Okay, so today we're going to be talking about fast reads.
Not necessarily short books (though i will have plenty of short books here)
but specifically books that are very engaging from the beginning
forward. Not necessarily a ton of build up but
from the start it'll hook you (maybe, probably;
did me) and then stay a page-turner the whole time. Let's talk
about it. But before we get into the list, a shout out to today's sponsor Squarespace.
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First book on this list: The Original. I just did a dedicated
spoiler-free review for it. Link it in the corner and the
description. The Original is a novella that Sanderson co-wrote
with Mary Robinette Kowal who i said in the
review for The Original that i had never read one of her books,
but i was actually currently reading one of her books and it was
phenomenal. Honestly i don't know why you guys let me have a channel. Anyway,
this is about a world where there is an original person,
but after they die a copy of them can be made
and um their personality and their thoughts and their consciousness can be
put in that copy and they can live on through this copy.
But it gets a little bit complicated when copies are made before
the original is dead (insert our main character and her trying to hunt down
her original to kill it for a whole lot of
reasons) just go check out my review if that sounds interesting. It was a
really fun read. Anyway this book did have
some slow moments in the middle but i'm still putting it on the list
because it started off with such a great hook
and there was a mystery to it all where... "Is this
all conspiracy ? Should i be doing this at all?" All that kind of stuff
and the peeling back of the layers little by little just had me
needing to know how it would end and i was very satisfied with the ending.
It's a great book to just fly through and have a great time with.
For some reason i can't find my copy of And Then There Were None by Agatha
Christie, so there's an image of it. It's probably
because my room is just a series of stacks of books.
Regardless, And Then There Were None is the next one on this
list. I loved this book. So it takes place on this island, i think if i remember it...
definitely this closed off area (i'm pretty sure it's an island) and these
this group of people are all brought there for different reasons and when
they get there they come to learn that it's because
they've all been deemed bad people
and they're gonna be picked off one by one unless they can figure out
who's doing this. And it's all wrapped around this children's
rhyme about these eight, i think? Or nine soldier boys that are
being picked off one by one and as you get to the next line in the
rhyme, that's how the next person dies.
AH! It's so good and oh my goodness... I enjoyed this
so much because the way it's all wrapped up in the rhyme
and the way it's all constructed makes it so much more interesting
than i reasonably thought it could have been. You know, everybody
put in this isolated place they're all just running around this manner together.
It could easily feel stale or feel too confined
and it didn't. These extra elements of it added so much tension that i was just
turning the pages dying to know what was gonna come next.
And it was such a fun time and i loved it so much. Next book on this list is a
book that i read a really long time ago, so forgive me if
i get some of the facts wrong because it's been at least two years if not
longer, but i still love it and i still think
about it. It's called Wonder Struck and i'm going to eventually get myself a
physical copy because i got it from the library
and i want to read it to my kids someday. It's a middle grade book.
It's half done through text and half told through
illustrations and that's because one of the main
characters is deaf and one of the main characters
is mute and these two characters in two different
timelines are connected in a way. And it tells their stories side by side.
Well, one after another. You know what i mean. It's telling these stories side by
side and the fact that it's two different
mediums of telling the story is so fascinating and beautiful.
And the fact that the two stories come together and weave together in such
an interesting way despite being set in different
time periods; and then the way they do match up. Oh my golly! It's such
a brilliant and beautiful story and i don't usually connect with middle
grade, but holy cow this book is phenomenal
and the illustrations are gorgeous as well. Next we have a pretty popular book
that you've maybe heard about so i'll be brief with my description of it
and it's called Dark Matter. I enjoy this story so much. It's about alternate
dimensions um so it's not time travel, but doesn't
matter. Man, okay. So we follow a guy. We start
off with this guy who has been beat up; bloodied, not good. He's in his house but
his house looks wrong. Well before he gets to his house he
calls us home and it's his wife on the answering machine, but it's
different. Then he goes home and his house is wrong.
