First off, can we just appreciate this shirt? Irish you'd let me read. Hmm
yes! Hey! What's up, you guys? It's Connor, and today I'm gonna be continuing my
2018 reading wrap-up with books 11 through 20. If you guys have missed
any of the other wrap ups that I've done so far, I'll leave those down in the
description and you can check them out. But you guys know in these videos I do
little reviews of the most current books that I've read this year. The 11th book
that I read in 2018 is Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia. This
follows a girl named Eliza, and she is a senior, I believe, in high school. She
doesn't have very many friends, and she spends the vast majority of her time
working on this webcomic that she's created called Monstrous Sea. And it's
actually one of the most popular webcomics around, and there are tons and
tons of fan fiction writers and stuff like that. At the beginning of the book a
new boy moves to her school, and it turns out that he is the most popular
fanfiction writer for her webcomic. She immediately feels some type of
connection with this fan fiction writer, and they become closer. And it's just
about her trying to navigate the remainder of her high school career
while still keeping up with this webcomic as it's starting to approach
its end and also deal with fans, and fan expectation, and fandom, and everything
like that. It is phenomenal. I absolutely love this book. I am NOT a huge YA
contemporary reader. I don't usually like the books very much at all, but this one...
mmm I loved it! Eliza is so relatable. She has pretty bad
anxiety. Most readers end up being more on the introverted side, and it's more
common for introverts to have social anxiety and stuff like that. So I think a
lot of people will be able to relate to Eliza in that respect - not making the
most popular webcomic ever. I also really enjoyed that in this book you get
some of the webcomic in the actual book, so I really enjoyed
seeing the characters of the story that she's writing. There's another picture,
and I just thought it was a very cute, fun read. I really enjoyed Eliza. I really
enjoyed Wallace as well. I think that they together
we're something that I could just easily root for. I thought the writing was
really solid. I thought this story was really solid. Everything about it
I was on board [for], and I ended up giving this book five stars. Next up I read
Stormwatch, Vol. 2 <text: volume 3*> which is by Peter Milligan, Will Conrad, and Cliff Richards.
If you guys don't know, Stormwatch is about a superhero team that has been
protecting earth for a ridiculously long time. Stormwatch is very secretive, and
they go around, and they save the world without anyone knowing. And they make
sure that they don't get into the media or anything like that. They work
behind the scenes more which I thought was a little bit more interesting than
the Justice League. This volume however is not very good. I did not like it very
much. I gave it two stars. It was just all over the place. This is what some of the
artwork looks like, so it's not bad art. The story in this one was what was
suffering. In this comic they have dolphins, like technological dolphins
coming and attacking people. It was just like, what? So sadly I didn't really enjoy this
one that much. I will probably continue because I enjoy reading about Midnighter and
Apollo and the rest of the team. I just wish the story had been better. I
then picked up and read Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab. I did a book review
for this, so if you want to check it out, I'll leave it up in the card symbol. But
this book also disappointed me. Not quite as much a storm watch but I ended up
giving this book three stars. I had quite a few problems with it. Mainly I hate one
of the main characters. She's so frustrating. She's so annoying. She
doesn't make any sense, and I just really hated her. Reading about her was not very
fun. I liked the other character, however, so that was what gave it that three star
rating. It was because one character was good & one character was awful. In this
book they introduced another type of monster, so that was really fun. And if
you want to know more of my in-depth thoughts about why I was so disappointed
by this book, check out that review. After that I wanted to continue the BookTubeSFF
Awards shortlist nominations, so I'm picking up Whichwood by Tahereh Mafi. I
borrowed this from my library as an e-book <text: audiobook*>, and I didn't enjoy it. It follows this
girl named Laylee, and she is what's called a mordeshoor. And in this
fantastical world she is the mortician, really, of her society. She cleans the
bodies and prepares them to go on to the next life.
