Recommending Books For Every Genre

  -My last blog, I was talking about howI have a wide range of reading tastes, a lot of genres that I read. Despite that, despite likinga lot of different types of books, there are still some booksthat just don’t fit with me. Certain genres that I haven’t found a wayto connect with yet, certain tropes, certain types of stories that justdon’t really work for me, and yet, there have been exceptions to the rule. This video is going to becovering the genres that I like to read and I’m going to givefive recommendations per genre. We’re going to be covering thrillers,horror, nonfiction, literary fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and romance. Even though romance is nota genre that would go on this, it’s not a genre that I read a lot of,I was making the list and I realized I have five romancesto recommend to you. Actually, I just put romance on herebecause I get the comments so often, "Can you make a video aboutromances that you actually do like?" As of yesterday, I can,because I just read one that I liked, then I had four others from before. Starting with thrillers, we’re goingto kick it off with one of my favorite thrillers with something I’ve hypeda lot of my channel, and that is Rebecca. This is a classic domestic thriller. These fellows are unnamed protagonists. We never give a namefor her in this novel. We start off with her when she’sin a less than ideal situation and then she meets the fellaof this novel and he is also in a less than ideal situation. They immediately fall into infatuation,not love. Get married real fast and thenshe’s whisked off to his manor. Once she gets to his manor,she finds that his late wife, Rebecca, there’s maybe a lot more going on withher story as well as her death. It maybe wasn’t asaccidental as she thought. Also, everyone in this manorseems oddly obsessed with her, including our main character. I enjoyed this so much for the blatant,not love story that it was, for how truly unhealthy everycharacter in this book was. Therefore, I trusted no one and I didn’tknow where we were going at any point. I felt that the suspensewas built up so well in this and I enjoyed the endingof this novel so much as well. This book really just hitpretty much every level for me. I think that if you aren’ta classics reader, this is a book that you couldstill fall for because it falls into the rhythmof a domestic thriller, but it’s more unique than a lotof domestic thrillers are. It is a Gothic thriller,which Gothic thrillers, Gothic horrors are my favoritesubset of the thriller-horror genre. It was just such a funexperience for me. Next,I’ll recommend Into the Drowning Deep, which I think is actuallyclassified as a horror, but I don’t think that that fits,so I’m going to put it under thriller. Actually, I think it’s moreof a suspense than anything else, but here’s where I’m putting it. Into the Drowning Deep,I love it so much. It is a killer mermaid story. I don’t talk about it a tonon my channel anymore, but if you don’t know, supernaturalfantasy isn’t usually my thing, but killer mermaids are my thingand I struggle so much with mermaid stories because mermaidsare usually romanticized. Maybe they start out darkbut then they have an arc of goodness or somethinglike that in novels, and it drives me nuts becauseI just want killer mermaids. I just want the mythology of mermaids because the mythologyof mermaids is so cool. Into the Drowning Deep is stillnot my perfect mermaid book, but it is the closest I’vefound and I enjoyed it so much. This actually follows oceanographers, which fun fact about mein college and university. My favorite courseI took was oceanography. This follows oceanographersand scientists that go out to the Mariana Trench,the deepest part of the ocean. They go after an event has happened. Some of them are there to findclosure on what happened in the past. Some of them are therejust for their own game, their own scientific research thatthey can do while they’re there. They have different motivations.It is a large cast. I do think thatthe beginning of the novel is pretty slow becauseof how large the cast is, but this book has such greatsuspense once it gets going so much. I don’t want to sayfear just on the edge of your seat whilethe mermaid started appearing, and there’s a lot of deeper subjectsbeing explored in this book as well, which I really, really enjoyed. I think my biggest complaintabout this book has to be the ending because it’s just such a convenient, out of nowhere, abrupt.Still, read it. Just go in knowing thatthe ending could have been better. It’s still such a goodbook despite that. There’s a prequel, Rolling in the Deep, that I still have yet to readbut really, really want to. I enjoyed this book so much.Next is Little Secrets. This is a domestic thriller. It starts off with a womanwhose son is abducted. It starts off really, well,horrifying, but also very exciting, very well-written. Then we fall into the typicaldomestic thriller rhythm, which is unfortunate because asmuch as I enjoy domestic thrillers, they all look the same so often. I was frustrated