." This has so many characters
who serve no purpose, even the main character
isn't properly developed. So she has a PhD in astronomy, right? And so you would think there'd be loads of space metaphors and imagery, like, that's the way that her brain works. No, never mentioned. I think a black hole is mentioned once, but she's hardly Stephen Hawking, right? Everything just felt so random and poorly researched, poorly thought-out, just aggressively mediocre. "This One Sky Day" is a book that has been nominated for the Women's Prize this year. It's very experimental, it's very unique. One thing I would say is fantastic here is the world-building. So we basically have this
island called Popisho, where each resident is born with a special magic power or gift, which is specific and unique to them. Skip forward, like, 20 seconds if you are planning on reading this book, but the big twist in this novel is that about halfway through the book, all the women, their vaginas fall out. Yeah, yeah, you did hear that correctly. They fall out onto the ground. And the book refers to them as pum-pums, like, a lot of times. And if I never have to hear that term ever again in my life, it will be too soon. The book is kind of daft
in an intentional way, but for me, it just tried
to cover way too much. It tried to sort of cover everything without really scratching
the surface on anything. So, for me, there's just
way too much going on and nothing done exceptionally well. So I can see why it's critically acclaimed because it's such a singular book, but I personally just
didn't enjoy reading it. Then we have "Man Down," which is a pretty good
exploration of masculinity and coming of age, as well as including a little
bit of magical realism. It's aimed at a much
younger audience than I am, and as a result, it did just feel really
immature, I suppose. I didn't necessarily find it captivating. And also, I cannot stand when books about young British people just consistently use
the word bruv and cuz, because, to me, that just screams 30-year-old
writing teenagers. "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois." Now, this plunged me into a reading slum. I feel like I was reading
this for all of March because it was so long and slow-paced. It was still good and I wanted to get to the end, but holy hell, it took me a while to get there. Is it a good book? Yes. It explores a range of important themes and follows this one family
kind of through the generations. So we start off when they are
colonized Native Americans, we go through slavery, up to modern-day microaggressions. It's moving, it's heartfelt. It's a huge achievement
for a debut novelist to write a book on this scale. However, for me, the
focus on each character is extremely sort of disproportionate. And I just felt like it
didn't need to be anywhere as long as it actually was. I've read "Homegoing," which is a much better
version of this book. It just crawls along. And honestly, this book
would look at snails and think, "Bloody hell,
they're going fast." (laughs) So, now we're onto the
three-star territory. "They" is about a bunch of people kind of working in the arts who are threatened by people who think the arts are worthless. They, those people, sort of terrorize people
who are writing novels, creating music. And it was, yeah, okay. (laughs) They refer to this book as
a forgotten masterpiece. I think they forgot the masterpiece 'cause I didn't see that bit, but it was fine. Masterpiece is just extreme. This next book is a queer
utopia/kind of fairy tale. And I read this because
Hunter Schafer recommended it, so I read it for my "Euphoria" video. But this was such a fascinating read. I'm so pleased that I've read this because I don't know if I would have encountered it otherwise. That's why I'm so grateful for making these silly, little videos. But yeah, it's an experimental book unlike anything else I've ever read and probably will ever read ever again. "We Used to Be Friends" is a YA story, which I also read for my "Euphoria" video. It's about two girls
who used to be besties and have had a massive falling out, and the story is told in dual timelines. So one person tells the
story in chronological order and then the other person tells the story in reverse chronology. Now, the problem with this is that we, as the reader, now have to experience
every single event twice, and their fallout, to me, just wasn't interesting
or explosive enough to justify that. It was a pretty average fallout. And I think what I'm learning is that maybe I just shouldn't read YA. (laughs) Maybe it's just not for me because often I'm just like, "This isn't harrowing enough. This isn't traumatic enough for me." Maybe that says more about me, maybe I just want to suffer, and this wasn't it. But quickly, before we
dive into the next book, I wanted to tell you
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off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code, jackedwards, and that's me. I'm excited to continue
building my website and giving you guys updates. And thank you so, so much for Squarespace for sponsoring this video. I really appreciate it. Onto the next book. "The Hating Game," a romance novel, enemies to lovers, office romance, grumpy and sunshine, a little trope cocktail. As you'll know if you watched