She prepares the spirit to move on. And her father has not been helping with
that duty at all, so she is very overwhelmed and very overworked. Then the
main character from the first book, Alice, shows up in this story, and she is
supposed to help Laylee. But it's not described how Alice is supposed to help
her. So I really did like that Whichwood explored this whole concept of
death, and I think that it does a really good job of familiarizing young children
with respecting people's bodies and not being scared of the bodies as much which
is something that's important. I really liked that. I really liked Laylee's
powers and all of that. I just really liked that she was a mortician, and I
think that that was the biggest pro of this book. Other than that, I didn't
really enjoy it very much. I thought the writing was over-the-top and hard to get
through, and for a middle-grade that's not a good thing. You want middle-grade readers
to be able to read your stories pretty easily so that they don't get bored, and
put it down, and move on. This book is actually more about Alice than it is
about Laylee, and I didn't think that made any sense because this book is
really pitched as being about this mordeshoor Laylee. But it's not. It's
about Alice still, so I didn't really like that because I didn't really like
Alice that much in the first book. She did not move over well because I didn't
really like her in this either. She's fine, but she's nothing spectacular. And
she's not a character that I root for. I think that the characters in this act
way less mature than an actual 12 year old would. They act like six-year-olds,
and they have grudges like 6 year olds. And it's just a mess for no reason
because 12 year olds - I know this because my brother is a teenager and not that
long ago was 12 - he act[ed] nothing like that, and none of the people that he
interacted with acted anything like this. So I just didn't like the characters.
Also there's a legal proceeding that happens in this book and I thought that
it was irresponsibly done. I'm a little biased because I'm in law school,
so I look at those things. And I analyze those things for how accurate they are,
and this book really portrays lawyers as awful things. It's hard to go through
life without having a lawyer, and to teach people to distrust lawyers
immediately causes a lot of problems. So I didn't like the whole courtroom scene
because it made lawyer seem awful, but obviously that's a
personal con. And the last con that I'm going to talk about is that I read
this book as an audiobook, and the audiobook narrator does it terribly. I do
not like this narration at all. The accents he gives people are the most
annoying voices ever. One of the side characters, Benjamin in this... his mother
has the most annoying voice. I could not stand it. I know that some people
probably actually talk like that, but no! I really didn't like it, and it made no
sense all of these people in this one town that we're supposed to have been
isolated for a ridiculously long time... there's not supposed to be any outside
influence because they cut themselves off from everyone. Each person has the
most random accent from all over the place. I didn't like the narration. Didn't
like the characters. The plot was okay, and I didn't like the writing. So I ended
up giving this book two stars, and moving on. After the train wreck that was Whichwood
I picked up Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley, and I actually did really
enjoy this one. It follows a guy named Ted, and he is living with his dog Lily. He
has recently-ish broken up with his partner, so he is now alone. And he has
put all of his love and affection towards Lily.
One day he notices that Lily has a growth on top of her head, and he
immediately identifies it as an octopus. And then throughout this novel it
follows Ted, Lily, and the octopus as Ted is trying to get rid of the octopus and to
save Lily. It's one of those heartwarming-
heartbreaking dog books, and I did a book review for this. So if you want to check
it out, I'll leave that up in the card symbol. But I ended up giving this book
four stars <text: 3.5 Stars*>. I continued my actually liking books roll, and I picked up
Nevermore: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. This is also nominated
for the BooktubeSFF Awards in the middle grade category, and so far this is
the only one in that category that I definitely recommend to people. It was so
good! I really, really enjoyed it. It follows this girl named Morrigan Crow.
She's considered a cursed child in this world, and on her 11th birthday she is
supposed to die. Everyone around her thinks that she is responsible for every
bad thing that has ever happened to anyone around them. Anytime someone
falls down and breaks their ankle, it's Morrigan's fault. Anytime
someone makes a bad business decision, it's Morrigan's fault. If someone gets sick,
its Morrigan's fault because she looked at them for more than a half of a second . So
she has a pretty bad run of things as a child because the town doesn't really
like her and her family doesn't really treat her very well especially her
father. She just is waiting basically to die on her 11th birthday, but instead she
is whisked away by this guy named Jupiter. And she is taken to this place
called Nevermore where she has the opportunity to join the Wondrous society,
I believe is what it's called, by participating in this competition. And
she obviously says yes because she doesn't really have a choice.
