I READ 5: popular YA fantasy books

hello welcome back to my channel in today's video i am going to be reading my five most anticipated ya fantasies usually in my introductions i give some long drawn out reason as to why i'm doing a particular video but to be honest i just wanted to read these y fantasies and i wanted an excuse to buy them so honestly that's that's what we're doing in this video we're gonna be reading my most anticipated y fantasies i'm gonna briefly tell you which ones i'm gonna read and then i'm gonna read them i know super self-explanatory super easy super breezy i hope you guys are ready for it up first we have the book that i am perhaps the most excited about and also the most nervous about we have kingdom of the wicked by carrie maniscalco this book i know little to nothing about i just know that a lot of people have said this is like an enemies to lovers or sort of like a dark romance in a ya book and i'm excited to read it i think our hero is like the prince of hell or something like that that's really the only thing that i know i'm hesitant about this book though because i had really bad luck reading stalking jack the ripper it just was not a book that i enjoyed but i feel like this is sort of up my alley and it's been compared to other books that i enjoy so i'm hoping that i like this one it was kind of impossible to get my hands on at the time i think i purchased this a few weeks after it came out and i had to go to a few different words and nobles to grab this so i'm hoping that it lives up to my expectations of it i suppose up next we have these violent delights by chloe gong i don't know much about this one again except for it's set in 1920s shanghai and it's sort of a romeo and juliet retelling kind of an enemies deliver situation again i'm excited for this one anything that has romance kind of at the heart of a story is something that's interesting to me and i've heard really good things about this book so i'm very excited to give this one a go next up we have cemetery boys by aiden thomas this is one that i think i've had on my tbr the longest of all of these books i don't know if this was the first one to come out of all of these books but i definitely wanted to pick this one up first and it was one of the books that i knew that i was going to read for this video this one i'm really excited about because it is about a brujo named yadriel who is trans it's about him basically summoning the spirit of someone he's not supposed to have summoned and it sounds spooky and culturally rich and i'm just really excited to give this one a go the next two books i do own but i don't own them physically i purchased them through librofm which is an audible alternative if you guys didn't know i'll leave a link in the description to libro if you haven't tried it out before but the first audiobook that i have is a song of race and ruin i've heard so many good things about this book but i haven't heard very specific details about what the book is about so i'm kind of excited to go into this book not knowing much the only thing that i really know is that it is an african inspired fantasy and i'm always in the market for more culturally diverse fantasies so excited to give this one a try and then lastly we have legend born which is set in north carolina i believe and it follows our main character brie i think it's kind of an arthurian retelling from what i've heard i don't know a ton about this one either but i am so excited to give this one a try as well i've heard nothing but good things especially from my friend mika again i'll link her channel down in the description below but this is one that i have heard literally nothing but five star reviews for so i'm definitely excited to give this one a try so that's it those are the five books that i'm going to be reading for this video stay tuned if you want to hear my thoughts on any of these five books i'll leave chapter markers in the description so you don't get spoiled for anything but without further ado let's get into the vlog portion of this video okay sorry that the lighting is a little weird it's probably like the worst lighting for the first clip but i am about 10 into legend born and i really really like this do you ever just pick up a book start reading it and instantly know that you're going to love it and you almost like don't want to keep reading because you know it's going to be really good and kind of like ruin you for other books i'm experiencing that with this book just from the even the prologue the writing is just so good i don't know what i was expecting going into this book i don't know i guess looking at the cover i expected this to be sort of like a younger demographic why a fantasy and it's not really that so our main character bree is 16 and in the prologue of the story we find out that her mother is dead and we don't really know what happened to her and then we're taken to a little while after and brie is now in this sort of residential program is what they call it it's basically i think a summer program for gifted children and they go to the university of north carolina to study and get kind of like a head for college at her first college party bree sees some kind of interesting things go down she kind of sees what other people can't see kind of like clary in city of phones and she is trying to figure out kind of what everything means she figures out that there are people who are legend born who kind of fight monsters and she's kind of figuring out that her past might not be exactly what she thought it was and that her mom might have been keeping some secrets from her again i don't want to make all of the comparisons to city of phones because this is like much better but it's so good it's got that like urban fantasy vibe to it but it's also kind of like academic because like they're in a college setting and on top of that this story doesn't shy away from kind of real world issues bria's black her family is black and there have been a couple of times when she has dealt with law enforcement in this story and you can kind of see how she feels interacting in the world as a black girl and i think that's really awesome i feel like i don't really see that very often in y a fantasy so it's so good i don't know what else to say i am so curious to see where the story goes i feel like we don't know much about the magic system or about these legend born people and i'm just excited to kind of see what's happening it's also kind of reminding me of this show on netflix called the order i think that's what it's called it's i don't know they like turn into werewolves but it's also sort of like academic but funny and this one hasn't really been