my romance book video, this book just randomly includes a detail about the main female character that she collects Smurfs, and after that point, it was all I could think about. It was all I wanted to know more about. I was distracted from the romance because all I could think about is, "Why does she collect Smurfs? Are we gonna learn more about the Smurfs?" And we never really do. The book is a little bit silly and cheesy, but it's also fun. And unlike "The Spanish Love Deception," it actually makes sense
why these two are enemies 'cause they're both competing
for the same job promotion. So at least it was somewhat
believable, you know? I then read "The Year
of Magical Thinking." Three words for you, Joan Didion. I really love her style of writing. It's such easy reading, but it also packs such a punch. So beautiful, and she writes with this
extraordinary clarity. "The Year of Magical
Thinking," in particular, is about the really tragic loss of both her husband and her daughter in quite quick succession. And that experience of losing not one, but two people closest to her, and it's just heartbreaking. Then we have another book by Joan, and this is "Let Me Tell You What I Mean." It's a collection of lots of short pieces of Joan Didion's work
from throughout her career over the years. And I'd love to say
that there are no skips, but, like, there are definitely skips. Some of these essays are
absolutely phenomenal and stunning. In particular, my standout was one called "Why I Write," which I just adored. It was the most illuminating insight into her writing that I've read, and I've read a lot of Joan Didion's work. However, some of these uncovered, previously unpublished essays maybe should have stayed
covered and unpublished. They're just not that interesting. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I love you, Joan Didion. "The Anthropocene Reviewed" is classic John Green, but nonfiction. It's the remix. Just like a cigarette between your teeth, everything's a metaphor. And this is something that, across his fiction and nonfiction, John Green does pretty well. He's very good at turning average, every-day, understandable things into metaphors, which is useful for introducing more complex, deeper
philosophical concepts. I would say that I just found it a little bit oversimplified at times and maybe even a little bit cringey. Moving on. "Cain's Jawbone" is a murder mystery that I did, where you basically have to
cut out the pages of this book, and then rearrange them to try to work out who the murderer and the victims are. It's from the 1930s, it's ridiculously difficult. And I said that I'd do a
part two to that video, and I lied. (laughs) I just lied. No, I thought I was gonna do it, I never did, and I'm sorry. It just took too much big brain energy. I was mentally drained after trying this and I don't wanna talk about it. If any of you mention it, I will block you. I'm kidding partly. "Brown Girls" is super original. It's written in the first person plural, which I've never experienced before. So, it's about a collective group who are referred to as we, in a kind of choral voice. It's interesting. It touches on a lot of social issues, but in a more nuanced way because it's just specifically about how it impacts this particular group, especially regarding race and class. And I enjoyed reading this, but I'm not 100% convinced that the style was the most effective one. I think inevitably when you distill a huge
group of people down into one collective we, it does start to lose
a little bit of detail and you do start to generalize. I'm not sure if this was
actually helpful to do. So, kind of mixed feelings on this one. Next, we have "Heaven," which is a really poignant
story about bullying. Set in a school translated from Japanese, it's primarily about a boy who is relentlessly bullied and teased for his lazy eye. And then also a girl in his class who is also being picked on. But outside of these two
kind of isolated cases, we also have a much deeper discussion, which considers the abstract concept of picking on the weak in historical, religious, and also philosophical terms, it discusses this. So it was cool. Also, it was nominated for the International
Booker Prize this year. So, could be one to look out for. "If I Had Your Face" is a real exploration of modern-day, contemporary
South Korean culture from plastic surgery
to family expectations, to K-pop fandoms and beyond, this book covers it all. And we follow this group of girls who all kind of live in quite close proximity to one another and they have a lot of
crossover in each other's lives. But each one is individually
negotiating their relationship with beauty and standards of society, the expectations of them, and the culture that they exist in. So it's super up to date. "Good Intentions" focuses
on human communication and also miscommunication. It's about a man whose
family are from Pakistan and he hides his relationship
with a Sudanese girl from his family, from his parents. He met her at university, but keeps their relationship
a secret for four years. Imagine a four-year-old child, like, that's a pretty formed human being. So it's frustrating 'cause