He doesn't... he no longer works where he works. Everything is
wrong here. And, yeah. It's about alternate dimensions so you can probably
connect the dots and we start searching different
dimensions to get to where we need to be. That
was very vague but also it's not a very long book and
it's a very... it's very much a turn a page turner so i
really don't want to explain too much about it, but this is a book
that i read ridiculously fast couldn't put down
loved so much. Actually, a lot of people don't
love the ending of this book, which i really respect,
but i did. Next book on the list is Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. This is a
sci-fi, young adult book. Sanderson, in my opinion just has
the page turning quality about him
especially in this book because it's much more contained than his worlds
usually are. So you're not even having to learn
this, i mean you are learning a new world and a new culture and all that, but
not as expansively as, say, the Stormlight Archive.
So you're not even slowed down by that but his his writing style is just
so readable and digestible that you just turn
pages. And also i think that this was such a fun story with such a wonderful
main character to follow and i loved it and i found it to be
just such a fast, easy, fun read while also having Sanderson's
depth and fantastic fantastic characters and stories.
Yes, i still haven't read Starsight. Yes, i do plan to read it. I'm waiting until
book three comes out because i want to read them back to back
because i didn't like waiting for book two, so i'm gonna make myself wait longer
because that's logic. Next book on my list is gonna be another thriller:
Rebecca. Rebecca is a classic thriller. Think
'domestic thriller' not 'mystery.' A lot of people call it like a murder mystery and
i really recommend not thinking of it that way.
This is about to have a movie adaptation, so more reasons for you to go read it!
And it's free public domain so you can get it for free with kindle unlimited or
just... actually i don't know that it's public
domain, but it is free with kindle unlimited. So if you have that take
advantage of it. Anyway, Rebecca follows a nameless main
character who is in a tough spot. Falls "in
obsession" (not love) with this fellow he sweeps her
off to her his manner, but when she gets there she realizes
that there are some mysteries around his late wife's death.
Everybody in the matter seems oddly obsessed
with Rebecca (his late wife) and so does our main character. So yes, there is a
mystery, yes there is a slow unraveling of that mystery, but again
think of it as a domestic thriller. It really fits that label better. I love
this book for how messed up every single one of these
characters are and how realistic it is. These all feel
like real humans that are just... oof oof. And i just found the story and
the mystery and everything about it so fun to read. Next on my list is All
Systems Red which i've talked about a lot on my channel recently because it's
a fairly recent read, so i'm gonna keep it real brief.
Murderbot is about this robot that is very bad at its job.
It doesn't want to be a murderbot; it wants to
watch soap operas all day. It's sarcastic, it's apathetic,
it's hilarious and it gets a little bit attached to its humans.
It's a novella. This is the first novella in a series of novellas that leads up to
a novel. And it's just... it's... the whole focus is is for
you to fall in love with murderbot, and oh my goodness, i think it was so
effective. I love this robot so much and i'm excited to read the rest of the
novellas, soon. And the last book on my list is The
Ocean At The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite
authors. I've read about six of his books now and
this is the first book of his that i read
and i was completely sold on him from just this
one book. It's a dark fantasy. It is about this boy that lives in this
home and down the road there is this home
full of strange people and an ocean.
I don't want to say too much. It follows this boy after someone
moves into his home or comes into his home
that doesn't really belong and he enlists the help of the little girl that
lives down the lane, who... has a unique way of
helping. I don't know how to describe it. Anyway,
why do i love Gaiman? I love Gaiman for how environmental his books are, for how
gorgeous his prose is and for the fact that his books are so
intentional. Every little element of his stories
is important and matters and ends up weaving together
in the end so beautifully. I've recommended this book a lot.
So many people have come away saying: "Wow. I didn't like that like you did." BUT some
of you have come away saying you do, so i'm gonna keep recommending it. But
really also The Sleeper And The Spindle, which is the most recent Gaiman book
that i've read; should also be on this list. It's mostly
or it's half illustrated; only 66 pages. Gorgeous story,
amazing environment, just so good. Some of Gaiman's books are really slow.
I guess, arguably, all of his books are slow, but
the way he writes just makes me feel like i fly through his books
because i can't stop reading them. So maybe actually he shouldn't be
on this list? But it's my list so he's here.
Okay, that's my list of fast reads Now, an ad.
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think i'm gonna go do that! Use the link in the description! So there
you go. Those are all the books that i recommend to get through quickly that
will draw you in and keep you reading more. Let me know what would be on your
list for fast reads. Books that just you can't
stop reading. And let me know if you plan on
picking any of these up or if you picked them up and have an opinion on them,
we can discuss. I post videos every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
I'll see you guys again soon. Bye.
you