my favourite books of 2021

hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello everybody today i am going to be sharing with you my favorite books of 2020. i will not be ranking them because i don't feel like doing that to me these are all the best ones the top tier and i mean as my mug literally says all books are winners monk's available down below in all honesty this was a pretty strange reading year for me last year i had a really solid reading year i read a lot this year i really didn't read as much as i usually do i think okay this is another thing i should address i was going to say i think i read almost 30 books and i might read 30 books by the time that the year comes to a close and obviously that's a great amount of books there's no good amount bad amount it's all on our own personal scales let's not make it a giant stressful catastrophe it's fun to do these yearly summaries but in the grand scheme of things i don't think of my reading as a yearly activity i think of it as a lifelong activity and in terms of my life's reading it's going great i'm doing a great job but the thing i feel i must address is there's gonna be people who are like how are you doing your list like i'm filming this it's december 11th i think god it's been a difficult and really tiring month okay if i look bedraggled it's because i'm bedraggled i literally have sawdust in my hair and my hands are covered in paint it's fine i know that some people wait until the new year to do this video and that's totally cool in truth i know i'm only going to finish two or three more books maybe by the end of the year i've got some great books to talk about here i don't think any of the books i'm reading right now are going to be like they could be but i don't think they're going to be like the new favorites of my life and if they are i can just talk about them in january it's fine it's okay speaking of favorite books do you want to find a new favorite book maybe our sponsor can help you with that today's video is brought to us by book of the month let's see what they sent me book of the month is an online book service for readers their mission is to promote new and emerging authors and help readers discover books they will love how it works is simple their team vets hundreds of books each month and their subscribers can pick one of those five titles to enjoy they have a really great skip policy which means that if for any reason you need to skip a month you can at no charge let's look at the books they have for december somebody's daughter by ashley c ford a flicker in the dark by stacy willingham the holiday swap by maggie knox a history of wild places by shaya earnshaw olga dies dreaming by sochil gonzalez and their add-on book this month is the anthropocene reviewed by john green and boy is this the right month to try it out because for december if you use the code jolly in my link down below you can get your first hardcover for 4.99 five dollars ladies and gentlemen go and click it did you like that segue i thought that was pretty good okay let's jump into the books i'm i'm thrilled i'm thrilled to be talking to you about these books let's start here these are all the same book book number one is anne of green gables and here's four different versions of anne of green gables so the last two years i've really been having a moment with anne and i think that that moment is going to continue on into 2022. 2020 obviously very difficult year and in the summer time i found myself comfort watching the netflix show and with an e the fact that that show was cancelled unacceptable literally have considered writing a letter to whoever the hell was responsible for cancelling that show okay i've said my piece we'll move on anyways i watched that show and it was so important to me it really got me through a very difficult period and so afterwards i was like i don't want to leave this world so i rewatched it but also i read this graphic novel last year um this is an adaptation of great of anne of green gables illustrated by probably my favorite illustrator of all time brenna thumler this is a gorgeous book um i will have already done overlays but you can see this too um super beautiful i loved it and i was like ariel what are you doing read the freaking book so i read the book this year so it's sort of been like for over a year i've been immersed in this world of ain't and then finally i read the novel and i think that actually was a really lovely way because by the time i finally read the book i was so excited to know more about the characters and it was like reading the book was filling in all these gaps um so this is a version i purchased a few years ago because of you know it's a canadian classic i've wanted to read this for a long time and i just didn't happen to read it as a kid and then i ended up buying this version because this came in a box set because it's an eight book series which people may not know but that is why 2022 might be also the year of end because i've got to keep going i want to keep reading the books um but also this is so cool this is an anne of green gables adaptation as well but it's a manga adaptation which is phenomenal just phenomenal so i'm very excited to read that as well but let me tell you what it's actually about obviously you probably know it's a classic but anne of green gables is the story of an orphan and shirley she's 11 years old and she wasn't supposed to be adopted it was a classic mix-up there's an elderly brother and sister marilla and matthew cuthbert god it makes me emotional just talking about these characters this is how much they mean to me marilla and matthew they work