funny yet but it's just giving me like a similar vibe so i don't know i'm really liking it i have a lot more to read i mean i'm only 10 in and it's a long book but i can definitely foresee this being like a favorite book of the year because it's so well written okay i am 40 into legend born and it's still fantastic i think any comparisons that i made to other forms of media other books and shows or whatever and the prior clips just throw them out the window this is completely unique i mean i knew it was i wasn't trying to imply that this book isn't unique based on this comparisons i don't know i just personally like context whenever i'm trying to figure out what their story is for me so that's kind of why i like to give comparisons but this is just completely different than anything i've ever read before and i'm just enamored with it i feel like i never want to stop reading this book and i know that's really dramatic but like it's that good so we are deeper into the story now i definitely understand where things are going and i'm just excited to get more reveals as the story goes on i don't really know if this is a spoiler because it's kind of talked about in the synopsis of the book but we find out that the magic the legend born people are essentially descendants of the round table so this is a retelling of like the arthurian legend which can be kind of hit or miss for me sometimes i'm into it sometimes i'm not this is a really really cool take on it and just the atmosphere and the ambiance that our author is able to put into the story without making the prose purple it's just like it's impressing me i'm just so into it and i think that's what i was trying to communicate by how well written this book is obviously it is excellently crafted but beyond that the way that she's telling the story is exactly how i like to read a fantasy i think with fantasy you really have to give me you know world building and everything but i want to feel transported even if it's like an urban or paranormal setting i want to feel like i'm there i want to understand the richness of the world and i'm definitely getting that from the way that everything is described and yet again it's not like purple prose i'm not having to sit through like long descriptions so i love that and then the attention to detail when it comes to breeze characterization and the things she's dealing with it's so impressive to me i feel like i'm trying to kind of revise some things that i said in the prior club not that i was wrong but i just don't feel like i like adequately described everything but the things that bri is dealing with in her personal life i think is i don't say really cool but i think it's important because in so many way fantasies we have characters whose parents have died or who are going through things but they don't ever really deal with it and never really feels like a real issue that's kind of my complaint about honestly every book ever like why a fantasy new adult stories they try to have these young characters who obviously have ties to their family and yet those bonds never feel real and never feels like the characters really give a about their family situation once they're thrown into like a romantic setting or in this case thrown into you know a magical world but brie is very much trying to balance her real life and her relationships with her best friend and her dad and dealing with the grief of her mother dying and it's just so excellently woven into the fantasy plot that it is it's so good i'm having such a good time reading this like i i said in the intro of this video it it takes a lot for me to pick up yeah fantasy not because i'm not interested in it honestly it's like the first place i go when i go into a bookstore and go buy a fantasy text man probably just because of the familiarity but also just because i really like it and i wanted to see if you know i still like it and that's obviously very much the case i just need to pick up the books that i own and pick up the books that i'm excited about i mean i love romance don't get me wrong like that's always gonna be number one in my heart but i just can't give up my fantasy it's just good and this book is no exception i am so impressed very excited to see where the plot goes um i'm liking bree's developing relationships with nick and god i cannot remember like the bad guy's name the merlin it's not really a bad guy but he kind of has like an enemies to i don't know question work uh relationship with brie so i think that's super interesting and i'm excited to see if there's a love triangle okay so i finished legend born and i have to give this book five stars this was phenomenal i love the way that this book ended and i would be hard-pressed to find a better ya fantasy to read this year and it is mind-blowing to me that i read this like in the first 10 days of the new year that like i found a new like favorite this is definitely going to be a favorite book of the year for me i was just so so impressed by it in every way everything that i said in the previous clips definitely still stands but i think the direction that the story went in was one that i think i sort of expected but it still kind of took me by surprise so at the kind of end of the book we get a little bit more insight into the generational trauma and the lineage i suppose of brie as a character and i thought that was fascinating i think there's hints of it kind of at the beginning of the story you're kind of wondering why her mother died a little bit more about her family in general and i think at the end of the book we're given that opportunity to like fully understand bree's family breeze heritage everything that comes with being a part of bree's family line so i thought that was a really really cool inclusion in this book and i liked again this combination of fantasy and real world i think it comes together even more so at the end of the book i don't want to spoil it so it's hard to kind of tell you exactly how those things are woven together we get so many reveals though i loved getting to know a little bit more about bree's powers i think in the beginning of the book and even in the synopsis you're led to believe that brie is more than just kind of a surface level human like there's more to her than that and getting that reveal was so cool i'm so excited to see where the next book goes i'm also excited to see where this love triangle goes as well there is kind of a love triangle that is built at the end of the story i didn't know if i would like one of the legs of the triangle because i'm kind of not as like into bad boys now but i sort of think i like him better than nick who is supposed to be like the love interest