At the beginning of this book it gives a lot of Harry Potter vibes. It's like, "Oh I
don't know about this. This seems very similar." But it quickly goes from a lot
of Harry Potter vibes to its own story with this competition and everything
that she has to go through. She definitely grows a lot in this novel,
and I just adore Morrigan Crow. I just want her to be happy, and I want her to
succeed. I thought the different trials and
competitions that were testing the children for certain traits were really
interesting. They were very quick, but I still found them interesting. And I also
really liked that to join the society each candidate has to have some type of
talent that makes them worthy of being a part of this society.
So Morgan throughout the novel is trying to figure out what her talent is, and why
she would be able to be accepted into the wondrous society. It's definitely a
story a found family. She creates a new family from all of these very wonderful
people that she meets throughout the novel, and it's a story about believing
in yourself even if other people in your past have told you that you can't do
something or that you aren't worthy of love. That you are worthy of those things,
and you are worth something. I just really, really enjoyed this one, and I
definitely, definitely recommend it. I gave it five stars. After that I read
when breath becomes air by Paul Kalanathi. This is a book about a neurosurgeon
Paul Kalanathi who finds out that he has lung cancer, and then throughout the
course of the novel you follow him while he's going through his different
treatments and his mental state during that. He explores self-worth a lot in
this novel, and what it means to spend your time wisely when you know
how much time you have left and it's not very much. There's also a strong message
that you're not dead until you're dead, so don't start acting like you're gone
before you're gone. Live until you can't live anymore, and I really enjoyed that
message. Paul Kalanathi was super well read - more well-read in classics than I will
ever be in my entire life. He has a lot of those references in here, so I enjoyed
seeing those. Even though I haven't read all those books,
I know those references, and the afterward that was written by his wife was
probably my favorite part of the whole book. The book is written more stoically,
more analytically than it is written emotionally because that's exactly how
Paul wanted it to be. But I was expecting it to be more of that emotional
tearjerker shindig, so I enjoyed it a lot - just not as much as I thought I was
going to. So I ended up giving this book four stars, but I definitely recommend it.
It was a very, very interesting read. I also watched Paul Kalanathi's wife's
TED talk after this, and I think that they were just both wonderful people.
It's sad that he had to write this book in the first place, but I'm glad I got to
read it. The 18th book that I read in 2018 is Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas
Eames. This was nominated in the BookTubeSFF Awards debut novel, and tons
and tons and tons of people have absolutely loved this book. I ended up
borrowing this book as an e-book from my library, and that was a huge mistake.
Not because the e-book formatting was bad or anything like that, but because it
takes me so long to read e-books. This follows a band of mercenaries. They are
now middle-aged men. And they had disbanded a while ago, but now they're
coming back together because one of the band member's daughters,
Gabe's daughter, is stuck in a situation that she can't get herself out of. And
she is surrounded by tons of enemies. This band Saga is going to try to go and
save Rose. That's basically the premise of this book. This book is pretty funny.
It's a parody almost of a fantasy book. It kind of pokes fun at the genre while
still being a part of the genre which is one of my favorite things that books can
do. I also really enjoyed the main characters of this story. I thought that
Clay Cooper who is really the main character of the book and his friendship
with Gabe [were] so amazing, and in the afterward the author talks about how his
little brother is the Clay Cooper to his Gabe. I feel similarly
about my brother in that way. Like, Torin is probably the Clay Cooper to my Gabe.