on a farm they um neither of them are married they've just always lived together in their family home and they need help so they wanted to adopt a son to help them on the farm and instead whoops they got n and n first of all is a girl which remember this was written in the late 1800s at the time it was like a girl how is she gonna help us on the farm but that's kind of the point of the story you know the point of the story is like anne is amazing she is wonderful and it's you know a story of them needing to save each other and is going to help them maybe not physically like not through physical labor but through warming their hearts with the joy of love and then they are finally going to give her a home where she can grow up and be like i genuinely feel like crying right now it's a mixture of how powerfully this store how powerful this story is how much i love it and how tired i am anyways i love this series i ser i say series i haven't read any of the other books but i loved the first book i loved the show i loved this graphic novel adaptation i'm gonna keep reading the books it'll probably take me a few years because i'm terrible at reading series i'm i'm not good at like finishing one and then instantly reading the next one but i hope i can keep going i've talked too much about anne of green gables time to move on um i guess i'll keep going with novels should we move no well okay that was my classic section now we're going to go into let's do my non-fiction section because i think this these are really cool this one i'll just i won't talk about this for very long you've heard about wild by cheryl strayed yeah i'm late on this party so interestingly the first book i read by cheryl strait is tiny beautiful things it was not wild and i read it because a friend of mine gave it to me and really recommended it to me so i read that i loved it love i love tiny beautiful things it's a phenomenal book it's so good read tiny beautiful i like actually i actually like tiny beautiful things more than i like wild not like way more but just personally i love that book but this year me and my best friend on our podcast we decided to read this book together so we read wild and it's great it's great i don't want to be cheesy i don't want to talk about it too much because like the world knows that wild is great there's a reason why it's as famous as it is and there's a reason why reese witherspoon start in the movie right like it's a great story it's a powerful story but i just really love sheryl straight i think that this is actually a really phenomenal book and if you haven't read it and you were kind of maybe this is why i wanted to talk about it because like a lot of the time books get so over hyped that i think a lot of readers actually don't want to read the book because they're like that's the that's like popular uh books i don't need to read that no you should it's really really good it genuinely also made me want to like go hike the pct i don't think i would hike the pct though i'm more of like a backpack through europe on the train system kind of a person god i want kova to end okay the next book is the sound of a wild snail eating by elizabeth tova bailey oh my god i have these great pictures to insert right here um so this was a book that i think somebody actually recommended to me through the podcast maybe on instagram i don't really remember but i and i'd heard of it before so i was finally like yeah okay i'll look that book up it this is like such a perfect read for me but i have such a hard time recommending this book to people because i understand why a lot of people would find this boring but bear with me stick with me hear me out maybe you'll like it this is about a woman who right at the beginning is traveling she i forget where but somewhere in europe and she gets um an illness she gets very sick she has to cut her trip short she goes home and she's getting all these symptoms so she's like in the hospital getting tested nobody can figure out what the hell is going on and so it's just like really mysterious sudden illness that is that has happened to her she's trying to figure it out and you know eventually she does find out kind of what is going on with her but partly the book is about the struggle for diagnosis with kind of rare disease and rare chronic illness and the second thing is it is a chronic illness so it's not something that can be fixed or like has a cure it's just some her life has changed she has to adapt to a new lifestyle and it's about coming to terms with that and what her new life is like as a person who is often bedridden and especially kind of that first period like we're looking at the the transition now i think this it's been like 12 years since this event but this the specific story the little the nugget of what the story and all of that is revolves around is how one of her friends had come to visit her at her house and had seen a little snail outside and so picked it up and put it in a little planter pot and brought it into her and was sort of like i thought you'd like this company and the the um the author elizabeth tova bailey's like i don't want to snail and she's like no no you'll like it and she's like no please don't leave me the snail and she's like no no you'll love it and she leaves and she's like now i've got this snail i mean what do i do and she just watches the snail this is what i'm talking about it's kind of boring but boring in a way i love it's the slow simmer baby it's beautiful it's a really beautiful story i have ehlers-danlos syndrome it's not something i talk about often on my channel because i don't know it's a little personal but i