so i don't know guys i just i love this book so much if i have one recommendation from this video i mean i haven't read any of the other books yet but if i have one recommendation it is to pick this book up like i said the cover was something that didn't initially draw me in because i don't know why i just thought this was going to be like a younger y a i don't know but i i loved this this is so so good and i'm kind of nervous to start the other books now because i just don't know how this book is going to be topped so the second book that i decided to pick up is cemetery boys by aiden thomas this book is so good i'm 25 in and already the vibes and the pacing are just literally flawless like i am i'm not shocked that both of these books have been excellent but it is so rare for me to pick up two perfect books in a row so let me just tell you guys so far what i'm loving about this book the story itself is about our main character yadriel who is a trans boy growing up in east l.a and right now his greatest desire is to fully become a brujo he's grown up in brew hex culture pretty much his whole life his dad's a brujo his mom was a bruja and he has just always had this desire to just stay steeped in his culture and really you know be a part of his culture but since adriel is trans it has been difficult to get people on his side and him wanting to become a brew how they're like no you couldn't possibly do this like that's not who you are and it has been really tough for him and one day gaudriel decides to take matters into his own hand and i think with his cousin maritza he decides to undergo this brujo ceremony by himself instead of you know under the watchful eye of elders who know what they're doing and in doing so and kind of awakening his powers he ends up bringing a spirit into his life that he was not anticipating something kind of occurs on the day of the ceremony that he does himself that makes him want to use his powers and when he does end up using his powers he ends up calling a spirit that he was not expecting and i'm just honestly adoring this book from the very beginning you get this really lush atmospheric writing again that's not too wordy that's not too over the top or you know purple prose kind of like legend born this one gives me a lot of like rich fall vibes to it i mean we're obviously in a cemetery for a lot of the story at least so far so it kind of makes sense that this story would be kind of moody and atmospheric but on top of that i don't know i'm just kidding like all of the moody fall vibes which i'm really really liking kind of wish i had not started this book in february but like you know better late than never but this story was crafted so well and you can tell that it was so well thought out by our author from the very beginning of the story we are given introductions into yatriel his family his home life in a way that is not you know overbearing or info dumpy and from there we are kind of shown the actions that he's going to take to kind of not correct things but to take matters into his own hands and i like that i like that we're not just like simmering in discontent for chapters and chapters until he finally does something he takes matters into his own hands in i think the first chapter and we are just thrown as the action we're following yadriel and his cousin maritza and and this character who is you know brought in um summoned i guess from the afterlife we're just we're going on this journey from the very beginning i love that well i'm definitely more of a character-driven reader i feel like this is balancing the plot and the characterization perfectly so far i'm just loving this story and i'm really loving all of the cultural aspects that are interwoven in the story as well i like that we get to see the family dynamics that are present we get to explore um latinx culture in a way that i feel like i haven't gotten to explore in other books before i'm having such a good time reading this and i'd honestly be surprised if this is not a four or five star read like so far and this is really really excellent all right not gonna lie can't remember exactly what i told you guys last time i updated you but i'm 50 into cemetery boys by aiden thomas and i'm enjoying it i kind of wasn't sure if i was enjoying the direction things were going for a while because i'm not sure that i am fully convinced of julian's character and like if i like him or not but i am i am liking his character and i am liking the direction of the story so i think i told you guys last time i think because again i can't really remember what i said that i'm liking kind of the spooky atmosphere and i'm liking how the action picks up from the very beginning and i'm definitely still liking that my only hesitation really with the story is that the spirit that yadrial summons julian this is kind of like troublemaker boy at his school and he's a little bit i mean he's like a lovable himbo is kind of what i am going to describe him as kind of his archetype which i'm liking but at the beginning i was like he's a little irritating i'm not sure if he's going to be someone i root for and that's pretty crucial because a lot of the story revolves around figuring out what happened to julian why he is deceased and why yadrial's cousin is deceased like why are people dying across east l.a like what's happening i'm really liking the mystery aspect of it i'm not gonna lie i was again on the fence i just didn't really know at some points kind of where the story was going to go and i do think we've spent a little bit too much time in the pondering phase of things like i want the action to pick up again but i think it has at this point we had a lot of action at the very beginning and then sort of a lull but now we're kind of back into the action and i'm i'm enjoying it it's still really great and i'm loving just the subtlety of the story honestly like there are so many cool little cultural nuggets that i am picking up on and really liking i also just love that this is a story with a trans main character that doesn't shy away from you know the hard things that dadriel is dealing with but at the same time this is not a story about trauma which i love like i love that this is a story about a trans boy who's just trying to you know stay close to his culture and like kick ass and i love that so so far so good like i really think this could be a four or five star read for me which is so exciting because i loved legend born and i would love to give this one a super high rating too i think the only thing that could really stop me from enjoying this book is if the julian yadriel relationship doesn't develop in a way that i like if that makes sense