because thisbook had so much potential, but then I really thinkit rose back up at the end. I would say, excellent beginning,excellent ending, standard middle, which, at least,it had a great ending, I guess. Anyway, after her son is abducted,she just kind of spirals, and we follow her life for a whileas her marriage crumbles and she’s still trying to find her son becauseshe believes that he’s still alive. I guess that’s all I’ll saybecause it’s a thriller. With as complicated as my emotionstend to be with thrillers, I think that this is one of the mostsatisfying ones that I’ve read. Next on my list is Dark Matter. This is a psychological thrillerabout alternate dimensions. If that’s your thing, you probablyalready heard about it, actually, because this is a pretty popular book. This kicks off with a man whowakes up having been beat up. He is in his home,but his home looks different. His family doesn’t remember him.His job is different. His world is different,and he can’t figure out why, and we just kind of go from there. Alternate dimensions, you can kindof get an idea of what we’re doing here. Again, it’s a thriller so I don’twant to give too much information. This is a book that I was absolutelyon the edge of my seat for. I read it so fast.I enjoyed it so much. I had some nitpicks about it,but for the most part, I had such a great time reading this. The last book on my thrillerlist is Jurassic Park. Now, I know that you would thinkthat this would be in sci-fi. This is technicallyclassified as a thriller. I think most books probably fitcomfortably in more than one genre. This one would definitelybe a sci-fi thriller. Jurassic Park was a recent read for me. I didn’t even know thiswas a book until recently. Jurassic Park is a movie franchise thatI grew up watching, I loved so much. When I saw my bookstore selling this,I had to know. Even though I loved the movies so much,I loved the book that much more. I think that the movies werefairly loyal to the book, but the book had a level of suspensethat, I think, can’t have been recreated. The author really took his timeto build his foundation and to create an environment to the point thatI really felt like I was there. When things did start going down,my heart was pumping. I felt like I was in it with them. I also just feel likethe consequences were much more real in this and every action,every decision, was very well-thought-outand very intentional. This is an author that I will absolutelybe reading a lot more of his work on. Now, let’s move on to horror. We’re going to kick it offonce again with Gothic horror. The Yellow Wallpaper,which I won’t say much about because it’s like 16 pages long,this, I guess, would be classified as a short story.This is a classic. This is based offof a woman’s true experience. This author went througha very traumatic event. Due to that,her mental health started to spiral. A common form of treatment in her timewas to be locked in a room, and you’re not allowed to haveany sort of creativity. You can’t draw, you can’t write, you can’tdo anything to stimulate your mind. You are in isolation. There’s no communication withanyone other than your caretaker. You’re left there just to exist.This was written as a horror, but it was written withthe intent of depicting what this author went through becauseit only made her spiral harder. This follows a woman whois in a similar situation. She’s locked in this roomwith yellow wallpaper, and she starts to seethe yellow wallpaper moving, and spirals deeper and deeper. If you read this just as a horror,it’s a great horror. The suspense is there.The creepy elements are there. I loved the ending of thislittle short story. But also knowing the impact thatthis had, this little short story, this 16-page story,several doctors read this and ended up changingtheir methods of treatment for mental illness after this becausethey realized how harmful it truly was. Knowing the impact of it as well as justhow great it is, I loved it so much. Pet Sematary, this is actuallyone of the first horrors I read. Stephen King is still an author thatI really don’t know how I feel about. He’s a very hit or missfor me but Pet Semetary was my first book by himand I loved it so much. It’s a very slow book and a verycharacter-focused book and the horror elements don’teven begin until near the end, but I loved the deepexploration of grief in this book and I loved how we started off here and then we took the grief upa notch and took the grief up a notch. I felt like I had somereally deep conversations about this topic whileI read this book. Then after I’ve gottenso much out of it, then the horror finallyamps up and then it was just an explosion of an ending,I loved it. Next is The Troop, which I’vementioned recently in a video. I guess just skip this section, skip till this is offthe screen if you don’t like body horror because I’mgoing to talk about it. This is about a groupof boy scouts that get stuck on an island and on thisisland there is this worm. This worm can get into your bodythrough any kind of cut, any small cut on your bodyand once it gets in there it