Hoi! I'm Sanne and I'll be sharing with you my favorite books I read in the last
year, in 2019, which is always the video I look forward to filming the most. It
feels like the biggest video of the year. Oh and of course I will be sharing how many
books I read as well, with a reading goal of 100. But before we get started I
quickly wanted to ask you a question to put in the comments, because this year
I really want to do a video where I read books recommended by you.
By now a lot of you will have a good idea of what my taste is like. If you want to
check out which books I have already read I log it all my Goodreads.
Basically I would love for you to recommend one book specifically for me
that you'd like me to read and talk about, ideally something that you think I
like and leave it in a comment below. First of all I very quickly wanted to go
to my Goodreads stats. How do I do that on my phone? My 2019 in books. So I read a
total of 62 books. Usually every year I did the 50 book challenge. This year I
wanted to do a hundred and I was really happy I did, because it meant that I was
just trying to read as much as I could and I ended up at 62. Which I'm actually
very happy with. I read fourteen thousand four hundred and thirty-one pages. My
shortest book was a Dutch picture book about dinosaurs and my longest book was
Dracul with 608 pages. This is a stat of my most popular book that I
read, so it's the book that the most people have read that I've also read, was
my reread of Twilight, which has been read by four million eight hundred and
sixteen thousand four hundred and seventy one people. And the book that I
read this year that was the highest rated for everyone else was becoming by
Michelle Obama I listened to the audiobook for that one okay so let's get
into my 10 favorite books I pick these books based on how they made me feel
whether I want to reread them again whether looking back the story really
stuck with me or if it's a book that I really would recommend to other people
so that's kind of how I make my decision also I did a my favorite books of the
year so far video about six months back and I haven't looked at that because I
didn't want to be influenced by it okay let's get into it I don't really know
to do this in so I'm going to do a random order I'm gonna start with an
audio book that I actually also happen to have the physical book of and it is
the gentleman's guide to vice and virtue I use my local library app to listen to
the audiobook for free and I just had such a great time and for this book I
would like to particularly recommend the audiobook the narrator's voice very sexy
and the book itself is also very exciting very saucy just like a great
adventure of this young bisexual Lord who was going on his grand tour aka his
gap here which is a topic that when studying at uni I was really intrigued
by so when I heard there was a why a book that covered that topic it's like I
have to read this also in love with his best friend Percy his sister comes along
I loved the speed of this I loved all the things that got up - and how you get
to see like little pieces of Europe I think the story at the end gets a little
bit wild as in like the plot doesn't necessarily go the way that I thought it
would go and maybe doesn't make a hundred percent sense to me at least but
I absolutely loved this there is a sequel as well as I'm going to listen to
but would really recommend this if you're up for a fun rate then I'll
quickly mention this which I do remember was in my favorite books of the year so
far video six months ago and it is lullaby which is a book that's
translated from French it is a thriller I would say I don't read a lot of
thrillers maybe a bit more of a literary thriller it's quite a short book it's
about a young couple in Paris maybe their life isn't exactly how they want
it to be and they hire this nanny who comes highly recommended
and she seems like the perfect nanny but then things start getting a bit odd and
you read part of it from her perspective part of it from the couple and it keeps
switching and it just from the beginning you know it's gonna be a dark story
because the subtitle is the baby is dead it only took a few seconds just the way
the nanny's life was described and her personality was described and the
viciousness of how people react to each other really stuck with me you might
have seen this coming a little bit but I think this might be one of the first
times that I have two books by the same author on my top 10 list and it is
Cersei and the song of Achilles by Madeline Miller I feel like by now
you've probably heard many many people mention the plot this is a story of
young who metals and things she shouldn't meddle with and she gets
banished grows up you know for thousands and thousands of years by herself and
it's about how her character develops and and how she learns on how she reacts
to certain things that happened to her about and good and kind of tells a
different angle of Greek myth same for this the song of Achilles is the story
of Achilles and Patroclus and how they grow up and this is definitely a tragic
love story I hosted a book club for this book I just loved the writing style of
both of these I devoured them I cried a lot while reading this loved these and
couldn't not put both of them on the list then there's one that I listened to
the audiobook as well I do not have a physical copy and it is this is going to
hurt which is the memoir of Adam Kay who worked in a hospital and they're almost
like a series of tweets and a series of anecdotes and he looks back at his time
working there and the people he helped and the people who died and the people
came in with like hilarious stories and it's such a roller coaster ride it's