right now there's a lot of tension between them and i like how julian is very respectful and he's like not an like he's definitely not like a bully in terms of like being a bad boy but he is a little bit irritating and he definitely wants to do things his own way even though he's like dead so i hope that he starts to kind of listen to adriel more and i love ya because i feel like as a genre you get a lot of growth with your characters which is honestly kind of rare in some other age categories i feel like or at least it has been and some of the books that i've been reading lately so it's so nice to like visit ya and just get characters who actually grow and change and i'm hoping that's the case for this book i'm sure it will be and i'm curious to see kind of what the friendship or relationship looks like between leon and yadreel i've talked enough i'm gonna go and finish this book i'll update you guys when i'm done okay so i'm editing this video right now and i realized that i never gave a final update for cemetery boys by aidan thomas i still have the book it's upstairs but i didn't want to go get it but i thought i'd give you guys my final thoughts so i ended up giving this book four stars i really really ended up enjoying it the only thing that was keeping me from giving this book five stars was the ending i felt like it was just a tad too predictable and there were a couple of events that happened that i was like that seems unrealistic i mean i know the story has fantastical elements but there were just a couple of things that i was like frustrated by and i don't really want to spoil what those things are i know that i've been like spoiling things throughout this video but i really do want you guys to pick this book up and pick a lot of these books up so while i might like hint at some plot points i try not to like spoil the entire ending of a book so i'm not going to tell you like who done it or you know what those reveals were they just felt really predictable and i think if you had read the introduction to this book you probably could have guessed how it was going to end and i wanted there to be like an element of surprise there and there just really wasn't so that was a little disappointing for me but i just feel like there were so many important things in this book i thought the setting was absolutely beautiful but also having a trans main character who you know is struggling but you know the story is not about trauma awesome i really liked to how that was handled near the end i thought that was really really cool and seeing yajrielle's family um specifically his dad come to accept him was so beautiful and it was really heartwarming and i just i loved it so i will say too i think this story is particularly cool because to me it reads for a slightly younger ya demographic and i think that's really important i think we see so much of this like sarah j maas stuff kind of targeted at ya audiences and i think there are people who want to read that but i do think it's important to have stories for people you know on the younger side of ya or you know like entering high school rather than like you know for 18 year olds so i think the story definitely serves a purpose i think everyone should read it anyway i really liked it and um i wouldn't hesitate to recommend it in fact i'm recommending it to all of you if you're watching this clip and you're like you know i don't care if i'm spoiled for it cause i'm not gonna read it go read this book i'm gonna get off my soapbox and then we can move on to the next book okay i hope you guys don't mind i ended up switching cameras because this one is just so much nicer quality wise like visually audio whatever i was actually editing the first couple of clips of this video and i was like i don't like this so i just switched mid video because i can do it but i am not that far honestly like 42 pages into kingdom of the wicked by carrie maniscalco and so this story is about amelia and her twin vittoria and they are witches in italy and there are other witch families as well in her italian town and their main goal i don't actually know what their main goal is to be honest i just know that the the main conflict here is that there are these princes of hell that we're trying to avoid at all costs and we've got magical necklaces that are supposed to keep these demon princes of hell away and one night amelia finds someone drinking blood over a dead body that's kind of where i've left off wow it really sounds like i have no idea what i'm talking about and honestly that's entirely true i just wish i liked carrie maniscalco's writing i really do i'm gonna continue reading this book maybe the story is going to be so impressive that i'm willing to overlook her writing but it's so i want to say clunky because that feels mean it's not like poorly written it's just i'm not having all of my questions answered i guess it's really my issue here so the setting has been really beautiful from what has been described we've got these kind of lush descriptions of food and this italian restaurant can it be called the italian restaurant if the restaurant's in italy they work at this restaurant called sea and vine that her family owns both you know amelia and vitoria they work there whatever and the food descriptions are beautiful and the descriptions of the town like everything is really picturesque and yet i have no idea when this is set there's no indication anywhere really when this is set i mean we do have like castles and in the back of the book but i mean this could be really set any time and it's frustrating me because i don't think it's supposed to be historical but also i need some context like do people have cell phones i heard something about long skirts but like i don't really i don't know it's frustrating me i know it shouldn't frustrate me this much but like it is irritating me i was tempted to go and look at art for this book to see kind of how people are dressed but that's annoying i like i don't like that in the first 40 pages we've got the setup for this book and yet i have no idea like where we're at time wise you know if it's a fantasy like okay cool like i can kind of kind of vibe with it but since it's set in italy like this is a real place so when is this set that's strike number one and it has really really really been irritating me i know it's like a small thing but it's really been bugging me i mean like i'm trying to visualize right like i'm reading i'm trying to visualize and then on top of that just it's like we're getting a lot of description and we're getting a little bit of setup but nothing really feels high stakes and i don't really care about the fact that these princes of