Hello everyone, my name is Olivia and welcome to another recent reads in front of my Christmas tree
So I am going to talk about the next ten books that I have read
If you have not seen previous recent reads that I have done on my channel
I will link the playlist down below so you could see me talk about all the books that I read throughout
2019 and in this video we're going to talk about my 81st read to my 90th read. We're almost to a 100 books
I don't know how that happened this year. But I guess I was just a reading machine. So let's just get right into it
So the first book that I want to talk about is the haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
this is a classic horror book that I listened to on audiobook and I listened to it mainly because I
adore the haunting of Hill House on Netflix.
So the haunting of Hill House is about a group of people who go to Hill House, which is a renowned
haunted mansion that has been
abandoned for years
and years. And, a woman named Theo, a woman named Eleanor, and Luke, who is one of the heirs to Hill House, is
Invited to stay in the mansion for a couple of days with this doctor who is studying the mansion
So while they are staying at the mansion a bunch of weird happenings occur, there are
knockings on the wall, the doors shake, the doors open and close without
abandon and it's very difficult to walk through the mansion because it almost seems like it's
changing with every twist and turn they take when you're walking through Hill House.
So while I did enjoy the audiobook, I really enjoyed how it was narrated. I enjoyed the writing, overall,
I do have to say that the Haunting of Hill House, the Netflix show, does such a wonderful job
taking the bare bones of this story and turning it into a complex
storyline that is much different from the book. I feel like the book lacked a real plot
I wish we learned more about Hill House itself and why it's haunted
I wish we learned more about
the
hauntings and the ghosts that are staying in Hill House because I feel like the novel itself was mostly just centered around the scariness of
Hill House and the brief stay that these characters had in the home itself. Meanwhile, the show has such a complex plot
There's a lot of character development
It explores Theo, Elenor, Luke and all these other characters that the director created for the show
And I feel like the show is so much better than the book because the book was just very bare-bones
It didn't have a lot to it
and I wish it did have more because I saw the show first and
Then I read the book and I can just say that the show is much better than the book, in my opinion.
So the next book that I read was
phenomenal and it was The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez.
This is a story about the Peter Pan movement in Cuba. So, many people don't know about this piece of history
but when the Cuban Revolution occurred a bunch of parents decided to risk everything that they have to send their children to
America alone. They wanted to give their children a new life in America where they are free where they're not being ruled by
Castro. So they sent their children to America where these churches and these people volunteered to take care of these Cuban children until
hopefully
everything cools down in Cuba and maybe they can return and I really enjoyed this novel because it is a
fictionalized tale about the Peter Pan movement in Cuba and it follows a girl and a boy
who were sent to America, after the Cuban Revolution,
and it follows them before they were sent to America and then it follows them after they're sent to America
So you get to see their contrasting lives because in Cuba they lived such a lavish lifestyle and in America
It's much more different because they don't know English that well, and they don't know the American customs
so they're very much othered
once they're in America and
I really enjoyed it this novel because it highlights a piece of Cuban history that not a lot of people know about and one of
my neighbours is actually a person who was a part of the Peter Pan movement
So it just really opened my eyes to a piece of history that I previously
didn't know that much about and I think it's a very important novel for Cuban history and Latinx history itself.
And it was so well done. It's a much younger young adult type of novel
I believe the main character is 14 and it was just so well done
I also read it in one sitting because it was so short and
the writing is much more simplistic than other YA novels and it reads kinda like a middle grade into young adult novel.
So I would highly recommend this novel if you want to learn about another piece of Cuban history or if you want a Latinx
historical fiction to read. The next book was provided to me by the publisher
so thank you so much to FSG books and they provided me with a copy of Find Me. Find Me is the highly anticipated
sequel to Call Me By Your Name and this follows the characters much later in their life
And it follows three points of views. It follows Elio, it follows Oliver, and it follows Elio's dad
Samuel and I feel like this book fell very flat for me
I wrote an entire review about it if you want to see it and it's over on my website
Which I will link down below so you could see my full review
But it fell very flat for me because I was not interested in Elio and Oliver's story
In fact, I only really cared about Elio's father's story and his romance that he had, after the events of Call Me By Your Name.
So once Samuel's point of view was wrapped up and we went into Elio and Oliver's point of view
I just felt myself kind of get lost and not any good way
I feel like I didn't really care about Elio and Oliver's story and I feel like their relationship
just really changed in this book and it felt like there was no chemistry
it just felt like they didn't belong together and they just
didn't seem like a right fit for each other, in this book. The first book was wonderful
I feel like it should have just ended off that way and I feel like the sequel wasn't really needed
It was cool to explore Samuel's life
but it just did not capture me the way that Call Me By Your Name did so this was sadly a
disappointment for me. Another book that I feel like didn't really need a sequel was Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
I think I said in my Goodreads review that this feels much more like a filler book
It's a very short book compared to Carry On, which is the first book in this series
following a boy named Simon who has magical abilities and he's fighting against villains
And he's also enemies
with a boy named Baz who is a vampire but over time they do fall in love with each other and this explores their time
after the first book, after they defeated the villain, after they are considered heroes. It explores what happens to
Simon now that he's considered a hero, but he doesn't have his powers anymore
and he kind of just feels stagnant in life because he doesn't have a
particular place in life because once you're the hero and you saved the day now, what do you do?
