It's kind of like the Breakfast Club, except one of them is a murderer.
So it's spicy Breakfast Club.
[Intro music]
Isn't this so cute? [I'm wearing] the exact same outfit right now.
Someone needs to change. [Laughs]
[Punches doll]
This is the official Cindy voodoo doll.
So now every time I spiral into self loathing I will beat the shit out of her.
If you are interested in your own Cindy plushie doll,
whether it's to hug or cuddle or torture,
this will be on sale, I don't know when. [Laughs]
I'm working on it, okay?
But I got the prototype.
She looks cuter than the actual thing you asked me.
I'll let you know when she's available though.
In the meantime, all my other merch crap is on shopwithcindy.com.
Anyway, that's a quick little plug right in there,
but that's not the point of this video.
The point of this video is to tell you the 10 books
that are releasing a 2022 that I am most excited to read.
I usually don't keep up with releases,
but based on my previous video where I went over my reading stats,
I realized that I prefer to read books that are new.
What can I say, she's a trendy girl.
Before we get into my top 10 books,
I want to say thank you to Lelo for sponsoring this video.
Not only am I excited about reading for pleasure in the new year,
I'm also excited for other types of pleasure in the bedroom.
Fun fact: nearly 50% of women have never experienced orgasm
and I am unfortunately one of them.
I don't masturbate that often and I've only had experience with men.
So you know how that goes.
But fortunately, Lelo is here to help.
I have recently ordered the Tiani 3 duo from them.
Check it out. Isn't this so cute?
Kind of matches my hair color too.
This is a couples' massager and I chose this from their side
because I recently started dating someone
and I wanted to get something that would make us both feel good.
There's two vibrating motors here on both ends
and they can be controlled using this remote here.
So this is something that I would wear
while the girl that I've been seeing is playing with the remote.
We get into some fun grinding action.
You know how it goes.
There's eight adjustable settings and they have a wireless range for up to 12 meters.
It's 100% waterproof in case things get a little bit messy.
And it is USB rechargeable.
And this pretty girl has a one year warranty and a ten year quality guarantee.
So if you want to check out this couples' massager
or any of the other products they have on their website,
I will link them in my description below.
Otherwise, let's go ahead and talk about the books I'm excited for 2020.
Starting with The School for Good Mothers.
This was released on January 4.
I saw it at the windowsill of my local indie bookstore
and it sure was tempting me with her mommy milkers.
Yes, The School for Good Mommy Milkers.
Actually, that's not what it's about.
I still have the sex toy thing on my brain.
It's actually a dystopian novel about a young mother who makes a mistake
and she ends up in this government reform program
that is meant to gauge whether she is a fitting mother
to have custody over her child.
Mommy has been struggling for a very long time.
First things first, she's the child of immigrant parents.
So you already know things are bleak.
I've watched Encanto and I've cried watching it so I pretty much know.
And her husband is seeing a mistress.
She has not taken any wins in a long time.
Really the only good thing she has in her life is her daughter.
But of course because life loves to punch down on people who are already struggling,
she has a horrible day where something terrible happens.
I don't know what happened because I haven't read the book
but I want to know because, what's the tea?
Because apparently it's so terrible that now a bunch of government officials
are coming in to determine if she's going to be a candidate
for this institution that they've set up.
And it measures essentially a mother's devotion to their child.
So it is gonna determine whether she's a successful mother or a failure of a mother.
And it's part of the state that always has eyes on mothers like her.
So moms who get these lapses of judgment like,
checking their phone while their kids are on the playground,
or letting their child walk home alone.
Any little mistake like that, these bitches got their eyes on her like Big Brother.
Mommy now has to prove her worthiness as a mom or risk losing her daughter.
This is one of the books that I'm already most excited about
Because there is already so much commentary that can be said
about how you can really measure a mom's devotion to a kid.
I'm expecting a lot of commentary on social welfare programs
and how the state monitors and will enact violence upon women
and it just sounds like it's going to be such a smart and witty book.
I wanted to save this book for Asian Readathon during May this year
but I'm so excited for it that I might just go ahead and read it way before then.