hell might be after the girls is that bad i don't know it's like nono is trying to kind of warn us but also the stakes aren't really there because we hear that these girls can do magic but we have no idea what that magic looks like all we know about is these magic necklaces so anyway um i should probably stop talking about this until i get further in but i just wanted to let you know that that's how i'm feeling initially upon reading this book once i get like 50 in i'll probably give you guys like a this is what's happening if i can even get there i will get there i will i will get there but so far i don't know okay where to begin i am 50 into kingdom of the wicked and my feelings are kind of similar to what i was telling you guys yesterday i feel like while things are starting to make more sense and where i kind of get where the story is going it's very slow moving and i'm still just not loving the writing so that just off the bat is something to note since we last talked quite a bit has happened and again now i do know where the story is going we have amelia who you know finds this dead body which i think i told you guys last time if not she finds a dead body and the next chapter we find out it is her sister one thing that kind of irritated me about that was that the synopsis does a better job of explaining what happened in that moment in those like couple of scenes than the actual book does you have amelia talking to her sister in their grandmother's kitchen like in the kitchen of the restaurant that they're both in and then the next chapter you have amelia trying to search for her sister and there's no context as to where her sister's gone it's not like her grandma was like hey can you go search for your sister it's like a scene with them together and then the next chapter we're trying to find victoria and i'm like what i had to like go back and read it a couple times to make sure that i wasn't like missing a chapter or something no it's just the way carrie minisko writes and i don't get it i don't understand why but we find vitoria she's dead her heart has been ripped out and she's founded a monastery but she has a prince of hell leaning over her and licking like her blood off of his fingers and amelia sees this and is like oh she is now making her life's mission to figure out what prince of hell did this to her or who wants to kill all of these witches that have been going missing she ends up summoning a prince of hell instead of a lesser demon to help her it's wrath that's like the seven sin guy that she like summons or whatever and so far the story has just been like her having pseudosexual encounters with wrath and then like nothing else really happens i think she's trying to like solve the mystery and she has had encounters with some of the other princes but nothing has really come of it we haven't gotten any really solid clues about what's going on we have found out a little bit more about the like magical necklaces and apparently those are like the actual horns of the devil which i guess is kind of cool and you know dumbass that she is she takes hers off at one point and it gets stolen i just feel like there's a lot of pieces here a lot of like disparate pieces that are not being put together in a way that like is driving the story forward you know and that's a little disappointing because i want to like this i actually do want to like this i like a good paranormal romance i mean one of my favorite romance heroes is named wrath so i want to like this wrath but so far he's just kind of bland and he's giving me not thomas cresswell vibes but similar levels of irritating and not really developed enough for me to care like i want to hear his tragic bag story i want there to be something there i don't know i didn't realize this was going to be framed as a murder mystery which is kind of stupid of me because like it literally says in the flap of the book oh her sister said and she needs to like figure it out i should have known that this was going to be a mystery but it's not a very successful mystery in my opinion yeah it's giving me stalking jack the river vibes which unsurprising it's written by the same author but i was just expecting more i guess i'm gonna finish this and i'll give you guys my thoughts when i'm done maybe it'll turn around i'm not i'm not hating it to be honest like this is a more successful attempt i guess than stalking jack the ripper at least like the setting is pretty i think if i were to rate it i'd probably give it three stars that's like sort of generous maybe in the next like fifty percent it's gonna ratchet itself up two hundred percent like a hundred percent enjoyment five stars we'll see okay so i finished kingdom of the wicked and sadly my hopes of this being a five-star no this this is a two-star book and i'm sad to say that but i do think that a lot of people will enjoy this it really felt a lot like stalking jack the ripper in pretty much every way except for setting the reveal at the end the seemingly random plot that eventually leads to the solving of a mystery like it's got all of that stuff going on with the addition of a hero hero with the addition of a love interest that i think is slightly more interesting than thomas cresswell so i feel like if you liked stalking jack thurber you will likely enjoy this it just didn't work for me because carrie maniscalco's writing doesn't work for me there's really not much more to say than that and i'm sad that i didn't enjoy this book because i had really high hopes for it especially since you know like demon daddy of hell like that that stuff i like but this like really failed in the execution and so many of the chapters just felt so disjointed and i don't feel like i realized that so much when i was reading stalking jack the ripper i just knew i didn't really like audrey rose and i didn't really like thomas cresswell like the characters were really what didn't work for me in that and then the reveal did feel weird but i felt like the plot made maybe a little bit more sense in that book this one it's just so disjointed so random chapters are linear i suppose but there's like big time jumps between things or you know we'll go from like one scene and then the next chapters completely different scene and it's not something that was like talked about in the previous chapter if that makes sense like it just didn't it did not make sense to me the setting was really beautiful i don't think this writing is terrible i just feel like some decisions were made that i just didn't personally love and that sucks because i wanted to like this but you know you win some you lose some having two really good books in a row and then following up with