Welcome back to Book Break! I'm here today back again as your personal book recommendation
guru. A bunch of you have been sending in specific book requests for the type of books, the tropes in
books, the characters in books that you're looking for, and I have done my best to match you up with
your perfect book. We had a lot of requests so I have chosen 21 books to recommend you today so
this video doesn't go on for three hours. So if your question didn't get answered in this video,
I have kept a list of them, so hopefully I will be able to do another video answering those soon.
And do leave more comments below if you've got particular things in books that you're
looking for, and I will do my best! So the first recommendation that I wanted to give is actually
correcting a recommendation from last time. So last time around, meandmatilda had asked for a
non-American folk tale and I stupidly recommended an American folktale so I'm now going to fix that.
A non-American folktale that you could read would be Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. This
book is based on Rumpelstiltskin which is a German folk tale, not American! It's set in
an imaginary European medieval kingdom, it's a YA fantasy that feels very fairytale-y. So hopefully
this is now your perfect recommendation! Next moonbook wanted a short story collection that
included horror, LGBTQIA+ elements, and characters of colour. So this one came to me straight away,
I think you will love Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado. So this is
a collection of short stories about women, their sexuality, their bodies, the author is Latina,
the story includes lots of queer women, and it does involve body horror as well, so everything
you wanted in there. Evelyn Johnson wanted to read more books like Orlando or 100 Years of Solitude
that span over centuries. So for that one I straight away thought of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi,
which is a book I absolutely loved. It's about two half sisters. We begin in Ghana and see how
differently their lives turn out. One of them is sold as a slave and one of them is married off
to a slave owner, and every chapter we move down a generation and check in on how these families
are. Over the centuries the sister who was sold as a slave, her family end up in the U.S.,
and we follow them there - and the other sister and her family remain in Ghana. So as well as
spanning the centuries we're also jumping between different continents. And then it's funny that I
mentioned Homegoing because the next question that came in was from Alina reads everything,
and she wanted a book like Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, but meets Chinese culture. So I did a little
bit of research for this one and came across Diamond Head by Cecily Wang, which follows four
generations of a wealthy shipping family and takes them from China to Hawaii. And I really want to
read this now! Danielion wanted a fairytale book written by an indigenous writer and set in winter,
so I'm recommending Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq. So this one is set in the Canadian Arctic,
so it's not necessarily all set in winter, but I think it will give you the setting that you're
after. The book itself is a blend of fiction and memoir and poetry and Inuit folklore so will
really give you that fairytale feel that you're after. Theanitaalvarez said that she likes reading
dark mysteries set in places with lots of women, for example boarding schools or wartime towns. So
I'm going to recommend Wilder Girls by Rory Power. This is set at a boarding school on an island,
so we have some very very isolated girls and women in this school. It's a dystopian novel,
the girls are being quarantined in this school because there is a disease, the Tox, spreading
outside. And it affects the girls in very strange ways. It manipulates their bodies, it's very dark,
very mysterious, very weird, and I loved it! Littlemissrunnergirl wanted a book with a
medieval or renaissance setting, so I've gone for a medieval setting in The Pillars of the Earth by
Ken Follett. So this is about the building of a cathedral in a fictional city called Kingsbridge,
and all of the many characters and how they're affected by this in different ways. And this
book is actually the first in a series and it was also included on a list of the nation's best loved
books. unbreakablespines wanted to read about a character who was either much older or much
younger than you usually read about, so I have gone for a much older character in Jack and Bet
by Sarah Butler. So this is about a couple, Jack and Bet, who have been married for over 70 years.
And all that time Bet has been keeping a secret. But it's also about their struggle with their son
who wants to move them into somewhere with assisted living, and the unlikely friendship they
strike up with a young Romanian woman which brings all these secrets to the surface. melissamaldonado
wanted to read fiction about cults, so I'm going to recommend False Hearts by Laura Lam. This is a
psychological thriller about twins who were raised in a cult that didn't believe in modern medicine.
They were conjoined twins who shared a heart and so eventually they needed medical care and
they were forced to escape from this cult. We then catch up with them 10 years later as they
get involved with a sinister undercover operation and one girl has to pose as the other in order to
save her life. James Weatherly wanted to read translated fiction that is funny and a modern
classic written in the 20th century, so I had to recommend The Master and Margarita by Mikhail
Bulgakov. This is a book that I still haven't read, I confessed this before when we made a video
on books with cult followings, this is a book I've had on my shelf for maybe 10 years at this stage,
so I will finally read it and you can read it as well! I have heard that it is brilliant,
every single person I know who's read this book has adored it. It is dark humour, it was written
during the darkest days of Stalin's regime, and I have to read it! sointhemoodforreading wanted to
read something with forbidden love. So there are loads of options here but I'm going to recommend
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. So this is actually based on a true story of the Vardo
storm and the subsequent witch trials. It's set on the Norwegian island of Vardo in the 17th century
after a huge storm on Christmas Eve kills almost all of the men of the island, all of the adult men
of the island who were out fishing at that time, and so the island becomes a place of women. And
the women have to learn to survive there on their own, which of course, becoming powerful women,
puts them at the centre of suspicion. So that's already a fantastic premise, but we also get a
forbidden love story between two women on this island. racheldyer wanted something to make her
sob, so I'm going to recommend Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, the Booker prize winner this year.
