Hello, everyone, my name is Olivia, and welcome to another episode of Books and Brews,
a series on my channel where I talk about some books that I recently read while I
drink a cup of coffee, but today I have a cup of chamomile tea because it is like
pretty late in the day and I really don't want to drink decaf coffee and I don't want to drink
regular coffee because I want to sleep tonight, so we're going with chamomile tea,
especially because I just had acute bronchitis and my lungs are still a little bit weird
so I'm hoping that this will heal me. Well, let's get into it so I can tell you about five books
that I recently read that I would highly recommend to you. So the first one that I want to talk about
is The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova. This novel follows the family of the
Montoyas, who are recently invited to the funeral of their grandmother who has not yet passed away
but she knows that she's going to pass away very soon, but Orquidea Divina is a very magical lady
who has lived a very magical life with a bunch of different husbands throughout the years, and
she's gathering her family together to say one final goodbye and to leave her family with a lot
more questions than answers. Seven years later, her descendants have these magical powers that
they inherited from her and they are trying to live a normal life when they realize that
one by one their family is being picked off by a mysterious figure from Orquidea's past,
so they try to come together to figure out what is happening, who is chasing them down, and how
to stop them. This novel is incredibly magical and immersive and was such a wonderful audiobook.
This will transport you into a world where a family is filled with magic and mystery and the
story unfolded beautifully because, not only does it delve deeper into Orquidea's past, but we also
are learning more about the generational trauma that is passed down through the generations of
this family. I also really enjoyed the fact that this deals not only with generational trauma
but the fact that people are trying to connect with their ancestors and learn more about them
after they have passed and they are trying to piece their history together because I can heavily
relate to that and the need to connect with people from your past and your family. So I think this is
Zoraida's strongest novel that she has written. I think her writing style only grows with strength
every time she publishes a story, and I think this one which is so fantastical so immersive
and so beautifully written-- If you're looking for a lush atmospheric story that is full of magic you
would greatly enjoy this story. I had a lot of fun with it and I could not stop listening to it on
audiobook, so I thought it was a great read and I just really enjoyed myself with this one. The
next story that I have to recommend is one that I have spoken about endlessly and it is The Need by
Helen Phillips. I'm sure you are all tired of me mentioning this book in different videos, but I
greatly enjoyed it and I'm going to keep on mentioning it because I think this book
is very underrated in the way that it is lowly rated but I also think that more people would
enjoy this if they knew what the story was about. So we follow our main character, Molly, who is an
exhausted mother and scientist and she has two children that she is taking care of because her
husband is currently away on a business trip when she hears noises in her house one night and she
comes face to face with an intruder who changes the course of her life forever. So the synopsis of
the story is very vague because, I think, if you were to get any more information about the story,
you would have the whole entire plot twist ruined for you because everything that happens after
Molly meets this intruder and comes face to face with them changes the whole course of the story
because I think people go into the story thinking it's a home invasion story, which would have been
really great. I do love those types of stories and I would love to read one if you have any
recommendations, but The Need is not just a home invasion story, it's the aftermath of that. And
it has a lot of sci-fi elements and it feels like a Twilight Zone episode to come to life
because it is rooted in realism but it also has this sci-fi type of element that completely
changes your perspective and kind of takes you off guard and really changes the course of this whole
entire story. So it's not just a thriller, it has a heavy sci-fi element that you just kind of have
to ride with and you just have to trust the author to guide you through the story. I think a lot of
people went into this story thinking it was one thing and it is something completely different,
so if you're a fan of the Twilight Zone or Jordan Peele’s movies because those just have
a certain vibe that I think this fits really well, then you would greatly enjoy The Need.
Also, I don't know if you can see, but my mug has goats on it. It's amazing. I love goats. Goats are
probably one of my favorite animals in the world, and I recently went to a goat farm and hiked with
goats, and you would think it's like a lovely experience. It was lovely, but at the end of the
hike that we went on with the goats, a goat named Marvin, who was very sassy,
got mad at me because I walked past him and that's like one of his pet peeves and he, with full
force, hit his horns against my knees. And when I tell you my knees have never been the same...