really funny but also gives you an insight of what goes on behind the
scenes in a hospital again we would highly recommend I think it's also a
really great book to give to people who maybe don't read a ton because I think
it will really draw people in definitely not my usual kind of read but
really horrifying and heartwarming and disgusting and lovely at the same time
then I have some poetry Jen Campbell's the girl Aquarium Jen is also a good
friend and Philip booktuber and I was really excited to read her poetry bundle
this year and I really really loved it I've heard her perform several of the
poems live and on video and it's all about girls and bodies and nature and
beauty and fairy tales darkness and there's love and friendship I love to
the themes running through it and how we were able to connect the different poems
together to kind of like weave this story which I know is always very
personal when it comes to poetry but yeah I really left this then one of the
last books I read in 2019 whenever at the first few pages of it I immediately
went this is gonna be a top of the year kind of book so I really wanted to
finish it before the end of the year and it is
kindred by Octavia Butler I had this on my list for a while and then when I was
doing my reading week I just finished a book I was at Waterstones and then
picked this up he's raced through it it's foot a black woman in the 1970s who
suddenly gets pulled back into history like time-travel basically to save this
little boy who will then grow up to be a slave owner and she keeps coming back to
what is her present and then being pulled back in like a very quick
succession but she's actually jumping through the years in the past
it's about her adapting to life and experiencing this period and being
horrified by it but also recognizing things she's heard before trying to
figure out if she can change this boy and then man and what her relationship
with him is it's super engaging it's a really quick read but it has so much
depth to it as well like you really get to know these characters on a deep level
I'm so glad I've read it and I definitely want to read more by this
author I think it was written in 70s so really interesting to read in 2019 or
almost have like three time jumps as you're reading it the last three are Oia
the truth about keeping secrets by span of Brown again it was a favorite early
on in the year it's the story of a teenage girl whose father passes away in
a car crash but she feels like something else might have happened about her also
making this kind of like unlikely connection with another girl and dealing
with grief it's just beautifully written and actually I'm really keen to reread
this then there is the deathless girls I got to work on the campaign
for this book with a publisher which I was so happy about because Karyn
Millwood hargreaves books so far would've read I've loved and every time
she picks a topic I'm like yes that is a topic I love and in this case this
gorgeous I mean it has to be an engine - this book is beautiful this is the story
of two girls they're twin sisters they are from a traveler community and they
get kidnapped and their family gets murdered they getting into this castle
then they hear about this man called the dragon who may or may not be Count
Dracula which I don't think is a spoiler because this is kind of a Dracula origin
story but not of Dracula himself the descriptions in this are so luscious
again like you feel like you're really there I feel like the cover really
encapsulate the writing as well the setting of the kind of medieval castle
and working in the kitchens like that is something that I'm absolutely shocked
her for so really loved this and I'm finally maybe a bit of an unexpected one
this is actually for a video where I did like try chapter right try chapter of
ten books and then decide which ones I want to keep reading which ones I want
to get rid of and this is all the ones that kept reading so you know I'll refer
back to that when I upload that video this is scythe by Neil Schusterman I
thought this was going to be slightly more fantasy and slightly more
historical from the cover purely but this is a book kind of set I guess in a
dystopian society where people don't die anymore because technology has advanced
which means that it gets a little bit boring and people don't care as much
about life anymore so they have these people whose job it is to be a scythe
and they can glean people aka kill them basically but they can't do it in any
sort of biased way for fear them people give them as much as they can because
they want to be on their good side and it's about two teenagers who get chosen
to become a scythe the only way you can become a side is to not want to be a
scythe I think my highlights for this book were definitely that I was just
obsessed with the world it was said and it was so interesting as a thought
experiment to think about what life would be like and this has so many
twists and turns like every time I thought I knew where the story was going
it went a totally different way and I loved that it's the first in a series of
three I've already reserved number two from the library so really looking
forward to reading more of that okay so that is it for my top ten of the year I
always wonder if these are like a big surprise when you watch it or if you
think that it was really obvious and you knew that was gonna be my top ten but I
would love to hear what your favorite books were that you read if you've made
your own video like this please link it below as well as I'd love to watch those
I'm really excited for a new reading year and next up I will be posting a
look back at my resolutions from 2019 and my new resolutions for 2020 so see
you soon thanks for watching dewy