And I think that was a really cool topic to explore and it's really fleshed out in this novel
but I feel like the book was just a filler because it's just about the
shenanigans that Simon, Baz and Penny get up to and I just wasn't really that interested in the novel itself it was
entertaining in some
aspects in some chapters
But the whole book overall just didn't hold my attention the way that Carry On did, sadly. The next book
I read I took out from my library on audiobook and it was The Killer Across The Table by John E
Douglas and it was narrated by none other than Groff Sauce
From Mindhunter who plays Holden in my Mindhunter on Netflix.
This was a very interesting
read because it explores John E Douglas dealing with four different cases throughout his career after
creating and working with the Behavioral Science Unit.
So it follows four very distinct cases that are very different from each other and explores how
these killers mindsets can be so different and the way that they commit their crimes are so different
I do have to say I loved the first two cases
But the last two cases I wasn't that interested in the first two cases were much more
interesting and intricate than the last two cases, but I do have to say that Groff Sauce narrating
this novel was so good because it just felt like a mind hunter episode playing for hours and hours
He narrates books so well
and I feel like he should narrate more books in the future because his voice is so soothing and so calm and it just really
Fit this book because he plays the main character in Mindhunter.
So I feel like him narrating John E
Douglas' books was such a wonderful fit and that really made the audiobook that much more enjoyable
Like I said before the first half was much more interesting than the second half which tends to happen a lot in books
I feel like it was always a strong start but once you gets to the middle once you gets to the end then it starts
slipping down and I feel like the author loses their ability to hold our attention
which is what happened with
The Killer Across The Table. And the next
Non-fiction that I enjoyed was Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered and it's by Karen Kilgariff and, Georgia
Hardstark and they are the cofounders of My Favorite Murder, which is a wonderful
hilarious
comedic
true crime podcast that I can't stop listening to. So, this
chronicles different parts in their life and the different life lessons that they learned and
It's just sharing pieces of their life to their readers and to their listeners and they have gone through so much in their life
I give them so much kudos for just
rising above all the circumstances that they went through and this novel which is such a treat to listen to because they both
narrate their different chapters and you just get to learn more about their lives.
I feel like if you don't listen to their podcast,
you would not give two shits about this book because it's very much only
for the readers and listeners who really care about Karen and Georgia themselves
So if you're looking for some true crime stories because they do do a true crime podcast, this isn't the book for you.
This is much more about their lives. And I also learned some really important life lessons through their work
They just taught me some important things to remember as an adult and I really enjoyed that and it was just a really fun
Audiobook to listen to that you could finish really quickly because it's a really short book. The next book
i read was actually a book I was very iffy about. In the beginning
I was kind of disappointed because I feel like it didn't follow the synopsis of the book
but once I got towards the end of the book it completely won me over and
Made this almost one of my favorite books of the year and it is The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells.
This is a book that I originally started reading physically
But I was kind of in a book slump so I decided to take it out from my library
on audiobook and I feel like that's what really saved the book for me.
I was not in the mood to read it physically so listening to it was much more enjoyable to me and
This follows the story of these three siblings who lose their parents very early on in their childhood
So they have to learn how to live their life without their parents when they are these young teenagers
just trying to understand life and understand their place in life
and it also explores how they each grieve in a different way one brother just lives a very
straight and narrow life and this kind of just plain and boring and he's doesn't really feel fulfilled. His sister in the novel is very
rambunctious and very wild and is unable to be settled down because she doesn't process her parents loss
that well.
And then we have the main character who doesn't feel like he has a place in the world and he is pining over
Alva, who is a girl that he was best friends with in school and then they had a
Falling-out and then he's hoping that someday down the road they can end up together.
So this literary fiction
Really explores grief and explores just growing up and growing older, it explores
Family and it explores like second chance romance. It's very much like A Little Life.