starts eating and eating, and eating and reproducingand reproducing and reproducing until all these worms takeover your body to the point that you have this insatiablehunger that you will do anything to eat whatever is aroundyou maybe it’s other people. You have that element of it and thenyou also have the element of these kids having to deal withthe fear of if anything goes wrong, if anyone gets cut now what do we dowith our friends who are now in danger, who are now putting us in danger. We have the element of these friendsmay be turning on each other and having to decide how am I going to handle one of my friends thathas now been infected. There’s a lot of elementshappening in here. There’s a lot of differentways some suspense is brought in and I enjoyed it so much, I will give a warningfor a graphic animal violence, animal abuse in this bookbut if you think you can stomach it, it was such a great book. Edgar Allan Poe I think isa pretty obvious choice. His horror short stories are fantastic. Some of them are hit for me, some of them are a miss for mebut there were some I think The Black Cat has beenmy favorite that I’ve read so far. The Black Cat, to me, is the betterversion of the Tell-Tale Heart, which is one of his mostpopular short stories. I have not even scratchedthe surface with Poe’s works but from what I have read,I definitely want to keep reading, I have enjoyed his shortstories so much. The last book on my horror listis I Am Legend, which, again, I talked about recently in a video.I really enjoyed this book, specifically because I meanI think the suspense elements were there but I also just lovedhow smart this protagonist was, how he thought througheverything and worked through his problemsand found solutions. There were no coincidences. He truly was an intelligentprotagonist and we got to see his thought process and we got to seehim problem solve and I really, really appreciated that.I also just think that the horror, the suspense elements in this book were fantastic and I reallyloved the ending. Okay, pick up your speed, Merph. I’m realizing that I’mtaking way too long on this. I’m going to tryto speed up a little bit. Let’s go into non-fiction next.How to Win Friends & Influence People. Dale Carnegie is a very popular author, you probably don’t needto hear a lot about this book. I love books on communication. I love self-help nonfictionbooks that help you to be able to show that you value the peoplethat you’re talking with. I think that his book, I’ve read a lotof books on this topic and I think that his book has been my absolute favoriteon the subject. She Came To Slay. Harriet Tubman wasmy favorite historical figure that we studied in school,I did papers on her. Anytime we got to choosewho we were going to study, it was Harriet Tubman for me,but I haven’t studied her, I haven’t spent any timereading more nonfiction on her since I’ve been outof school but I recently read She Came To Slay and I loved thisbook because it took us from her very beginning to her veryend in this short book. It covered elements thatI didn’t usually get to cover while I wasstudying her in school. It covered some of her lesser-knownvictories as well as some of the real struggles that she wentthrough and her real lows in life. It’s also illustrated.We get to see the underground railroad. We actually get to see a mapof it and we get to see pictures of her and I enjoyedreading this so much. The girl With Seven Names, this follows a woman who wasable to escape from North Korea, went into Chinafor several years and then eventually made her way to South Korea. This starts out withher in North Korea what her life being raised there wasand then her kind of shift of realizing that what she’sbeing taught is different from what she’s actuallyseeing in her country. Her attempts at escape,her successes, her failures, the danger that her family wasin trying to get them out as well. This is a book whereI just read it absolutely in awe of this author and everything that she went through and how muchshe sacrificed throughout her life. Things My Son Needs To About The World. Fredrik Backman is my favoriteauthor of all time. This is a nonfictionand it’s written in a series of letters and little notesthat he’s written to his son, as he’s learned to be a dad, and it deals with his insecuritiesand his victories, and there are so manythings that he wrote in here that just hit me sohard and it’s like, "Yes, that is exactly how I feel.You’re completely right." So many things that I criedmy way through reading because Backman can make me feelunderstood like no author can. I read a lot of thesepassages to my husband and he’s even moresensitive and sentimental. A lot more sensitive and sentimentalthan I am so he couldn’t read the whole thing but the bits that I read to himhe loved and cried through as well. Last book on this list is goingto be Running Into Happiness. This is by an author whowas going through a really stressful time in her lifeand completely lost her happiness, and she didn’t want thatto be her life so she spent so much time researchingthe concept and philosophy