you just wanna shake him and get him to tell them the truth and be honest with everyone, and you really want everything to work out for these characters, but they are flawed. They do make mistakes. They do say the wrong thing, you know, just like we do in real life. But it has these really
heart-wrenching scenes and quite long conversations, which do make it worthwhile. The reason I didn't rate this higher is because of the pacing, because we sort of flash back between the present day and all these different earlier stages in their relationship. And boy, it really did
feel like four years. I felt like I'd been
with them for four years 'cause at times, it just
completely kills the momentum, and it's not that relevant
to bring up a past story. They don't add that much. The book does feel very real and raw and authentic, but she's slow. Oh, Lord, she's slow. Okay, onto the four-star books. First up we have "Afterparties," which is a contemporary
collection of short stories, about second-generation children of Cambodian immigrants in America. It deals with the diaspora, echoes of the Khmer Rouge regime, but also things like
sexuality and so much more. It is very beautiful at times, but the stories are all quite different. Some are a lot better than others. And I find that short story collections are very hard to give a succinct review because they often do really vary, and that is definitely true in this case. But I'm very glad to have read this and I'm going to Cambodia
in, like, two weeks, and I'm very excited about it. Speaking of short story collections, the same is true for this collection, which is called "Shoko's Smile." This is about a range of
women living in South Korea, and its sort of overarching
theme is human relationships, but specifically through the
lens of female communication. There are some beautiful lines in here. The next book is "Marabou
Stork Nightmares." This is an incredibly provocative
book about masculinity, sexual assault, and also guilt. It's told from the perspective of a man that you will absolutely despise, and he's imagining himself
hunting this Marabou stork, which is essentially one big metaphor for all of his mistakes
and grievances in his life, all the things that he regrets. He's not really hunting down the stork, he's hunting down his demons. And it really plays around with structure, even down to how the words
are formatted on the page. At one point, the page is
in the shape of a giant Z. So that was interesting. It's also written in Scottish dialect to the point where I've been
reading this Scottish voice for such a long time that my brain started
thinking in Scottish. "If I Don't Have You" is
just a good, classic romance. It's about a journalist
interviewing a film star and they have this instant
attraction, I guess. Actually, I don't guess, I know 'cause it's steamy. It's hot. This is a good book. "Disoriental" is set in Iran and it deals with the political
history of the country, but also domestic family politics too. So the first half is sort of about being political dissidents in Iran and then escaping the country, fleeing. And then the second half focuses
more on identity politics. Very interesting, very intriguing, took me a while to get into it. But once it gets going, it's definitely worth the read. Okay, we're at the halfway point and this is "It Ends With Us," which is probably Colleen
Hoover's most well-known book in her takeover of the whole internet. There were a lot of things that I found insufferably
annoying in this book down to the overuse of italics, the character Ryle being called Ryle, and a lot of things being a
little too on the nose, I guess. But I did think it was
excellent storytelling. Everything is very intentional. There's brilliant pacing and the ending is incredibly powerful. I will just flag here that it is a book about domestic violence, so just be aware of that going into it. "People We Meet on Vacation," I liked this. It was very sweet. These two people used to go
on a holiday every single year and then one year, just
had this massive fallout and stopped going. And so they're going on one last trip to save the friendship, and it may be possibly, potentially, turns into a little bit more. For me, the attraction
between these two characters in this book was believable, and you know what? I was rooting for them. I feel like you should
read this on a holiday, that's where it would be best, or on a sunny day. "Vladimir" is quite a
recent release actually. I got this in a Book of the Month box. We focus on this woman who has become completely
and utterly obsessed with a new member of
staff at the university that she works at called Vladimir. She is completely infatuated with him. And meanwhile, drama, her husband is having a
James Charles-level scandal because he's been a naughty boy, and basically having some
inappropriate relationships with the students that he teaches. They are all adults, but the point is the kind of
power imbalance between them. The book is very sharp and cynical, and it's sort of about humiliation, but also sex, (laughs) and the messy complications
of certain relationships. "Twelfth Night" is literal Shakespeare. What more do you want me to say? I think it's one of his more fun plays. It's all built on kind