live with chronic pain i'm always in pain i'm in pain right now my ankles are killing me so it's really nice and interesting for me to read stories about people with chronic illnesses and chronic pain it's something i was born with it's something i've had since i was a kid it's a sad moment to get diagnosed with something but it's also a wonderful moment because you're like i know what i have and i can find a support system and i can read about other people that have the same thing and it's so validating when you type in the thing and then you type in a symptom and it's like yeah it's a common symptom and you're like i'm not alone it makes sense a little bit um but it's also sad and it's devastating and it's isolating so i love this book i thought it was so good if you have actually any recommendations about books about chronic illness or chronic pain i would love your recommendations down below okay let's do graphic novels i'll finish off with novels i mean you guys can see that cover what am i doing this is terrible um okay two graphic novels i love graphic novels and this is a this is a hill i'm willing to die on i'm gonna keep prodding this dead horse it's not dead in fact i really that's a bad metaphor because graphic novels are like more alive than they've ever been obviously the art of comics goes back hundreds of years if you want if we want to talk about the the caves of what is it let's go i'm not going to talk about the history of of depiction but you know comics have been huge for a long time and comic books where kind of graphic novels were born out of a mixture of novels and newspapers and comic books graphic novels um but they're just getting more and more popular like it's it's such an exciting time to be into graphic novels because so much more is being printed um and these were just two of my favorites this year and why i said i'm going to keep priding this dead horse is because i recommend graphic novels a lot and i know it's a hard sell people that don't read graphic novels don't want to but like not i think they just i and i get it i was there anywho um i started getting really hooked on them and because they're so beautiful they're also very quick to read and i now i'm realizing i went on some tangent and hadn't finished a thought i had been saying earlier in my introduction i was talking about how i haven't read as much as i like to read in a year this year because i've just felt so busy this year with renovating my house and doing other sorts of projects and i think it's because i've moved into a new house in a new space and it's a space i'm renovating that for like a long time i didn't have an office i didn't have a living room so i don't have like that nice place to read so that's definitely been an obstacle stopping me from reading very much this year but that's another great reason why i love reading graphic novels because i can read them so quickly and that's not to say that i'm rushing through them they just read pretty quickly because a lot of the reading is just looking at pictures and i just love enjoying that illustration i don't need to like sell you on graphic novels but suddenly i felt that i should attempt to sell you on graphic novels i feel like there is a little bit of elitism it's like oh my god it's pictures it's like yeah it's beautiful art that you get to just look at biographic novel maybe one of these two so these were two of my favorite ones that i read this year the tea dragon society by k o'neal this is definitely a children's book but it's absolutely beautiful and sweet and cute if you're into cottage core what are you talking about what are you talking about you need to get this um k o'neil they do beautiful beautiful work i've read other books by this author and illustrator and they're really good and this was just really sweet i really enjoyed it and then this other one an embarrassment of witches by sophie goldstein and jen jordan is so funny it was really silly and cute and sweet and if you're looking for a book about witches people love books about witches this is sort of a weird book about witches because the it's like they're not really witches they're like in a witchy world but because that's the norm it's not really a witchy book it's just about two women who just graduated from university and they're trying to get their first jobs and have good relationships and it was refreshing dare i say okay we'll finish off with novels here we go here we go this is i probably should have started with these to get the views to get the watch time god damn it ariel the watch time what am i talking about so this first one kim ji young born 1982 by cho nem i read this book because of my friend monica kim i will link her channel down below beautiful videos everything about her is beautiful you'll see go see your channel you'll see what i mean it's all just beautiful and pink um she recommended this a couple of times in different things i saw her mention it and we'd had a little conversation on instagram about something and she was recommending this book to me and i was like that sounds really good i'll definitely check that out and i'm so glad i did it's so interesting it's this is okay wow here we're going on another tangent ariel god damn it okay george orwell my favorite author he has had he's dead he had this opinion that all art is political and more importantly it should be that's why he wrote novels because he wanted to be political he wanted to use his art to have political purpose and push ahead his ideas and you know warn us about things we should be worried about and i feel like this is the first book i've read written in a fiction