I mean they're like permanently damaged because they always ache and for like a solid
two weeks, they were just in so much pain. He definitely ruined my knees in some way.
I don't want to know how, but, I mean, it's a cool story to tell. Like, who else can say like a goat
ruined my kneecaps. So the next book that I want to talk about has taken BookTok and Bookstagram
by storm, and it is The Love Hypothesis. This is a story that I picked up on a whim because I kept
on hearing people talk about it on TikTok. They kept on sharing different quotes and aesthetics,
and it just felt like the perfect book for me, so I decided to pick it up from my library
and absolutely enjoyed it. I gave it five stars. It was completely enjoyable. It was just what I
needed at the time, and it's actually one of my new favorite reads of 2021. The Love Hypothesis
follows our main character, Olive, who is a Ph.D. student and she is studying at this university
when she concocts a fake dating type of scenario with a professor who is very gruff, very aloof,
so they decide to fake date for a very convoluted reason, but you just have to, like, suspend your
disbelief and ride with it and it is one of the cutest romances that I’ve read in a long time.
It's set at a university. It follows the grumpy and sunshine trope. It's fake dating. It is just
everything that I needed and more from a story. Adam Carlsen, who is a love interest, was just
amazing. I love that man to death. He is just the perfect amount of grumpy without being
insufferable, and Olive is just a very driven and hopeful student who wants to pursue her scientific
dreams, and I just loved their banter. I loved the way that the story was structured. It was
somewhat of a slow burn romance while also being a rom-com and it was just so wonderfully crafted,
and I just have to say that the hype is so worth it. It's definitely not the steamiest book in the
world. I feel like people on BookTok will say it's like a super-steamy book. It's definitely not,
so if you're looking for something that's very steamy, this is not the book for you. This is
much more wholesome, much more commercial, and just cute. The love was just cute, adorable, pure,
amazing, give it an Oscar. I absolutely enjoyed myself with it, and I went in with
zero expectations and I really enjoyed it. And I know that Ali Hazelwood is releasing a ton of
different novellas in the future, and I saw the list that she shared on her social media and I'm
so excited for all of them because I just love her romances. The next book that I listened to
on audiobook was Three O'clock in the Morning. I got this from Libro.fm because they were doing
like a giveaway of sorts where, if you signed up to their newsletter, you can get a free audiobook
that was translated, so I got Three O'clock in the Morning, which was translated from Italian,
and it says it's a “coming-of-age novel, a heady reunion of Before Sunrise and Beautiful Ruins
about a father and his teenage son who are forced to spend two sleepless nights exploring the city
of Marseilles. So we follow our main character, Antonio, who goes to Marseille with his father,
who hasn't really been present in his life since he has divorced his mother,
and they see this very special doctor, who tells Antonio that he has to stay awake for two straight
days in order to receive a test to find out if his chronic illness is healed or not.
Very convoluted but stick with me here. So Antonio and his father decide to do a pact together and
stay awake for two nights and they wander around Marseille. They talk to different people. They go
to different parties. They go to cafes. So Antonio and his father connect through these conversations
that they have throughout these two days while they are in Marseille and they are just exploring
the city and exploring the people who live there, and they have these connections because they have
not spoken to each other and really connected as human beings since the divorce between Antonio's
parents, and this is just a great opportunity for them to get to know each other, now. It says they
discuss “poetry, family, sex, math, death, and dreams.” I said that this story was a quick,
great read to listen to on audiobook or to read, in general. I thought the translation was
beautifully written and just flowed beautifully and the conversations were engaging and deep,
and I think it was a great reflection of a father and a son finally connecting with one another and
talking about the deep things in life and their interest and their dreams and how their dreams are
very similar to one another and how they connect over these similarities that they did not know
about beforehand. So, Three O'clock in the Morning is perfect for people who love familial books,
people who want a story between a father and a son, anyone who wants to read translated fiction
and just a quick read that is beautifully written and just shows you a different side of a city that
you may not read about as often, like Marseille. I did not know a lot about the city, beforehand,
and I feel like I got to really explore it through this book, and I thought it was beautiful.