of joy and how to be ableto bring it back into her life despite it beingthe busiest time of her life. In this book, she compiles allher research and she compiles what so many people have saidand hits on what they teach, as well as speaks to her ownexperience in applying these things. One great thing about this isthat all of her research is cited so any of these things that endup connecting with the reader, end up making it workingfor the reader, they can easily goand research it more, find that person and watchtheir lectures themselves. This is a condensed place, a great place to start if anyone feelslike they are ready to start fighting for their happiness and bringing it backinto their life if they’ve lost it. Next, we’re going to betalking about literary fiction. Literary fiction isa more difficult thing to nail down of a bookbeing categorized this way. I’ve kind of used it as a catch-allfor books that explore meaningful topics. Well, there are books in this listthat are, I guess, psychological books, there are heavy contemporaries thattheir goal isn’t to be light and fluffy, their goal is to explore deep subjects. Here’s the definitionof literary fiction and I think that all thesebooks fall under that, but it’s subjective asto what book would be assigned to this titlekind of like classics. Anyway, here’s my list of fiveliterary fiction that I recommend. Literary fiction isactually my favorite genre. I know that fantasy is my most readgenre but literary fiction is it for me. You probably alreadyknow all these books if you watch my channelvery much at all because I talk about them somuch but we’re going to start off withthe most obvious of them, and that is going to beEvery Morning the Way Home Gets Longerand Longer and Beartown, both by my favoriteauthor Fredrik Backman. I could literally holdup any of his books. We’ve already talked abouthim once in this video. There isn’t a book of his that’sbeen a miss for me yet. He’s an author thatI trust with my emotions. I trust him to hurt me, [chuckles]but I trust him to understand me and help me to explore what I feeland think, and he’s just, oh my gosh. No author connects withme like this author does. This one is about a man who- if I wasa grandpa, a son and a grandson, while the grandpa is losing himselfwithin his mind as he has dementia. This is about a girl whois in a hockey town and one of the main hockey playersin this town rapes her, and it’s her story,her life after that, as well as the entire town and allof the ways that they handle it, the individuals handle it.Some of them handle it well. Some of them handle it horribly. Backman has this ability to takethese deep difficult subjects and explore them in this simpleyet meaningful way that, oh, my goodness just bringsreality to the surface. I don’t know how to describe it. I think that he’s one of the mosttalented writers, I’ve ever read. He is a slow author, it takes timefor him to lay his groundwork and get into the meat but if you’llbe patient with him, I can’t imagine you couldbe disappointed. My Dark Vanessa is about a girl who is15 and she goes off to boarding school. While she’s off at boarding school, she gets into this whirlwindromance with her professor. It deals in then and now. We get to see the romanceof it all in her mind then and then the realityof it all now. I really appreciate this book becauseit’s self-aware enough that Vanessa can see that the professor is tellingher things like you’re in control here, but not actually doing those things. Not actually giving her any control. I love that she can seethat he’s inconsistent. She can see that this isn’t healthy,but she doesn’t care because she’s in love and soshe’s getting swept up in it. It shows the reality of the situation. It shows the reality of being a victimof sexual assaults and the way people respond to you and the way the world responds to you and howmuch it breaks you. It’s a difficult book to read. It’s a very difficult book to read,but if you can stomach it, I love this book so much. The Vanishing Half is about two girls,they are black, they were born white-passing. One of them comes back to her hometown,and one of them disappears. Completely disconnects from her familyand lives life as a white woman, marries a white man, has a white child,does not tell anyone that she’s black. This takes place in the ‘50s. We follow both of these women,we also follow their children, well, their daughters, and eventually, the two daughters connectand everything comes back together. This is such a complex,brilliantly written story. Each of the four characters thatwe follow, have their own life, have their own side characters, have their own issues thatthey’re working through. Each of them is so whole in themselves, and the way their stories weave togetheris absolutely masterfully executed. From start to finish, this storywas so easy to fall in love with and to live throughwith these characters. It’s such a great story. I just think that I don’t know thatanybody could have written it better. Same with My Dark Vanessa, I don’t know that anybody couldhave written these books