fiction book that i've read written in recent times where that message really rang through i kept thinking about what like that that idea that george orwell had obviously he's not the only one who has that idea but i'm just you know he's my favorite author so i think of it in his work it's so prevalent um this is a fiction book but i've never seen this before it has footnotes throughout it that are linking to non-fiction to real life in the in the actual earth that we live in studies and reports and statistics that back up what's happening in the fictional story so our main character kim jiang born 1982 she's supposed to just symbolize like your average south korean woman very ordinary when she comes up against for example workplace harassment there's then a footnote that's like you know x percentage of women in south korea experience sexual harassment in the workplace and you're like whoa this is such an interesting blend of fiction and non-fiction um and what's also really interesting is just knowing that this book made a really has made a really big impact in south korea so glad that it was translated into english so that we get access to that it was phenomenal it was really really interesting and this is really why you should trust your friends when they recommend you books because they know you and they're sort of like yeah no i think you'd like this book by the way did you just see me check my microphone shout out to my patrons because my microphone it was a disaster the other day my microphone broke i had to drive all the way into the city the big city because i live in the middle of nowhere so to drive into the big city and get this new expensive microphone but it was okay because of my patreons so thank you now we have a fancy lav mic what do you think guys our final book the ghost in the house by sarah o'leary and then i'm gonna go to bed i clearly need it i saw this randomly in a bookshop and i thought ghost cool and it was by a canadian author where does she live probably toronto montreal what do you know i went in not really knowing what to expect and i loved it it was so good so it's about this woman who wakes up and realizes she's a ghost she's dead and you know first of all it takes her a while to figure that out and so the more she comes to accept her situation the more she comes to understand what's going on in the house and she realizes she is in her house and her husband is still there but five years have passed and he is actually remarried or he's like about to remarry and it that's scary right because she's like already freaked out that she's dead but now she's also freaked out because she's now living kind of in the house where her husband has a new wife what and so not only is this a book this is what's so cool about it not only is this a book about ghosts and accepting your death it's a book about like letting go of a relationship and accepting that the world has changed without you it was beautiful it was it made me cry which never happens i never cry when i read i cry a lot like when i watch movies music lately is really making me cry a lot but this really it did it made me cry maybe twice i i loved it these were many of the books i loved this year no i have really enjoyed sharing these with you i am super looking forward to reading next year you know what this book has betrayed me many times it's really slippery okay and every time i try and use it for a thumbnail or for a photo on instagram it betrays me so put it at the top as i was saying i'm really excited about reading next year i have some fun goals planned and if you want to hear those check out my book podcast every year at the end of the year we do a bigger wrap up than what i've just said so i'll talk about these books because they were my favorites but i'll also talk about you know my favorite covers and a lot of my reading statistics breakdowns did i achieve the challenges i set out for myself at the beginning of the year and then we'll have another episode that'll come out where i talk about all of my reading resolutions for 2022 and if i have any challenges or goals and i do and i think they're fun down in the comments below definitely let me know what your favorite book of the year was i'd love to know we can do a little repository of great books in the comments and let me know if you've read any of these or maybe if you would consider adding one of these books to your 2022 tbr pile thank you to book of the month for sponsoring this video like i said thank you so much to my patrons for helping me out and also thank you so much to everyone who's purchased the merch i can't believe the sweaters sold out and thankfully we have a new uh batch of them in if you're interested in the i'm thinking about book sweater um it's got the little tiny book on the sleeve i mean it's embroidered come on i will leave the link to it down below if you want to grab it there are only a few left so i recommend grabbing it soon if you want it for the winter time and people keep asking me about the size so i'm currently wearing an extra large and i should have gotten a large like i like things baggy like it feels pretty giant on me so do with that information what you will also people keep asking me how tall i am i'm five eight i am five eight okay i always wanted to be five ten and that dream didn't come true but i'm five 8 and that's still pretty tall actually goodbye now there was a weird energy in this video

Channel: Ariel Bissett

Views: 56,227

Keywords: arielbissett, ariel, bissett, books, book, book review, booktube, ariel bissett

Id: gh2Ga3Je-Zc

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 13 2021