It explores characters from their teenage, college life all the way up to their adulthood, and I think that's really cool
I feel like only certain authors can do it well
Exploring a large chunk of someone's life is very difficult to do because there are ups and downs and there are different
circumstances that happen and different troubles that arise at certain ages and this did that
wonderfully
It also explored grief in a subtle way that kind of just rose and rose
towards the end and I was listening to this audiobook one night in bed
and I was just
straight up sobbing for a solid hour just listening to this book because the way that grief is explored was just so
Hard-hitting and so relatable and was so real and raw that it just completely like overwhelmed my emotions
I just enjoyed this novel so much and I also want to say this is translated from German
So if you're looking for a translated book that you want to read this one was wonderful
The audiobook is also wonderful as well. The next book I read was Luck On the Line
This is a romance following a woman who is kind of forced to work on her mother's
opening of her restaurant because her mother just kind of left right before the restaurant was going to open so the daughter has to take
over and just reel in everything and try and make it the best opening as possible
And while she is doing that she is also
forced to work alongside with the
Restaurant's chef, and he very much does not like her. So, they are forced to put aside their differences and work together on this
restaurant's opening and while I
really wanted to enjoy this book because I love enemies to lovers and I love when characters are forced to work in really close settings
especially when the tensions are high
I feel like the chemistry wasn't really there between the two characters and I feel like the storyline itself
Just wasn't that interesting while the premise does sound interesting. It just left me disappointed
The premise was cool
But it it just didn't hit the way I wanted it to. The 89th book that I read
this year was The Bear and The Nightingale and I listened to this on audiobook.
I feel like because I'm not a big fantasy reader
I could only really listen to them on audiobook and retain my attention onto the story because whenever I read fantasy books physically,
I just cannot get through them. I just don't have like the attention span
So I listened to The Bear and the Nightingale on audiobook
This is about a village where there are a bunch of magical happenings and the main character, Vasilisa,
her mother dies when she is just a child
So her father marries a new woman who does not allow them to do the traditions and rituals that they do
to work with and please the spirits in their village
So once they aren't allowed to do that, all these spirits and all these different
creatures start getting angry at the village and they start taking out their anger on the village and it
Explorers Vasilisa as she grows older and it also explores her meeting
I think he's like the embodiment of winter
so like Jack Frost and they have to try and ward off these evil spirits that are trying to take over the village and while
I did enjoy this audiobook because it reads and just flows like a beautiful fairy tale
I feel like this story was the foundation for this series. The plot wasn't really there for me
I feel like it only really picked up towards the end of the novel and that's when I was really interested
and that's when the story ended so I have to read the second book because I
do want to know what happens next to Vasilisa and the and the God of Winter and
I want to know what happens to her family
I didn't feel like there was a lot of plot development and just felt like it was introducing the plot to me
So I'm not gonna say this was a terrible book
It was so beautifully written but I do have to say that I wish there was more to this story
But I am going to be reading the second book because I have to know what's gonna happen next
And I feel like this first book was just a build-up and the second book is going to be
explosive. So the 90th book that I read was The Air You Breathe and this is about two girls who live on a plantation
together. One is the daughter of the owner of the plantation
And the other is Doris who is one of the servants on the plantation. It explores their childhood together
They are childhood friends
but there's always a power dynamic in their friendship and Dores is always on the bottom because she is a
servant to Graça, and they end up moving together to the Lapa neighbourhood in Brazil where it is full of music
It's full of vibrancy, it's full of creativity and they both want to become musicians
Graça wants to be a well-renowned singer and Dores
explores over time that she is really good at writing music for Graça
So as they grow older together they become so well known around the world
Graça becomes a worldwide known singer who is very successful
and Dores is always on the sidelines and she is always
watching her best friend succeed and she's never getting the recognition for the work that she also puts in
to help Graça succeed. While this book was really interesting,
I do have to say I did not enjoy this book solely based on the fact that Graça was a
terrible person to Dores. No matter what stage in their life
they are in Graça was always just demeaning and mean and
ungrateful to her best friend who is doing everything that she can to make her be successful
So while I did enjoy this historical fiction
relaying the life of Dores and Graça and all their friends and the band that they had together, I could not find one
single aspect of Graça's personality that I enjoyed because she was just a terrible, vindictive, and emotionally abusive
person and that wasn't okay and I feel like towards the end of the novel Dores was like, "Oh well,
Graça was my best friend throughout my whole entire life
so while she does have her faults, she's still a good friend." And I'm just like, "No, girl, like she was a terrible person
to you. You have to recognize that and just come to terms with the fact that you had a terrible friend."
It just made me really sad that
Doris just let that treatment slide and it makes me sad that that there are probably people out there who have friends like that
who are so mean and who always put them at the lowest rung. It just really made me sad in general
So those are the next ten books that I have read
I hope you enjoyed listening to me talk about the books that I've read recently
and I will be sure to link any review that I have for these books down below if you want to read them. Also, be
sure to follow my Instagram if you want to see what I'm currently reading
I always post what I am reading on there if you want to see what I'm reading in real time. If you have not subscribed
already be sure to do so to support me and see more of my videos, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. Bye