And the last thing that I recently read is something that I read years ago but it finally
became a graphic novel, and I am so incredibly jazzed about it because I have been begging
for this Webtoon to become a graphic novel for years upon years and the day has finally come,
and I finally have a copy of Lore Olympus. Lore Olympus is one of the most famous
Webtoons on Webtoon. it is a retelling of Hades and Persephone, and Hades is blue and Persephone
is pink, and it's just a very colorful graphic novel that is just so beautifully written and
beautifully drawn, and I just absolutely love this Webtoon with all my heart. I
think I started reading it when it was about 20 episodes in, and it's currently on episode, I
think, 180. This edition is only from episode 1 to 25, so you have a decent chunk of episodes in this
physical copy but there's so many more episodes on Webtoon. And this is one of my favorite Hades
and Persephone retellings. I'm very picky when it comes to Hades and Persephone retellings because I
have a very specific image that I have in mind of Hades's personality and Persephone's personality,
and a lot of authors don't really live up to the expectations that I have of Hades and Persephone,
but I think that Rachel, the author and the illustrator of this story,
just captures the essence of Hades and Persephone so well and their dynamic, and it's just such a
healthy and beautiful dynamic in this retelling. And we also follow a ton of different Gods,
as well. We follow Zeus, we follow Hera, we follow Artemis. All the major Gods have a very big
play in this story. This was given to me by Random House, and I am just so grateful for them
for gifting this to me for review. It was absolutely fantastic. The only thing that
I have to say, in terms of the physical copy, is that Hades sometimes blends into the background
of the story because, sometimes, the background is a dark blue and he is a blue character, so
I feel like the story needs to be lightened up a bit, in terms of the printing of it, and I think
that that can definitely be improved in future volumes. But if you want to support Lore Olympus,
they now have a physical copy of the first 25 episodes. And if you want to read more of Lore
Olympus, go to Webtoon to read more of it because you can read it for free. It is fantastic. A new
episode comes out every single week, and I have been a big fan for years upon years, and I'm
just so happy and proud of Rachel for creating a best-selling graphic novel. This is amazing,
and I'm keen to see on where she's going to end it and how she's going to end it because I'm not
sure if she's aiming to end it on episode 200. I don't know she's going to go to episode 300.
I really don't know what's going to happen, but this is one of my favorite Webtoons,
and it's also my first Webtoon. If you have any Webtoon recommendations, I would love to hear
them down below because I want to dive deeper into Webtoons, and I read a couple but a lot of
them aren't finished and that's why I don't start new Webtoons because I don't want to commit to
waiting for a new episode every single week. But one that I have read
is Sub-zero. That one I have, like, 50 episodes to catch up on because I completely forgot about it,
but the best way I can describe it is like Zuko and Katara, if there were dragons. It is just
absolutely amazing. I have to catch up on it, and another Webtoon that I recently marathoned
the entire first season of is Everything is Fine, which is also becoming a physical
graphic novel as well, and I'm so excited about it. It's about a suburban town where everything
is fine, and my best friend, Sarah, told me to read it, and I read it in like two hours. It was
amazing. It was such a great read. So let me know about some Webtoon recommendations down below,
and if you have any recent 5 star reads that you would love to recommend to me, I would love to
hear them down below in the comments. If you have made it this far in the video, put a pink heart
emoji, so we can see who stays the longest in all my videos, inspired by my love for Persephone and
Lore Olympus, and thank you so much for watching my videos. If you want to connect with me anywhere
else on social media, all my links will be down below. I'm very active on Instagram and
TikTok. I'm having a great time over there. And I also have a Patreon where you can get exclusive
content from me, like some Weekly Round-Ups, which I feature over on my Instagram stories. I go in a
lot more depth over on my Patreon, and I also have some behind-the-scenes content there, as well as
early access to most of my videos. So thank you so much to all my patrons who are already a part of
my Patreon. I appreciate your support so much, and I will see you in another video very soon. bye~