So there were things that I really did enjoy, but because it took me so long to
read this because it was an e-book, I started narrowing in on problems that I
had with it and then really noticing those as I was reading it. First off,
there are, like, no good female characters. Jane sort of is a good one. She's kind of
a comedic aside that you see every once in a while, and she provides some laughs.
But every other female character is either really, really stupid and weak, or
they are bloodthirsty traitors and murderers, or they're drug addicted
absentee mothers. The only well-rounded, good person that is female in this
book is Ginny, and she's not in it for very long. That's Clay Cooper's wife.
There could have been a lot better female characters in this.T here's also a
ton of fat jokes in this book. I understand that a lot of the characters
are now middle-aged, so they're not in the prime of their lives. They're not in
the best of shape, and so they've put on pounds. And that affects them on a
day-to-day basis, but like, every single chapter there is fat jokes talking about
how the characters can't do certain things or they're surprised that the
characters can do something because they're so fat. And this one woman is
described in the most disgusting way because she is fat.
It could have described her as completely disgusting because she's a
cannibal, but no, it was because she was fat. And they described historical
figures that were bigger as being so obese that they couldn't do "this," and
they made fun of them for "that." And the way that this person died is funny
because he was fat. It was just too much, and I really noticed it. And it kind of
brought down my enjoyment of the novel. My last con really that I had was that
the final battle scene is just all over the place, and it doesn't matter because
you could skip the whole thing and not miss a single important thing because it
doesn't really focus in on the main characters that we've been following the
whole time. It focuses in on all these random people, and it doesn't matter. So I
ended up giving this book three stars because I definitely understand why
people love this book so much, but because I read it so slowly, I really
noticed some problems. I'm gonna try to get my hands on a physical copy and
physically we read it, but for now... three stars. The
19th book that I read in 2018 is Batman Year One by Frank Miller, David
Mazzucchelli and Richmond Lewis. This is an old-school Batman comic that really
set up how the Batman comics have continued on to the present day. It
introduced a more gritty style to Batman, and so it's one of those important
staples in comic books. I actually did really enjoy this. The artwork is dated
which I knew going in, so that was fine. But I enjoyed seeing Bruce Wayne slowly
transition from coming back and seeing a problem to slowly kind of accumulating
this idea for Batman, and then implementing that idea. He doesn't just
come back with this plan of being a huge bat and running around the city in
tights.He slowly came to that plan. I ended up
giving this book four stars because of its importance to comic book history and
Batman specifically. I think if you're gonna read a lot of Batman comics, then
it is worth it to go back and read this one, but in the grand scheme of things, I
don't think it's the most necessary thing to pick up. So it was a fun ride -
four stars - but nothing necessary or spectacularly amazing if you're just a
casual Batman fan. And the 20th thing that I red in 2018 is All Systems Red
by Martha Wells. I also did a book review for this which I'll leave up in the card
symbol, and you can check it out. But this one follows a construct that is made out
of organic and inorganic materials. It's not really a cyborg, and it's not really
an AI system. it's a SecUnit, and it refers to itself
as Murderbot. Its job is to be the security detail for people that are
exploring different worlds to decide if they want to bid on that world to
develop it and colonize it, but the thing about Murderbot is that it hacked its
own governor module. So it doesn't actually have to listen to any commands
ever. It has autonomy over itself. I ended up giving this book four stars. I really,
really enjoyed it. I think Murderbot is amazing.
I love Murderbot. I am so excited to continue this novella series. I think
that it will just continue to get greater and greater as the books go
along, and I think that it addressed a lot of social things in this book as
well. I definitely recommend this one, and if you want to know more thoughts, check
out that review because this video is already forever long.
So those are the next ten things that I read in 2018. If you liked this video,
please give it a big thumbs up and comment down below what you've been
reading recently. Do you have anything that you'd recommend me? Are there any of
the BookTubeSFF books that I talked about that you've read and loved or that
you've read and hated? Let me know any of the things down below, and I will talk
to you guys next time. Bye! <finger gun and click noise>
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