better. They’re so well executed. They’re written exactly as I wouldwant a story like this to be written. Last, I’m going to talk about The Boy,The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. This one was sent to my son, actually from a subscriberand I sat down and I read it to him. The illustrations are beautiful. There’s not a lot of words per page,my son sat through the whole thing. I cried through the whole thing. This is a story that I will read to himmany, many times throughout his life. This is a book that I wishI had read throughout my life. It takes these simple,yet deep, complex thoughts, and it breaks them downin a way that a child could understandand start to work through. It also breaks them downin a way that an adult would cry through and wish that they hadread growing up themselves. I cannot recommend thisbook highly enough. Whoa. All right, let’s do romance next. The obvious one is goingto be Pride and Prejudice. This is a story that we all know. I really don’t needto break it down too much. I love this story for how muchthese characters grow throughout it. Their individual arcs,Elizabeth and Mr. Bennett, their individual arcs areso satisfying to read, as well as the critical lookon Jane Austen’s society, as well as the absolute drama that goes on in Elizabeth’s familythroughout this story. There’s so many things happening, and it’s so satisfyingto watch it all come together and break apart and comeback together again. I love, love, love this book. On the Fence and On Luna Time, I mentionedboth of these in my last video. On the Fence is a book that I readyears and years and years ago. I don’t know that it wouldmean as much to me now if I were reading it for the firsttime, but every time I reread it, it still means so much to me. Probably,some nostalgia is connected to that. I love this book because it deals withone of my favorite romance tropes, friends to lovers, as well as it dealswith a big happy family dynamic. It deals with grief, it deals with our main character whois-- She grew up being one of the guys, athletic tomboy,and then she gets a job. She gets differentfriends or new friends and realizes that she alsoenjoys dressing up. She also enjoys going outwith her girlfriends and doing things and that she doesn’talways have to-- She realizes that there’s two sides of her personalityand she really struggles to figure out which one’sreal or if they can coexist. I relate to so much of this story. I was very close with my familyso I loved this family dynamic. I grew up as one of the guysand when I grew up and also started enjoying morefeminine traditionally girly, I don’t know how to word that. Things I had an identity complex, eventually finding out thatI can just be a holistic person and it doesn’t have to beone or the other, it can be, but it doesn’t have to be. The exploration of grief,I love so much. I just relate to so much in thisbook it’s my perfect contemporary. On Luna Time is justa really sweet love story. There’s a lot of exploration of family, this main character grew up in fostercare and didn’t really know her family and through- it’s a time travel romancewhich is just super not my style, but through being ableto go back in time she is able to beintroduced to her family, and she’s able to read their journalsand discover them as well as find love. It’s just the sweetest littlestory I love it so much. Josh and Hazel’s Guide To Not Dating. This is a book that I mostly loved,have some complaints about. You could check out my Goodreads reviewif you want some of those complaints, but this is about two peoplewho are friends, basically, and they end up having to live togetherunder a strange set of circumstances. They decided they want to seteach other up on a bunch of dates, none of the dates work out, they endup- it’s a romance they end up together. I thought it was really sweet,I liked it. Last book on this list,did I bring it in here? I was sure I brought it in herebut like everything else in my life, I’ve lost it. One to Watch,I am still currently reading this. I have 50 pages to the end, I will finish it today so by the timeyou see this video it will be done. This is a bachelor story.If you don’t know this about me, if you ever want to know a guiltypleasure in my life, it’s The Bachelor. I love that show so much I don’tmiss a season, it’s great. It’s just terrible and I love it. This book is The Bachelorette,that’s what it is. By the way, I love The Bachelorette too,I just lump them together. This main character watches yetanother season of The Bachelorette and complains on her fashionblog that there’s no diversity, there’s no body diversity, there’s noany kind of diversity in this show, and through that the show endsup reaching out to her and asks her to be the next star for 25 mento come and compete for her love. I’m going to be really really clear, this is a book for fansof this show franchise. If you don’t like the show franchise,you will hate this book. If you love the show franchise, I can’t imagine you wouldn’tlike it because it is. You are on set of the Bacheloretteand I loved it. I do love it. I’m still