of misunderstandings and playing around a bit
with gender and class, and it's pretty good. William Shakespeare did
not do everything he did in his career for me to sit in my kitchen saying, "Yeah, that was pretty good." (laughs) But here we are. "Earthlings" is another
translated book from Japanese. And oh my God, (laughs) people told me this
book was gonna be weird, but holy moly, I did not expect that, everything that this is. Wow, what? It's shocking, it's provocative, but completely unforgettable. And it's a book that I just feel like I
can't really explain at all without spoiling it. So I won't. But don't say I didn't warn you that it is depraved and disgusting. I was scraping my jaw up off the floor and also physically
cringing whilst reading it. But I think that's a sign
of brilliant writing, to be able to provoke
such a strong response. "Parable of the Sower" is just harrowing. It's a dystopia based
on the climate crisis, but I won't go into
too much detail on this 'cause I'm actually doing a
whole separate video on it with Leena Norms, whose channel I love. So stay tuned for that. "The Night Circus," beautiful imagery. It's about star-crossed lovers who are embroiled in this
kind of magic competition. And it all takes place in a circus, which is a really fun setting for a book. I wish that there had been
a bigger confrontation between the two competitors
in this competition. It sort of plays out
over a number of years and they're very distant, and I wanted head-on drama, you know? Wanted a bit more of a climax. But it's a bit more of a slow burn, but it was still good. "The Whole Picture," a little bit of nonfiction. This is about the colonial
history of the arts in our museums and galleries. And also the process of
curating these exhibits and who is given a voice, and more importantly, who isn't. It's very interesting, very
pertinent, very relevant. It covers the BLM protests from 2020 and the Rhodes Must Fall movement. So, yeah, very contemporary
and very important. I learned a lot. Next book is "Crying in H Mart," more like crying literally everywhere. This is written by a
woman whose Asian mother never really said, "I love you," to her. But she showed her love visually and through food, through cooking, and acts of service. And so when her mother dies, she finds that food and
thinking about all these dishes that her mom used to cook helps her to sort of mourn that
loss and appreciate her. The descriptions are
stunning and mouthwatering, and it's super sad. This ripped me to pieces. So, it's getting a good review from me. "The Kiss Quotient," is a
brilliant, little romance, sort of "Pretty Woman" in reverse. It's basically about a male escort who is hired by a woman with Asperger's to basically help her get some
experience in the bedroom, and then obviously, they fall in love. So there you go. "Letters to a Young Poet" made me have so much respect for Rilke. This is a collection,
obviously, of his letters, where he wrote so generously and openly and thoughtfully about
his creative process, and that makes it fascinating to read. And I actually read this because Andrew Garfield recommended it. And, of course, I made a video on him. Next up, we have "One Last Stop." This is a sapphic romance, but also a hugely important
theme here is friendship. And I love stories about a
really good group of friends who are just there for each other and support each other. It's all set in New York and there's an element of fantasy, but very, very light. So a woman has basically
been frozen in time on the New York subway. Our protagonist gets on the subway and falls in love with her. I feel like we've all
probably fallen in love with a stranger on the train at some point in our lives, right? But most of us won't follow
through with it at all, and most of us also won't realize that they've actually
been there since the '70s. Look, I can only speak
from my own experience, it's never happened to me, but I liked this book. Next, we have a book
that I literally finished about an hour ago, and that is the "Final
Revival of Opal and Nev," another Women's Prize nominee. And this is about a musical double act and their careers, their peaks and troughs, but also a race riot that
they were involved in which results in their
drummer, who is Black, being killed. The book is then written from the perspective
of the drummer's child, who is basically trying
to uncover the truth of how everything sort of unfolded. And if you do fancy this book, I would highly recommend listening to it as an audio book because
at least on Audible, it has a full cast and it's genuinely like listening to a Netflix documentary. It's so good. It kind of is like
"Daisy Jones and The Six" meets "The Seven Husbands
of Evelyn Hugo" in one book, but not quite as good as those two. But I enjoyed it, I couldn't stop listening to it. What do we have next? "Ariadne." Do you like how I said that as if I didn't write the list myself? Anyway, this is one for
the mythology lovers. And "Ariadne" re-centers female voices and female experiences within Greek mythology, you know, the people
who are often overlooked or seen as kind of peripheral characters. Instead, we get their perspectives and their experiences, and it's a real page-turner. If you like Madeline Miller's "Circe" and "Song of Achilles," this is like almost as good, not quite, but almost. I wish it had been a little