To go with something lighter though, the other book I'm excited for is
Love & Other Disasters.
This comes out on January 18.
It's a queer rom-com about the first openly non-binary contestant
on this reality cooking show who falls for their clumsy competitor.
The main girl is also on the struggle bus.
This seems to be a very common theme among many main characters.
Funny how when I'm on the struggle bus,
I'm not on the cusp of a romantic epic love story.
Instead I just continue to be struggling.
But that's what books are for: escapism.
She recently got divorced. She's on the verge of bankruptcy.
So that's why she enters this popular reality competition show
because it's a way to reinvent herself.
However, on the show when she's making some fish tacos,
she falls on her face because we have a klutzy girl.
That's how you know she's the main character.
But little does she know,
maybe somebody is going to be interested in her own fish taco.
Ayooo!
That's the other love interest on this show.
They announced their pronouns on national television.
It's this huge deal where everyone's like,
"What the fuck? Someone uses they/them pronouns?"
What the fuck are pronouns, bro? I never took an English class in my life.
When you're used to bigotry, you got to stay focused,
and just try to get shit done.
That's what this character is all about.
They're here to prove the trolls, even other contestants on the show, completely wrong.
But again, what happens when they want a little taste of that fish taco? Hmmm!
I love reality TV, I'm just gonna say it.
I'm a messy bitch like that.
But what I love more than reality TV
is learning about the behind the scenes tea that comes with it.
And that's why I love stories that take place on reality TV,
because that's getting me what I want.
Like, I want the actual real story and the juicy shit that happens,
not what is being curated in front of the cameras.
I plan on buddy reading this with a couple of my friends,
and we are super excited about it.
Now we're gonna do another whiplash with the next book,
which is Notes on an Execution.
This is coming out on January 25.
It's a literary novel that shares the story of a serial killer who was on death row.
But what's interesting about this is that
it's told through the eyes of the women in his life.
There's his mom who had him when she was 17 years old.
There's the twin sister to his wife,
which I think is an interesting way of having a third character
observe the relationship dynamics between him and his wife,
which I assume is probably really toxic.
And there's the homicide detective who has been on his trail
and trying to capture him.
So as the story is leading up to his final execution,
we are following these three women who are contemplating the choices
that have ended up in this tragedy where so many victims died.
And now this man that they personally knew in their lives is going to die, too.
I'm very interested in this book,
because I don't know what the message of this book is going to be.
I don't know if it's going to plan on making the man more sympathetic
or maybe giving us more reasons for why these violent men
end up manifesting in our lives this way.
What I do appreciate is that we're getting these different viewpoints
about this horrible man.
Because a lot of times when we hear true crime stories about serial killers,
we focus so much on the man, because most of the time it is a man,
instead the victims or just the other people that were around him.
We don't really think about what was going on through their minds
when this shit was going down.
I do expect there to be some commentary on the justice system
and the way that society is so obsessed with true crime
to the point where it almost dehumanizes the people that are affected by it.
What I'm most curious about is what the book will end up commenting on
regarding the way that we treat violent men or try to make sense of his actions.
Now, as I've said before, I am trash for a reality TV,
but maybe it's time for me to reflect on why I am trash.
And so the next book is True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us.
It goes into detail about how this genre has risen so much in popularity
and gripped the throats of every person who had trash taste in TV.
And also what the genre reveals about our attitudes towards race and gender
and class and sexuality.
That last note is what made me decide to want to check this book out
because I'm curious and learning what the author intends to do
with tackling those topics.
Like, is she going to talk about the fact
that for every fucking season of The Bachelor or the Bachelorette,
is always a white straight person who looks like a Barbie doll
and is always middle upper class?
Like, I do not watch The Bachelor or the Bachelorette,
but one of my friends does.
And I know from what she's ranted to me about
that there have only been two black bachelorettes
in however many seasons that they have.
But it's been a long time and they're still picking the same people
and there's only two black women.
I know there's been one black bachelor, but apparently he's a Republican
and he doesn't even like black woman.