currently reading it. It isthe type of messy that I just enjoy. I never would want to be a partof but enjoy watching so much, and it follows every beatof the Bachelor, The Bachelorette, there’s really nothingthat happens at least within both first 350pages that I’ve read. There’s nothing that is outsideof the realm of this show. I wouldn’t call this book surprising, it’s doing everything so far that I’veexpected it to do, all the twists, all the surprises areexactly- I’ve called it all, but I’m not mad about it becauseI’ve just enjoyed the ride. I don’t know, maybe the last50 pages of this book are going to be terrible and I shouldno longer recommend it. If that’s so, I’ll cut all this, but I have enjoyed it so muchand you can get my final thoughts of it in this week’s readingvlog because there’ll be there. Sci-fi and fantasy I can blow throughthese genres a little bit more because I feel like I’m known morefor loving fantasy on this channel . Even though I’ve read so many genres, fantasy is definitelythe genre that I read the most of and I’ve recently beenreading more sci-fi as well. I’ll blow through thesea little bit faster. First one on this list isjust going to be Isaac Asimov, this is an author that I have reallybeen enjoying reading through his works. I have a whole lot moreof his books to read. I’m going to be startingthe foundation series soon. I think so far, the favorite thingthat I’ve read from him is the I, Robot collection, which one short story-this is a collection of short stories. One short story in thiscollection is what the I, Robot movie was basedoff of and it was great. That short story was great,the whole collection was great. I love Asimov’s abilityto break down this world. I love his use of AIs and I lovehis ability to create problems within these laws, and thenfind solutions within the world. It’s such a fun experienceevery time I enter into one of his worlds and I alwayswonder what’s going to go wrong? How are we going to fix it? I know it’ll all make sense and I knowit’s going to be a blast to get through. Children of Time, it’s on the otherside of the house I forgot to grab it. Children of Time is a recent read for meand it’s the weirdest Sci-Fi ever. There are two perspectives. One of the perspectivesis a colony of spiders. I was rooting for the spiders.My dad really was. It is so weird.Let me try to break it down for you. The world as we know it has collapsed.It’s over. This group of humans is trying to make it to a chloroformedplanet that is livable. They’re trying to basicallyrebuild the human existence. They’re going to attemptto rebuild it there. When they get there, they meetup with someone else that wants to be there too and it causes problems. Also, there’s a perspectiveof spiders but I’ll tell you nothing about thatbecause it’s so weird. It was such an enjoyable readingexperience if you like weird sci-fi. I enjoyed it a lot. I loved where it allled to. It was a great experience. Also, the author’s ability to writethese truly disturbing scenes, I was very impressed.On a lighter note, we have Murderbot. Again, a recent read for me. I’ve only read the firstnovella so far. I will absolutely becontinuing on in the series. This is comprised of I believe fournovellas before we get to the main novel. It follows a murder bot,a robot, who it is very bad at its job. Instead of wanting to do its job,it mostly just watches soap operas all day. It’s put in chargeof this group of people and it couldn’t care less about them.It is a sassy murder bot. It is sassy, apathetic, sarcastic,and also very deep and sweet. This first novella is really justthe point of it as far as I can tell is just to introduce us to murderbotand help us to fall in love with it. Beyond that, I don’t know becausethe world hasn’t really been built up, the side characters haven’t reallybeen built up. I expect that’s coming. I enjoyed the humor of this very,very much. I’m definitely attached to thischaracter and will happily continue on. Frankenstein, another classic thatyou know a lot about so I don’t need to say much about it otherthan just it’s very different from the adaptationsat least that I’ve seen. I would recommend reading it evenif you’re familiar with the story. Again, explores very deep subjects,very surprisingly emotional story. A lot of people creditMary Shelley as the author, the originator of the sci-fi genre. I just feel like you have to readit if you enjoy this genre at all. Skyward by Brandon Sandersonis a young adult sci-fi. I love this for a lot of reasons. I love it for the spaceshipand bot that is sarcastic and hilar- I love sassy, rude, hilarious AIs and thisprovides it so well. I also love our character becauseif you want to know what hurting, traumatized, not sure how to deal withher emotions younger Merphy looked like, I think that Spensa isthe exact vision of her. I love Spensa because I relate to her somuch in how she dealt with her pain. By closing people off, by tryingto look tough, by being so guarded. I’m so excited to see her arc. I’m so excited to seeher truly come into herself. I will be reading book two soon. I’m