Hey guys it's Abi and today i'm gonna be telling you my top five
favourite historical fictions so although fantasy is my favourite genre historical
fiction is a pretty close second i really do love it and i don't read as
much of it as i would like but these are some that i've absolutely
adored throughout the years and i'm looking forward to telling you
about them so i'm gonna start with the one that i read the longest ago
and that is just henry by michelle magorian this is a book that i haven't
really heard talked about it is a big book it's got big writing
obviously but it is 600, 700 pages. 700
which is a large size for i'm pretty sure it's a middle grade maybe
young ya book but it's so good so this follows a young
boy called henry and it's a little bit after the second
world war and everyone's kind of come back and his father was lost in the war
and his mother has a new husband i believe
maybe they're not married yet a new partner, no they have a baby and it's
world war ii new husband and it's henry essentially coming to
terms with the changes in his life coming to terms with the reality of the
people around him and learning to become
a man rather than a boy i guess obviously still within the context of
being aimed at children and it's heartbreaking this book is
so so emotional i have read it many a time
if you can see the cracked spine this had me fucking sobbing
like full-on fucking sobbing
even as an older teenager which is the last time i fully read through this i
will frequently pick it up and just kind of read the end of it but the last time
i fully read through it i was like 17 max
and i'm just sobbing at the end of this book it is so intense so emotional so
heartbreaking but in a really beautiful way and it really does show
the growth of henry from like boy to man but still in
that suitable for a y audience kind of feel
it's amazingly written as is everything i've read
by michelle magorian it's just absolutely beautiful i could have
included back home or goodnight mister tom on this list both
books that i've adored i've read both of them a million times i
think i read goodnight mister tom a lot more when i was younger
and then read back home a lot more when i was an older teenager
all the teenager no i read goodnight mister tom when i was like
nine and then i read back home when i was like 10 but i read it more when i
was like 13 14 15. so when i was a teenager not
when i was an older teenager i didn't read when i was an older
teenager i was in school i had no free time but yes this is awesome
next another book i read very young is the dragonfly pool by eva ibbitson
another one aimed at a younger ya audience maybe
even middle grade so this one is also the second world war
noticing a theme and there's a young girl sent off to boarding school because
of the war so instead of being evacuated to
countryside she's evacuated to a boarding school
in the countryside and they go on a lot of
adventures and end up going to a made-up kingdom
it's meant to be kind of like Belgium
sweden? No belgium switzerland-esque but fictional so that there's no issues
i really like it this is another kind of coming of age story
but still set in that historical time period with just
a lot of beautiful themes in it if you've read any eva ibbotson before you know
her writing is really lovely sticking with the world war ii theme the
book thief by marcus zuzak this is most definitely an adult book
you will have probably heard by now it is narrated by death
and we follow a young girl called i was going to call her lyra
liesel why did i go for golden compass northern lights lyra
but we follow liesel behind enemy lines i guess
she's in germany she's living in the cities in germany
during world war ii and i just as someone who loves reading
world war ii fiction and world war ii non-fiction it was
really interesting for me personally to read from the other side we get a lot
from the victor's point of view a lot from the british and
a few from the american point of view but this was the first thing i had read
from the german point of view and obviously it's a work of fiction but it
was just incredibly interesting to learn more about
how regular german citizens would be living in this time i also loved
death narrating it like it was awesome like it was just
it added that extra something that i really needed to this book to make it
just perfect and a little bit creepy and i
remember crying on this book there is a page somewhere
that is marked with my tears and this is one of the books that got me
back into reading as well when i started at university this is one
of the first ones i picked up and i'm very glad i did
then the miniaturist by jessie burton this is set in the 1600s?
late 1600s, 1686 in amsterdam this is an adult work but it focuses on
an 18 year old girl who is sent off to marry some bloke and
she has to move to the city to live with him and as a wedding gift he gives her a
doll house that is a replica of the house that they live in
and she starts to fill up with miniatures
and weird things are happening and it's really interesting it's very
much a contemporary historical fiction if that makes sense
like it's not fantastical it's not hard hitting it's
very much like living in the life but it does have
a really good twist at the end that i wasn't expecting
and i don't read much about the 17th century anyway let alone 17th
century outside of britain which would be
my first port of call for a book like that so it's really nice to learn a
little bit more about another country even if it would have had
similar cultural things in the high society circles that she's now in
because she's married this rich guy but it was very interesting and then
finally is the underground railroad by colson whitehead
this is the most recent one i read it is again an adult fiction i read this
all in one day sat at my aunt's pool
pool? paddling pool in the garden in the heat
and i couldn't put it down it's very very intense this
follows people escaping slavery so if you didn't know the underground railroad
was the term given to the system to get slaves out of
slavery and out of plantations in the us and it was never actually a
railroad but colson whitehead has taken this name
one step further and made a railroad underground and we follow
various different individuals as they escape from slavery
so because colson whitehead's black it actually shows a proper point of view
there's no white saviour crap there's none of this
like oh and then they get to the north and live happily ever after
it's very much realistic they get to the north and they're still racism they're
still treat like shit but they are treat like shit as free people so
it's like better than being in slavery but he
still points out all the flaws that were
present and all the discrimination that still
was really heavy against people of colour and
specifically Black people at that time and now let's be fucking real and it's
hard hitting it's really hard hitting i had to try
not to cry my family that i was with are not the crying type shall we say so
i had to hold back a lot of tears when i read this
and it is quite a punch in the gut but it's
a necessary one i believe there's a lot of i assume it's from whitewashing
of like oh they escaped slavery and then they were happy ever after in the north
the north of the us was so much better and
yes it was better in that they weren't you know enslaving
black people but it doesn't mean that it was
equal it doesn't mean that they got treat like fucking citizens of the us
it was still atrocious and this really highlights that quite a bit
definitely a good read if heartbreaking and those are my five
my top five historical fictions so i did include some of
fuck's sake i did include some YA/middle grade i'm not
entirely sure what age category these two would fall into
younger ya at least if not middle grade because they are some books that i
adored so so much and have re-read various different times as you can tell
by how falling apart they are i actually bought the miniatures secondhand but
even then it's still in a lot better condition
than these two that i got brand new from my mum when i was a kid
these stories are all amazing they are all emotional
as tends to happen with historical fiction it does tend to
try and hit you where it hurts and these all
succeed in a manner these two are a lot more
make you sad but in a beautiful way and these three
seeing as they are adult books will just punch you in the gut let me know
in the comments down below have you read any of these did you read these when you
were younger or even now and if you have any what did you think
of them i want to have a chat about them in the comments
down below thank you so much for watching make sure to click subscribe if
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and i'll see you guys next time bye!
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