She argues that these "guilty pleasures" show how conservative our society still is.
I think it'll be really fascinating to read about this
and also lose my faith in humanity.
The next book that I'm excited about is The Paris Apartment
which comes out on February 22.
This is about a young woman who needs a fresh start and so she moves to Paris.
Emily in Paris who?
Time to discover myself. Oui oui baguette!
Except this is a mystery thriller so you know some shit is gonna go down.
And you also know the main character is probably on the struggle bus as well.
She's a broke and alone.
She basically only decided to move to Paris because her half brother is there
and she wants to crash over at his place.
Obviously, if I simply moved to Paris, all of my problems will go away, right?
Right.
The weird thing is when she moves into his apartment, not only is it really nice,
in a way where she's like, how the hell is he able to afford the shit?
He's not even there.
And then he seems missing for a really long time.
And she's like, okay, this is kind of sus.
I thought this was Emily in Paris.
But now I think I'm finding out that this is a different genre altogether.
His neighbors are kind of sketchy as well.
They're not very friendly to her.
But again, this is Paris so maybe that's just how French people are.
Every neighbor is considered a suspect here.
There's the socialite, the nice guy, the alcoholic, the girl on the verge,
and the concierge.
We follow her trying to figure out what the hell happened with her brother.
Where is he now? Who are these people?
And what do they know that they're not telling her?
Because this is a murder mystery.
These bitches always be keeping secrets.
This is a game of Clue that we're gonna figure out here, but it's in Paris.
So it's... Le Clue.
That's right.
I never took French class in my life.
The next book I'm excited about has such a gorgeous cover.
And it's why I decided to look into it in the first place.
It's called Our Wives Under the Sea.
It's about a woman whose wife just returned from a deep sea mission
that ended in a total disaster.
She's very relieved to finally get her wife back.
But it's pretty clear that her wife is not the same.
Whatever happened down there below the sea, some shit went down,
because she's acting sketchy as fuck, there's lots of trauma to unpack.
So even as they're trying to move forward to have a normal, happy lesbian life,
she started to realize that it's probably not going to happen ever again,
her wife is physically there, but she can feel mentally that she's losing her wife.
I don't think this is the kind of book that is going to be like super dramatic
about what crazy shit went down there.
I think it's going to be more about what it's like to fall in love with someone
and then lose them through grief.
Because I believe that this is a literary novel.
It just has a little bit of horror and gothic elements to it.
So we shall see what this novel has in store.
But I do want some action.
The next book, Portrait of a Thief, might be the one that gives me that.
This is a heist novel that's inspired by the true story
of how all this Chinese art mysteriously started disappearing from Western museums.
Many museums in the western world are basically just showcasing art
that they looted and stole and colonize from other people.
And they keep these in their fancy buildings
and charge a shit ton of money for people to look at it.
And the main character in this novel is like this shit stops now!
He starts off as a senior in Harvard
and he pretty much has like this role of this perfect student
and perfect son nailed down to a tee.
You know, he's living the American dream,
even though we know that the American Dream is a farce
and just a lie that we tell to immigrants
to expect them to pull them up by their bootstraps,
when really we are living in a society that has unequal opportunities. Anyway...
One day there is this sketchy Chinese corporation
that reaches out to him with a job offer that is high key illegal,
and also very impossible.
But my boy likes a challenge.
He gets to be the leader of a heist
to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures
that were looted from Beijing centuries ago.
So we have the typical archetypes that go into a heist script.
We have a conman who is actually the main guy's sister.
She's a public policy major at Duke so she knows what the fuck she's talking about.
We have a thief who is a premed student.
So you know, those hands are very sturdy both on the operating table
and to pick a lock.
We have a getaway driver who sounds like this badass woman
who's an engineering student, and she races cars in her free time.
And we have a hacker who was an MIT dropout,
and now he's a Silicon Valley software engineer.
Not only is each member of this crew super smart,
but they each have their own complicated relationship with China
and the identity that they have as Chinese Americans.
Because if you can't tell, this is more than a heist novel.
