THE BEST BOOKS I READ IN 2019 aka a video I filmed when I should have taken a shower

  A lot of people were like, oh my god. I gotta try this out because Cindy rated it five stars So it must be good and then there are some people Who actually did try it out and then they didn't like it and they're like man why did Cindy recommend this? Bitch I never recommended it to you. Okay, I only gave it five stars because I'm a simple bitch Every once in a while, I get a few comments saying why don't you pick up books that you actually like Why do you only read books that you hate? Why'd you do this to yourself? I do regularly read books that I like You just don't know that because you only click on my most popular videos and they happen to be the ones where I'm ranting about A book, but that's not on me that's on you. I always talk about books. I like but nobody clicks on them Is that anyone even gonna click on this one? I don't even know I want to talk about the best books I read in 2019 when I say best I don't mean objectively best I just mean all of the books that I rated 5 stars or all the books I really enjoyed I toss all kinds of ratings at all kinds of books and some of them don't even make any sense I thought it might be fun to take a look at all of the books I rated 5 stars But I also want to mention a few runner-ups of books that I still really really like. In total There were 8 books that I rated 5 stars this year I'm gonna go in order of most credible to least credible and what I mean by that is there are some books that I gave 5 stars because they are truly that good and then there are some books I just gave 5 stars for like the hell of it again shit doesn't make sense over here take everything I say with A grain of salt. There are two books that have really stood out to me They are both memoirs the most recent one that I read was becoming by Michelle Obama I listened to her on audiobook and it was so good She details growing up in the south side of Chicago to becoming a lawyer to having a midlife crisis to quitting her lawyer job to join a non-profit instead and then meeting Barack Obama and then dealing with the crazy shit that Happens when you are the first black lady of the United States I loves going through that whole journey with her I loved hearing about her philosophy about life and about how certain demographics don't get the right opportunities She tries really hard to keep optimism and hope during a really bleak time If you are a woman of color living in the US I think that it would especially resonate with you and now I got to ask myself every day What would Michelle Obama do for one thing? She would probably take a shower before she started this video But now it's too late and I got to commit the other memoir that I really really liked was Educated by Tara West sober the author grew up in the mountains of Idaho With this fucking crazy ass redneck family that didn't believe in school or modern medicine. So she literally never went to school She never went to a hospital. She worked in her father's junk yard the whole time She was just like a hick her brothers are being the shit out of each other and then she grows up and she's like wait A minute this shit ain't normal She begins to teach herself basic math and grammar skills, and eventually she ends up in Harvard and Cambridge Which is fucking amazing. I went to school growing up and I still flunked calculus So I don't know how that bitch. Did it her whole story about Expanding her worldview and educating herself both literally and figuratively. It's really inspiring It's not even about formal education either She really had to go through a huge cultural shift Because she would go to college and that bitch wouldn't even bathe because she was so used to living in a hick redneck family Never washed her hands and shit. She'll be sitting in class and she's like, what's the Holocaust and everyone's like bitch Are you serious right now? Like this is the kind of book Where have you come from a toxic family or you had a rough childhood or a rough upbringing? This is the aspiring shit that is nice to see because this woman was able to define herself Outside of her bubble and outside of the limitations that her family had set upon her It's proof that even if you come from a dysfunctional family You don't have to be trapped in your circumstances and you can seek a better life for yourself I realize now that I totally love memoirs about strong women that have a rock to riches story Because that's kind of shit that I want to manifest in my life too right now I'm the old Tara Westover who isn't taking a shower, but I want to be the new Tara Westover who is fit for civilization So I'm gonna do that after I film this video I promise I'm really glad you can't smell through the camera right now. The third book that I rate of 5 stars is Technically a webcomic. The story is about a young girl who is fleeing from Vietnam as an asylum seeker She is on a boat with a bunch of other refugees A lot of people are dying and sick and he is just hoping to make it through to try to have a better life for Ourselves the story wasn't necessarily Mind-blowing but what really stood out to me is the production quality of the webcomic if this were a story that was written traditionally I probably would