If you're looking to properly sob, like reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara level of sobbing,
Shuggie Bain will do the trick. It is a very very sad moving story about a boy growing
up in Glasgow with an alcoholic mother who he loves very much, and she loves him very much,
but he isn't able to save her. whatrachelisreading asked for historical fiction similar to Dear Mrs
Bird. So Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce is a delightful historical fiction story
set in the second world war about a young girl called Emmy who ends up working for an agony
aunt called Mrs Bird. I love this one so I can see why you're looking for something similar,
and I'm going to maybe slightly cheat with this one, but did you know there is a sequel
coming? Yours Cheerfully by AJ Pearce is coming out this summer, so that's got to be the perfect
next read right? connorlosely is looking for dark academia, similar to The Secret History,
so I'm going to recommend The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood. This is set in the 1920s at the Bauhaus art
school, so similar to The Secret History we have an academic setting, a group of friends,
and a betrayal that will haunt them through the years. But there's also an extra layer in this
book of the historical setting, it's set in 1920s Germany as political tensions are rising, so that
adds an extra layer there. theweebookreader wanted a locked room style thriller. So I recently read
the book #noescape by Gretchen McNeil, and had so much fun with it. It's set in an escape room, so
very much they are locked in and having to solve clues to escape, but it gets dark and murderous.
And then on a similar theme jesshasbooks wanted something that didn't have to be a murder mystery,
but that did have riddles or a game that had to be solved. So the perfect book for you would
be Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly. This book is about a massive treasure hunt,
the biggest treasure hunt in history, with different nations involved in a race to locate the
seven ancient wonders. And there are so many clues and riddles along the way for them to figure out.
Raika wanted to read a book where a bisexual girl falls in love with a man and a woman and then the
three of them go on an adventure. So I had to do quite a lot of research for this but I have found
the book Midnight at the Orpheus by Alyssa Lynn Palmer. This is a book set in 1920s chicago about
a woman called Cece Mills who falls in love with a woman called Nell, and also falls in love with her
bodyguard Patrick Sheridan. And it is a really fun gangster noir novel. mill123 wanted a cozy cliche
murder mystery book but not written by Agatha Christie, I assume because you've already read
them all! So I think you will love the Julia Chapman novels, the Dales Detective series.
These are really cozy crime books set in Yorkshire about a detective who has to team up with a woman
who runs a dating agency to solve mysteries. And we actually have loads more recommendations like
this as well. I will put a link below to a video we made all about cozy crime books so loads of
suggestions in there. Harri from bedlambooks wanted a book that isn't miserable but where
someone dies. So for that one I thought of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor.
This is a really unusual book that I absolutely loved. It's set in the 90s and it's about a
shape-shifter called Paul who can change his body at will, and so he takes us on this amazing tour
of all of these 90s queer subcultures. So it's a really really fun book, it's not miserable,
but it does have sad moving moments, and somebody does die in it. I won't say any more than that.
jaidepoppy wanted a sapphic feel-good book set in England, and so I can't resist recommending again
Love is for Losers by Wibke Brueggemann. I know have recommended this book so many times on this
channel already but it just really is all of those things, it's a really fun, funny, sex positive,
feel good YA story about a girl called Phoebe and her group of friends, and I just smiled the whole
way through it. And then one more recommendation, 1bibliophage had lots of ingredients for her
perfect book: she wanted something with found family, with enemies to lovers, and based on Greek
mythology. So I had to ask around a little bit for this one, I texted a few friends, and I got
the recommendation Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie, which is also a book I really want to read! This
is a book based on the story of Antigone, and it does have both the found family trope and the
enemies to lovers trope in it, but I won't spoil how just in case you want to go in and have it as
a surprise. So there you go, I hope we found you all the perfect book! And do leave a comment below
if you have any particular ingredients of your perfect book that you are looking for. We also do
regularly ask for your requests on our Instagram channel @bookbreakuk so do go and follow us
over there. And I will also leave a link here to all of the book request videos we've done
in the past, so you can browse through for some more perfect recommendations. See you next time!