this one like it hurts a little bit less i guess so that's all i really have to say i do however have another book that i need to start in on today i'm supposed to be posting this video in a day and i have two more books to read which is a little intimidating but i think i can get it done if i start now it's noon on wednesday the 17th of march so i think if i get this one done today and then read another one tomorrow we should be good i don't know you guys don't care about the logistics i'm sure but just know that i procrastinate more than i let on i'm gonna read these violent delights by chloe gong next because i am in a physical reading sort of mood and the last book that i have is an audiobook so i feel like this is kind of the move and i'm hoping that this will give me everything that i wanted from kingdom of the wicked like a y a that has quite a bit of romance in it um but like done better so hoping i enjoyed this i'll probably update you guys once i'm like 100 pages in and kind of let you know where the story's going what the story is about i really don't know much about this except you know all of the blurbs i've heard like romeo and juliet enemies to lovers you know shanghai 1920s situation but i don't really know what like the plot of the story is and like beyond the enemies to lovers like what what is there i'm excited to find out truly i feel like i've heard so much buzz about this book and i've seen this on bookstagram so many times but i don't think i've seen a lot of people reading it and that seems to just be kind of a recurring theme i've noticed at least with some of these like more popular kind of anticipated ya titles i see a lot of pictures and then not a lot of reviews which i mean that's just like par for the course when it comes to you know the book community like we buy a lot of books and don't read them but i would love to see more people actually picking these things up and so hopefully maybe this will inspire you i don't know i'm gonna read this and start babbling murderous bugs that's the answer to like what the main conflict of this book is let me start from the beginning i am enjoying this this is very good it opened so strongly the writing is just like worlds and leagues above carrie maniscalco's no offense carrie miniscalco i am so impressed that a college student whose debut novel this is like how just how that is my main thought so far like this is just so well written and it reminds me a bit of the diviners by libba bray in terms of like tone and atmosphere i mean i guess they're both set in the 20s so it makes sense overall just kind of similar vibes if you like that book i feel like you would probably enjoy this but essentially this book is about our main character juliette who is the daughter of like a mob boss and the gang itself is called the scarlet gang she's come back from america after studying and she is ready to kind of like take over her dad's still in charge but she's kind of like learning the ropes and trying to kind of assert her dominance essentially making sure that she can be the leader some stuff is afoot in the city that is making her concerned there has been a not string of murders but mysterious deaths that have taken place and we're starting to find out that there are these bugs that have been infecting people and making them kill themselves in really brutal and gruesome ways the way we found this out was in the prologue of this book or like right after the prologue which was like really nice and brutal we have people from the scarlet gang and a rival gang called the white flowers at this dock and they have met their end particularly gruesomely we don't really know at the beginning like what exactly has occurred and as time goes on we're figuring out that there are these bugs that are infecting people and making them kill themselves it's really brutal very interesting juliet is kind of having to interact with a member of the rival gang the white flowers his name is roma he's russian and it's so fascinating like i am loving their interactions they definitely have a history in a past which i'm liking so it's not like entirely true to the romeo and juliet retelling thing because romeo and juliet don't really have like a past right but they had sort of a fling and he betrayed her a lot of people ended up dead because of some information that she thinks that he acted on i think we're probably gonna find out later that like it was a misunderstanding and like he didn't actually betray her but anyway right now she's really bitter and angry at him and there's definitely still some tension there which i'm i'm liking i'm liking the way the tension is built it feels like the relationship writing in this is just much more mature i guess you could say than in the last book i hate to compare everything to kingdom of the wicked but since it's just what i read last easy to compare but i just really am liking this it is slow moving i will say the pace is kind of slow but it's atmospheric and i'm excited for the secrets to unfold this is definitely carrying along in a more linear fashion in a way that makes sense there's no like weird time jumps the chapters don't like feel disjointed yes i like this a lot this is really good i want to see more interactions between roma and juliet but other than that i have no complaints this is really really solid so thank god i mean i can take one dude but i don't think i can take any more than one in this video i feel like the past few videos i've been doing i just like have not been liking the books i've been picking up then stuff like this comes around and it's like hey here have a good book i'm gonna go ahead and keep reading i don't think i told you guys how far i am i'm a little over 100 pages in i think i'll be able to finish this tonight just because it's only like 5 30 and i have plenty of time so i'll be back all right i'll keep it brief because the lighting is pretty bad but i'm 50 into these violent delights and i don't really have much to say to be honest it is carrying on in a similar fashion to when i last talked to you guys it is still slow moving but we're getting more plot there has been developments in the murder bugs and we're finding out that there might be more afoot than just the murder bugs there might be a murder monster in the port harbor whatever which is kind of fun and we have juliet and roma teaming up to kind of figure out what is plaguing the city because their respective parents don't seem to really give a i think it's fun i like them teaming up i like the kind of romantic tension between the two of them it is fun to watch and i'm also liking the complexity of the story but there is a lot of additional