This is a commentary on the diaspora and what it's like to be Asian American.
I love heist stories, and I especially love heist stories that parallel colonialism,
and it's about robbing the fucking rich.
It sounds like it's going to be a super fun and a smart book.
The next book I'm looking forward to is
Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service.
This comes out on April 19.
It is a nonfiction book that is a collection of essays
where the author talks about how wild it is that we live in a world
where people seem to know how to talk about social justice,
but they don't actually follow up with it.
Oops, not this author coming for Book Twitter's neck.
There's nine essays that cover a wide variety of topics.
So one of them talks about the cartoon industry
and how it's pivoting away from colorblind casting.
It also talks about how the literary world
is now trying to pursue diverse representation.
So I think the book community is about to uncover some tea right there.
And essentially, these essays talk about how oftentimes our society
is making these steps to try to address the systemic problems,
but a lot of times it can backfire.
I am very curious about what the author will have to say about books
and maybe the publishing industry because I do have my own thoughts about that.
I want to see if I will be validated by it, or perhaps learn something new.
I definitely think as someone who has been on Twitter for quite a while,
I am so jaded by how people often weaponize the language of social justice
for their own ego rather than actually focus on real world impacts.
If I end up enjoying this book,
maybe I'll say that this is required reading for all of Twitter.
The next book I'm excited for is called Book Lovers.
This is written by the same author as People We Meet on Vacation,
which is a five star romance book that I read last year.
While her previous book was friends-to-lovers,
this one seems to be enemies-to-lovers.
The main girl is a literary agent.
So she's read a shit ton of books.
But she has never quite identified as a main character.
She's very much a girl boss, where she's trying to get her job done.
She's fighting for her clients, she really cares about her work.
But obviously, girl bosses can't just all be about work.
So another character that's there to humanize her
is her sister who she really cares about.
And the book starts off with her sister
begging her to go on a trip to a small town,
because as we all know, when a cutthroat frigid girlboss goes a small town,
that's how she gets transformed into being a docile woman.
But instead of meeting any rugged country man who sweeps her off her feet
and teaches her to enjoy living on a farm or whatever they do,
she meets another dude who's literally from the city as well.
And he's also like a book editor.
And it's not even like a meet cute,
because they've already met each other several times,
and they don't even like each other.
So the book follows these two people
who are not quite fitting of the hero or heroine of a grand romance story,
as they keep on meeting each other through a series of coincidences.
And I would expect that as they keep on interacting with each other,
maybe they discover more things about each other.
And the stories that they tell themselves and their own identity
maybe this will make them realize I am deserving to be the main character.
I think it's going to be cute.
And I totally trust her when it comes to writing a very solid romance.
And then the last book I'm gonna talk about comes out on June 7.
It's a thriller of a book called The Woman in the Library.
It starts off when there is this huge scream
coming from a woman in the Boston Public Library.
Which is normally a very quiet place.
But her scream is so loud that it rushes all the security guards
to figure out what happened.
The other people in the library don't know what the hell is going on.
And this book focuses on four strangers who happen to sit at the same table,
but nobody's allowed to move now
because they're trying to figure out what threat happened
and try to contain the situation.
So these four strangers are basically stuck there.
So they got to spend the time to make conversations
and possibly even become friends.
Each one of them has their own reason for being in that reading room that morning.
It's kind of like the Breakfast Club, except one of them is a murderer.
So it's spicy Breakfast Club.
It's another murder mystery.
I want to see what it's all about.
I am curious if it's going to really lean into the deception
that people can have with others when you meet someone for the first time
and they put on a certain facade or they know the right words to say.
I want to know how good of a manipulator this murderer is.
And I want to guess which one it is.
That marks my top 10 books I'm excited for in the new year.
I hope that you're able to find new books that you might be interested in.
I'll link them in my description if you want to read more about it.
It's time to say goodbye from me and from plush toy Cindy.
Go ahead and... oh God.
Go ahead and unsubscribe from my channel and goodbye.
[Outro: Panty Drop - Zorro]