bit more descriptive, but I really liked the themes. "On Sun Swallowing" by Dakota Warren, who I just adore. This is just so superb. It's a collection of poetry, completely vulnerable and unshrinking. It's kind of brutal at times and so memorable. All about girlhood, reverence, hedonism. And Dakota just has such a
brilliant way with words. There's so many stunning lines. I can't wait to follow her career. Speaking of which, another master of modern poetry, Ocean Vuong. "Time is a Mother" did not disappoint. It's tender and intimate, but also unflinching. And his command of the English language is just unmatched. I would give anything to be able to write like this man. Okay, we're into the top 10 books that I have read so far this year, starting with "A Bright Ray of Darkness." This is a book that I
didn't expect to enjoy anywhere near as much as I did. The main character is kind of a scumbag, he's this famous actor
who's basically been exposed for cheating on his wife
who's also very famous. And we follow him as he is
public enemy number one, and also approaching his Broadway debut. It's the kind of book
that I just gobble up because there's so many
fascinating conversations between kind of unlikely characters. The interactions are fascinating. It grapples a lot with fame and the craft of acting, and touches on a range of subjects, especially the idea of remorse. "In a Grove" was recommended
to me by a professor of a course that I was applying to. I didn't get in, but I did get a cracking
recommendation out of it. So I'm not mad. (laughs) This is a short story where seven different people
recount the same events. And it's so interesting because it just shows how different people perceive one event in a slightly different way, and also recount the
event in different ways. And it's absolutely genius. I thought it was great. Moving on. The next book that we have is "Upstream" and this made me fall in
love with Mary Oliver. She speaks about art
and the creation of art in the most perfect, brilliant way. It's the kind of book
where you just wanna say, "Thank you. Thank you for articulating that. Thank you for putting that
into words," you know? There's a huge emphasis here on the importance of nature and the natural world
being the greatest teacher that we'll ever encounter, and I loved it. I loved it a lot to be honest. "The Vegetarian." Now, on the surface, this is a book about someone
who becomes vegetarian and then is just constantly
criticized and questioned for her decision. It's seen as like a
very extreme thing to do in this culture. But beyond that, what the
book is essentially about is the idea of not conforming, of making a personal decision which you know is the best for you and other people just not getting it, not understanding you, not being able to shoehorn you into the perfect image that they have of how people should behave and act. It's about going against the
grain and committing to it. And I thought it was great, very strange, but, like, in a cool way. (laughs) Speaking of which, "At Night All Blood Is Black." This revolves around
a soldier from Senegal who is fighting in the French army. Now, his best friend who
is fighting alongside him gets severely injured and basically says to him, "Please put me out of
my misery and kill me." Our main character cannot
bring himself to do this. And so as a result, his friend dies a much
slower, more painful death. And this experience
leads our main character to sort of descent into madness. He starts going on these
kind of killing frenzies and collecting the fingers
of the people he's killed. And this, quite understandably, begins to disturb his fellow soldiers. And it's horrifying, but really hypnotic. Next, we have a "Recitatif"
by Toni Morrison, the only short story that she ever wrote and it's absolutely genius. It also has an introduction
by Zadie Smith, who, honestly, I think, should just introduce every book ever. And the story is basically
about these two girls who grew up together at an orphanage and then how their paths
cross a lot later on in their lives. One of them is Black and
one of them is white, but the twist is Toni Morrison never
tells you which is which, and that is so fascinating. It's an experiment, but not for Toni Morrison. It's an experiment for the reader, and researchers who have studied this have actually found that
white people often think that one particular character is white, whereas Black people often think that same character is actually Black. Oh, and by the way, these last few books have all been kind of like 4.7, 5 stars out of 5. So very nearly, full marks, but I'm very selective with which books I give five stars to. So these are my five-star books. Firstly, "Transcendent Kingdom." It's about reconciling
religious faith with science. And it's about a woman
who just finds herself completely surrounded by suffering. Her brother died of an overdose, her mother is suicidal, and all this leads her to
really questioning her faith, the faith that she's always known. It's an intimate, layered
portrait of this family, and the final lines just wrecked me. Okay, the third best book