commentary besides just this like kind of you know murder mystery plot sort of thing we also have kind of like anti-imperialist i don't want to say tones i mean juliet is just very like anti-imperialist because we have you know french people who are trying to kind of tell her family what to do and julia is very anti she like goes against her family a lot of the times and it's like y'all why are you putting up with this i don't know i'm liking that i like the history that i'm learning as a part of this like i did not realize that there was such a big immigration of people from russia to china during this time period i did some like googling uh because i was interested in the history around this time period so books like this are always fun because it is a way to explore history in a way that is exciting and it definitely sparks my curiosity which i'm really really liking so so far so good i don't have anything particularly revolutionary to say beyond that but i will finish this up and let you guys know my official thoughts but i really can't see this being any less than a four or five star okay so i finished these violent delights by chloe gong and i don't know i don't know how to feel about this book i think i'm going to give it four stars i think it's maybe closer to a three and a half star book which sucks because i really had anticipated loving this i was loving it up until um i would say like the 75 percent mark but there were just some things that happened or i guess honestly there were some things that didn't happen that i wanted to happen that affected my enjoyment of this book i don't want to go into too many details because i don't want to spoil kind of the ending and the who data mystery part of this story but overall i just feel like the romance while it was um in my opinion pretty mature and well thought out there weren't as many scenes between our hero and heroin as i had wanted i think if you're someone who really likes a good slow burn and you really want like tension and like quotes between your characters if that makes sense if you're into chasm and edge i feel like you would like the couple in this book because the interactions are similar there you know what i mean they've got a history they've got a past they have some interactions but they're not truly romantic interactions or at least not traditionally romantic interactions i think you'll like this i personally was wanting just a little just a little bit more you know because we've got such a history between the two so i was hoping we'd see some payoff and we didn't really see payoff in that regard and then when it comes to the plot i did kind of mention that it was slow moving and i think that's very accurate to the entire book there was i guess like a big scene at the end but it didn't really lead anywhere there wasn't a satisfying conclusion but there also wasn't like a big you know cliffhanger either so i was just feeling a little let down underwhelmed at the end of the book so it was like there was so much potential here and the writing is awesome i love the elements of history at play i just wanted there to be more elements of the fantasy and of the adventure and it felt more like a slow-moving detective novel almost that's kind of the vibe that you get from this i don't know it's been a while since i've read the finers but i really do think if you'd like to dividers you would probably enjoy this yeah that's how i felt i don't know i i liked it and i think you should pick it up for sure but it just wasn't like my perfect novel and that's sort of how i felt about cemetery boys too so it's again it's not like i don't recommend but you picking them up i just you know i wanted i wanted a little bit more and that's okay because i know that this will be kind of like a perfect novel for a lot of people so anyway i am now ready to move on to a song of wreaths and ruin i hope you guys are excited about it because i'm excited about it when i say like i'm ready to move on i've already moved on if i'm being honest it is thursday morning um on march 18th i can't remember what yesterday was i just know today is thursday and i'm posting this video today and i need to finish this book today but i've gotten a few hours into the audiobook and i thought we could talk about it so so far a lot has actually happened in this book and i'm liking the contrast and pacing between this book and these violent delights it's nice going from something sort of slow moving to something that's very actiony and fast-paced so we have karina and malik they are our two main characters and the two povs in the story malik is escaping his kind of like war-torn country and he is trying to find a new home in zoron which is the country that karina is going to rule one day so malik comes on the day of the solstacia festival not like the day of but you know around the time of this like big festival that only happens every 50 years in this country and he escapes with his two sisters and he's trying to find a new life for himself but things become a little tricky when his younger sister nadia is abducted and he has to kill the crown princess karina to eventually save his sister that is the kind of deal that he makes with the spirit because the spirit is unhappy that karina and karina's mom like rule the lands he ends up kind of getting into a situation where he has to kind of compete in these trials that happened during solestasia he ends up being like you know this miraculous chosen one who is asked to compete against you know other people who are also competing and he's just kind of thrown into this situation it's sort of like a katniss situation like he hasn't been training his whole life for these trials but he's kind of thrown into him thrust into them and where i left off he is you know kind of preparing himself mentally and physically as in you know getting all cleaned up getting ready to kind of face this battle and then we also have karina's point of view so karina a lot has happened for her her father and her older sister have passed away and she's still kind of dealing with the grief of that and dealing with the fact that she eventually is going to have to take over the kingdom of zoron one day so she is still very angry she doesn't like the responsibility she wants to kind of play music and her mom is upset that she is kind of shaking her responsibilities and not really taking seriously this role that she's going to have to take on and unfortunately one day when karina and her mom are talking her mom ends up being murdered by an assassin and karina is quickly thrust into the situation that she didn't necessarily anticipate so i think that's kind of a common theme between the two