just waiting untilcloser to book three’s release date so that--I loved I wanted to continue on with book two immediatelyafter I finished book three and I couldn’t becauseit wasn’t released yet. I have a feeling I’mgoing to feel the same way about book threeafter I finish book two. I’m waiting untilthey’re close together so I can read them closetogether this time. I absolutely will be continuing with the series and I highlyrecommend book one. Fantasy.We can blow through this, right? I’ll just give you my topfive fantasy series. I don’t know how many people areactually going to find my channel through this video so I don’tfeel like I need to explain this. This is my favorite series of all time. A bunch of thieves who arebrilliant but idiots and who get into a ton of trouble but createthese elaborate, brilliant plans. The best friendship I’ve ever read. Hilarious scenarios as well asabsolutely brutal situations and brutal consequencesfor what they go through. If you’re fairly new to fantasy,this book is barely a fantasy. It’s in the fantasy genre and,yes, there are fantasy elements and I expectthe fantasy elements are going to be a lot more prevalent in bookfour but it’s barely a fantasy. If you’re not used to really big magicsystems, just read this amazing series. The Stormlight Archive,which book four is coming out soon. I’m rereading them rightnow with my husband. We’ll have our Words of Radiancereview up later this week. While I think the Mistborn trilogy, I enjoy the magic morein the Mistborn trilogy at this point. I am so in love with these characters and the way they interactwith each other. This world is massive and sofascinating and it’s so complex in the wayit’s all woven together. I loved experiencing the first time, I’m loving experiencing the second timeand really putting things together. I think that Sanderson is oneof my favorite storytellers, not one of my favorite writers but oneof my favorite storytellers for sure. The Lord of the Rings,obviously, has to be on this list. I absolutely adore this series. I loved it for the charactersand how difficult their journey is. I love this world. I absolutely adore Tolkien’s writing and the way he madethis world so immersive. I struggled withhis writing so much when I started reading thisseries for the first time but I’ve absolutely fallen in lovewith his pacing and his exploration. I love the relationshipsbetween this band of characters and I love the emotional difficultjourney that they go through. We are all familiar with thisseries but I love it so much. The First Law trilogy is definitelyon my top fantasy series list. I think it absolutely has to be. This is a series that is intentionallyunbelievably character-focused. I usually like more plotand more world-building earlier on than what this seriesprovides but it’s a very intentional choice to beslower providing those things and focus so muchon the characters for so long. These characters never make a decision that I feel are donefor the sake of story. Everything is so intentional,everything is so meaningful, everything is so believable,and I absolutely love that about this series. I also love that none of thesecharacters are outright good. We’re following so many morallygray or just downright bad people. I love that I’m rootingfor these bad people because they’re so humanand they’re so real. This series is hilarious. There’s so much humor packedinto this dark, dark world. Oh, my gosh, Joe Abercrombieis one of my favorite writers. He has the most beautiful,meaningful, brutal prose. He can make the most devastating,horrifying things pleasant to read somehow. I don’t really know how elseto describe this series. It’s just phenomenal. I think I’m just going to endthe favorite fantasies with Peter Pan, which is my favorite book of all time. Gentleman Bastard is my favorite series.This is my favorite book. Peter Pan is a classic fairy tale. It’s hard for me to express whyI love it and how much I love it. Eventually,I will reread it soon hopefully and give you a full review and we canreally break it down, but this book means so much to me. I love the whimsy of the world. I love the complexityof these characters, emotions, and feelings and the decisionsthat they make. I love the consequencesof their actions. I love the way the story endsand the emphasis on family and on adoption. I love that Peter Pan isa little brat but he’s so much deeper than just a little brat. It’s so hard for me to fullysummarize my thoughts and feelings on this book but I loveit so much and I’m so, I’m so, I’m so in love with it. There you go.That is a lot of recommendations. All the genres that I really enjoy,that I read on a fairly regular basis, there’s five recommendations for them. I hope you got something out of this. I’m exhausted but please continuechatting with me about it in the comments, chat with me about what booksyou’re going to pick up, about if you have any recommendationsfor any of these genres. I’d love for you to givethem in the comments. I post videos every Sunday,Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. See you guys again soon. Bye