Hi, my name is Penny and as usual I'm here to talk about some bookish things
specifically today I wanted to talk about my top books in 2019 but as I said
in my previous video, I read 250 books in 2019 and it is way too hard to pick just a
few favorite books from all of those so instead I've split it up by genres. My
last video was all about my favorite high fantasy books of the year and this
video I'm gonna talk about my favorite low fantasy books. But I always hate the
term "low fantasy" because it sounds like an insult and that's not what I mean. What I
mean is more urban fantasy, magical realism, books that are fantastical
but set more in a modern, real-world setting. But before I get into that top 5
I did just want to mention a book that I'm about to start reading. I expect that
I'm gonna finish reading it in 2019 but haven't read it yet so I can't put it in
this list but I'm pretty sure it's gonna be in this list so we're gonna mention
it anyway. That is Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater. This is the first book
and a new series which is a follow on from the Raven Cycle series by Maggie
Stiefvater. I just love this world and you can't really talk about this book
without spoiling the first book but if you haven't read the Raven Cycle then I
really recommend you do because you're gonna hear people talking about this
series all the time because even though I haven't read this book yet, I have no
doubt the series is going to be amazing. I love Maggie Stiefvater when she's at
her best and I think this is gonna be it. I hope so.
But since this is just like a mention the real number 5 is also by Maggie Steifvater
and that is the Scorpio Races. This is a book I listened to on
audiobook this year and I do really recommend the audiobook because the
narrators do beautiful Irish accents and I think it really adds to
the story. I know Maggie Stiefvater always puts a lot of effort into
audiobooks with adding music and so I really recommend all her books on
audiobook to be honest. It's a great way to reread books that you really love. I
also relistened to the Raven Boys books this year on audiobook and I thought those
audio books are also really wonderful to listen to, the shiver series
audiobooks are really great to listen to. Anyway, this is not a video about
Maggie Stiefvater. This is a video about my favorite books of the year.
So the Scorpio Races is about this young girl named Puck who is an orphan. She
lives with her brothers in this house and they are about to lose the house.
There's also this boy, I have forgotten his name, but he works for this stable
and he would really like to run things himself.
So they both need money and the way that they decide to get some money is to
enter this horse race as on this island where they live, horses regularly come
out of the sea. These sea horse type creatures. I forget what they're actually
called in the book. Anyway they're very violent but you can catch them. Every
year there is a race of these horses. It's very violent. People normally die. In
fact, I think Puck's father died... or the boy's father died? Parents died in this
race so it's a very violent thing. People aren't very happy was Puck entering the
race because it's normally only men that race. But I just love the characters
in this story and I really recommend this book.
Then another book that I really love this year was the Dark Vault by Victoria
Schwab. In fact, this is actually a wrap-up of the Archived and the Unbound,
so two books, and I will admit only the Archived is really on this list.
The Unbound let me down a little bit. Sometimes that happens. But the first book,
The Archived, is about this library of dead people's memories. So locked up in
this library are these essentially it seems like it's dead people but it's
really only their memories. And we follow this girl whom is kind of responsible, or
one of the people who's responsible, for tracking down these dead people's
memories when they escape the library. She's also dealing with a lot of grief
and the her family has just picked up and moved to a new place after her
brother has died. And her grandfather has also died and he was the only one who
really knew that this is what she did because he used to do the same thing and
that's how she's ended up doing it. I really loved this world and this concept
of this library of the dead and I thought the
way that it dealt with grief was also really beautiful and wonderful. I love
the imagery of the keys that's throughout this book. And I really look
forward to at some point Victoria Schwab getting back to this world as well as
the TV show that's going to be made of this show so lots to look forward to with
the series. Then number three is a book that I was looking forward to for a very
long time and that is Magic Triumphs by Ilona Andrews. So this is the tenth book
in the Kate Daniels series, which follows this girl named Kate Daniels who is a
mercenary in this world where magic has started to come back. So it's in an
Atlanta a little bit ahead of now but magic has started to come back in waves.
And when magic is working, technology isn't working.
When technology is working, magic doesn't work. It goes back and forth but magic
coming back has made the world a very dangerous place, a lot of the magic is
quite out of control and Kate Daniels, our mercenary friend, is helping people
to deal with what's going with that magic. She also has a very magically
powerful family but they're not a very happy family and throughout the series
we're building up to her final confrontation with her father and this
book is the confrontation. And I thought it did a really good job of wrapping
everything up. It didn't exactly go how I wanted but I was definitely happy with
this as an ending for a series. I really love the unique take on vampires and
shapeshifters and necromancers and just different mythology from all over the
world gets wrapped up into these stories because Kate Daniels is an expert on
different kinds of mythology. And the magic that comes back is very dependent
on people's beliefs so mythological creatures everywhere. I do think the
first couple of books in the series can be a bit hard to get through. Each one is
kind of like a murder mystery. Normally there'll be some kind of mystery that
Kate is trying to solve. But sometimes the first couple of books have a little
bit of info dumping so you have to get past those first couple of books. But
once you do, I'm just sure that you would love the snarky way that Kate Daniels
talks and her relationship with Curren, although
sometimes unhealthy, I think it shows how cake kind of deals with that. And I'm
actually just really sad that this series is over. There are going to be
more books set in the same world and I hope that they will include a lot of the
same characters. Then number two is another audiobook that I listened to from the
library and there is An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard. I only read this
recently. We basically follow a bunch of different magicians as they prepare to
participate in this tournament where the house of the winner of the tournament
will gain control of this secret underground magical society in New York.
When I think about this book I always think of the main character as being
Sydney, who is this very powerful mage but she has also come out of this dark
magical organization and she has plans to take that organization down and her
whole purpose of entering this tournament is in fact to change the way
that the magical society works. And I really enjoyed her storyline. And all the
other characters in this world were great as well, but Sydney was definitely
my favorite. And there's a sequel to this book coming out next year which I'm very
excited about. Then the number one in this group, I have seen it listed in
different genres. I've seen some people try to argue that it's a horror or a
thriller or magical realism but it's definitely set in our real world with
magical elements so it belongs in this group and that is the Middlegame
by Seanan McGuire. This is another one where I got it out of the library but
once I have the money I definitely plan to buy my own copy. I think this was just
so different from so many other books. We follow these two twins that have been
created through alchemy as they try to figure out their powers and also just
figure out the sibling relationship that they have discovered between the two of
them. At the same time they're being manipulated by other people who want to
use their alchemical powers. Seanan McGuire is using this same very
fairytale, whimsical voice but at the same time she's using the way that it's
written to analyze the way that society works and question the way that society
works. This is another one where definitely think that some people would
consider it to be a bit slow but if you appreciate the way that she's
constructing this prose and constructing this world then I think that you would
love Middlegame. Trigger warnings for suicide. There is definitely some parts
in this book they're quite intense so that's something to be aware of going
into it. But personally I really enjoyed how this book made me feel and it was
just so unique and interesting to read. So those on the top 5 low fantasy, if
you want to call it that, low fantasy books of 2019. Do let me know if you've
read any of these books. Did you enjoy them as much as I did or do you think
there are other fantasy books that I might enjoy even more? Let me know and
keep an eye out for the rest of my favorite books in 2019. Otherwise thank
you so much for watching! I hope you're having a wonderful day and I will see
you next time :)