characters malik is having to repeat in these trials that he never thought he was going to have to compete in and then you also have karina who's having to take over for her mom and while she knew that she was eventually going to have to she didn't really fully consider what that meant or um ever anticipated would happen as quickly or as soon as it did so she is ensuring that this festival still happen even though her mom is deceased because this festival is something that ensures that everyone in this city is safe and so she's having to kind of take care of this and also deal with her grief so there's a lot going on there's a lot of moving pieces i think eventually malik and um karina are going to have some interactions since he is tasked with killing her but so far so good i'm really loving again the fast-moving plot i'm enjoying the characters there's a lot at stake here i don't feel like either of the characters is necessarily 100 fleshed out but i definitely understand their motivations i understand where they're coming from and i'm just liking the story i think it's really entertaining and while it does kind of fall into some tropes that i don't necessarily love like i typically don't pick up fantasies that are about royals like that's not usually my thing this is such a fresh take that i am kind of enjoying what's going on so i'm excited to continue reading this book i'll give you guys an update once i hit the 50 mark and um then i'll finish this book and then we'll be done with the video i know kind of wild i can't believe that i'm actually going to probably post this video today no one's more surprised than me i will be back once i am 50 in okay so i didn't lie per se but some stuff came up at work and i had to do a bunch of and also listen to this audiobook while i did it like i didn't have time to pause and give you guys a 50 update so i'm just going to tell you guys my final thoughts on this book i don't exactly know how to feel about it there were a lot of things that i think worked really really well about this book there are a lot of things that just didn't work for me personally but i know could work for other people so let me try to kind of tell you what those things are so first of all um i think i mentioned it in the last clip but royalty sort of stories whether it's you know a fantasy or contemporary tend to not work for me i don't know what it is it hasn't always been the case for me but it seems like most royalty type stories that i pick up lately i just haven't really like gelled with very much maybe because it's something that i can't relate to in any regard maybe that's it i don't really i don't know trying to psychologize probably isn't smart but i just tend to not like that sort of trope and then on top of that sadly i just didn't like karina's character i was dreading her chapters like every time they came around because she was just i don't even know how to put it into words like i understand where she was coming from a lot of the time she was very angry at her mom for dying i guess she wasn't mad at her mom for dying but she was just a really angry character very vengeful also immature at the same time it didn't feel like it was coming from this place of like righteous anger i don't know i just i couldn't really relate to her character and i just didn't really like hearing from her point of view by contrast i did enjoy malik's point of view though i feel like he's so different than any hero that i've read in a ya book in a really long time i feel like usually even even adult books we have heroes who tend to be a little bit more gruff and like don't show their emotions and malik is definitely not like that but he also didn't fall into like a stereotypically soft role either i know in a lot of like the schwab books you have like a really hardened female main character and then a really really soft male character but like very flat um this wasn't the case like malik i feel like was very developed i understood where he was coming from i liked the anxiety rep i liked his chapters but it was hard to sort of enjoy the whole story when the story is told from two points of view and i didn't really enjoy karina's point of view and on top of that she was also royalty so it's like not really my thing and then i think the ending and just overall setup of this book just was a little i don't want to say predictable but kind of i don't know maybe i'm just like i'm kind of burnt out on the whole like necromancy thing after reading um cemetery boys i don't know this wasn't bad obviously like i enjoyed it and i'm kind of torn on whether i want to give this three and a half or four stars it just wasn't my perfect high fantasy and that's perfectly fine because i did actually still have a good time reading it and i would recommend the audiobook if you want to give it a try like i said i'll leave a link to libro in the comments or in the description because that's how i access this and uh if you click the link below i don't know if you'll get anything special because i'm not really like an affiliate with them but i think it's a really great service and you are contributing to whatever like local bookstore you want to contribute to it's like going into a regular bookstore so you don't have to go anywhere i don't know what else to say at this point i had a really good time doing this video i definitely discovered a new favorite waia fantasy which i am so surprised by i mean i i expected to like most of these books but i didn't expect to come away from this video with like having a new like all-time favorite and honestly legend born like game changing you have to pick it up if you haven't picked it up pick it the up because it's so good and then honestly pick all of the other books up too i feel like there's such merit in each one of these titles except for maybe kingdom of the wicked you probably skip that one all the other ones though definitely are important in their individual ways and are just overall like fun reads so i don't know i had a really good time doing this i love why a fantasy and i've missed it and i'm just excited that i got to read all of my anticipated titles so thank you for sticking around this long honestly hopefully this wasn't too bad i think this is going to be like a 45 minute video for you guys again thanks so much for watching i appreciate you guys so much i have a new video coming on sunday that is romance related i love you guys so much and until next sunday you

Channel: chandler ainsley

Views: 30,333

Rating: 4.9655356 out of 5

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Id: 1aG2K9AHuSw

Length: 42min 35sec (2555 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021