that I've read this year is "The Bread the Devil Knead." This completely knocks the wind out of me. It's a graphic story
about domestic violence, but narrated by this completely unique and unforgettable voice. It's set in Trinidad, and the narrator speaks
with a Creole dialect, which if you're not familiar with, does take a little bit of getting used to, but once you do, it's so worth it. There's so many genius lines. It is so witty, with a really vibrant cast of characters, and the final, like, 100
pages just had me hooked. It's a book I can't stop thinking about, it keeps pulling me back, and I would love to see this win the Women's Prize this year. And speaking of which, my second best book
that I've read this year is also from that list. Oh, I've miscalculated, sorry. This is actually number three. Damn, I can't be trusted
when it comes to numbers. Okay, sorry, this is number three, "The Island of Missing Trees." This is about a Turkish
Cypriot and a Greek Cypriot who fall in love, despite it being forbidden and kind of frowned upon. There's kind of echoes
of "Romeo and Juliet" and they meet in secret in
this pub under a fig tree. Then when they later move to London, they take a cutting of
this fig tree with them and replant it in their garden. And so part of the story is actually told from the perspective of the fig tree. Stay with me here. It's such a magical book. It's about love and trauma, and identity and belonging, and growth and regrowth, and traditions. I was a big fan. I loved this book. Now, the actual second place. I can't believe I messed
up in the final bit. Anyway, the actual second
place is "Project Hail Mary," which is a book I never
expected to rate this highly. It's a sci-fi book, which is very similar in tone to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and also by the same author
who wrote "The Martian." And basically we meet a man who has woken up on a spaceship. He's on a mission to save planet Earth, but he has no recollection of why. Over the course of the book, his memory slowly comes back and we learn about how the earth has been in this massive kind of peril, and it's just genius. The global crisis in this book is completely made up, but it sounds so legitimate and there's loads of physics, but it's explained in such
an accessible and fun way that even I found it engaging, and normally, I hate that kind of stuff. It's very funny. It sort of leans into the fact that it's a little bit silly, I guess, but it's also really sad. Tell me why this book had
me crying over an alien. Please read it, it's really good. And finally, the moment that
we have all been waiting for, especially my throat because it's sore after
filming for this long. My favorite book that
I've read so far this year is "Panenka." I will confess that a
book that makes me cry shoots its way up to the top of the list, and this is no exception. Panenka is so immensely sad, and it's about a man who is an ex-professional football player. And a Panenka is basically
when a football player takes a penalty, and instead of shooting left or right, they sort of kick the ball up and into the middle. And the idea is that statistically, a goalkeeper is more likely
to dive left or right. And so they're kind of
mentally preparing themselves to do one of those two things. And so you throw them off by shooting straight down the middle. Anyway, the character
basically attempted this and in doing so, cost his team a really
important match of football, which, I will add, was
very pertinent to read after last year's Euros final for England. And so he essentially becomes
an exile in his own town, and also a bit of a laughing stock. And he gets these crippling headaches, which he refers to as his iron mask, and he loses everything. And the book follows him as he tries to put back
together his broken life, and the writing is just
stunningly beautiful. For me, the most important
thing is exquisite writing and it's so heart-wrenching. I underlined so many lines, tons of great conversations. It is so quotable. I would say, if you
really need a strong plot to enjoy a book, this maybe isn't for you. In fact, a lot of my top
choices probably won't be 'cause I'm much more invested
in characters and moments than I am in, like, a plot. But if you love conversations about ordinary, normal domestic life and family and friendship, and love and flawed characters, read this, please read this. I thought it was so great. Yeah, I think it's a really special book. And so, there we go. Those are the books that I
have read so far this year ranked from worst all the way to the best. It's been a journey, but I hope you didn't get travel-sick, and it's good to be back. So, thank you very much for watching. Make sure you do subscribe if you're new or if you've been enjoying my videos, and you haven't yet pressed the button because we are in the territory
of a million subscribers, which is mad, but I would really appreciate it if you click that red button if you enjoy my content. If not, don't worry about it. Massive shout out to
Squarespace, of course, for sponsoring this video. The link is down below. Have a wonderful day. All the best, stay in touch, and I'll see you next time. (lips smack) Buh-bye!