have rated it 3 stars because it's not enough to get you emotionally attached to characters or fully understand the context of the historical setting but the way that the webcomic was Executed made it so freakin good as you scroll down There are all these little details like having the comic panels tilts back and forth across the screen to show how the boat is shaking or seeing how the artwork of a human being Trimble's up as you scroll down to imply that this person is starving to death Everything was super well thought-out to really make a feel like you are in this claustrophobic setting that's totally miserable Depressing a shit as you hear people dying and crying around you. It's not a good time And that's why I read it five stars. It's not for everyone I just think that if you come from a design background Or if you are an artist you would be the type of person that would appreciate the craft of How this story was put together the next book by rate of five stars was freelance and business and stuff Which is a guide for creatives who are interested in freelancing so this is the type of book where I'm not like fangirling over it and I'm not Obsessive over it like how I would with fiction books and we'll get to that in a bit I read a lot of self-help books and a lot of them are not that good. This one is a good example For something that provides actionable advice is clearly organized that is composed into a step-by-step guide It's like a litmus test to see if you have what it takes to do this freelance thing for real Anna made me realize no I cannot I'm too stupid to do that But I wouldn't have realised that if I hadn't read that book now I understand how much brain power it takes to actually start a business. So I'm like no Thank you. The fifth book that I really enjoyed was the Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein This is a retelling a free as told through Elizabeth perspective from the original tale Elizabeth didn't really have much of a role in this book you could really see what was going on in her head the whole time and what was interesting is that she actually Purposefully put on the role of a subservient woman a lot of times in abusive relationships The victim has to make themselves smaller in order to appease to the abuser and that is exactly the kind of dynamic that you see as she grows up with Victor she was an orphan child and she was given away to The Frankenstein family because their son was a fucking weirdo and they thought that it would be better if he had Friends, and so she was brought to him literally as a supporting character for his story Literally just to develop his narrative and she knew that she had to continue Playing this role because if she didn't she would have nothing she would be thrown out on the streets Abandoned by the family. It was how a bitch survived in 18th century Europe It was such a fascinating way to add more depth to her character and it did a good job in portraying a toxic relationship as well in the Codependency that they have on each other the pacing can be pretty slow. So if you're not into that, then don't go for it But if you really like seeing character studies and you like seeing how relationships are portrayed this book What's good? And then the next three books I saved for last because I really just rated them 5 stars for the fluff aspect First one is lovely war by Julie Barry This is a historical romance with a mythological twist because it is about the goddess of love at trial She had an affair with the God of War and she must prove to the court Why love and war keep on banging she proves this by telling a story that takes place in World War one about these two pairs? Of lovers, four central characters they all fall in love with each other and you know as some cheesy as bullshit But I loved it anyway I just love romance stories that take place during a really fucking Depressing time period because it's like you see the hope it's such a dreary moment in history, and that's a good shit but the cherry on top was that the author really put in a lot of care and effort into Research of the people that existed during World War one. She did research about women's role during the Great War and the african-american soldiers that helps contribute to fighting alongside with the white soldiers and would get Discriminated even though they're on the same side. I loved that She was able to spotlight those characters and they were all very endearing. I do think the romance was like kind of rushed It's very cheesy. And if you're not like into romance, you probably won't like it, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless I cried seven times on an airplane because I read this during my flight. I made my neighbor's very uncomfortable, but That's just how it be and then the next fluffy book that I read at five stars was enchantment of rebus This is the kind of book that a lot of people were like, oh my god I gotta try this out because Cindy rate it if I've started so it must be good and then there are some people who actually Did try it out and then they didn't like it and they're like man. Why didn't you recommend this bitch? I never recommended it to you. Okay, I only gave it five stars because I'm a simple bitch This is a fairy tale story about a girl who is a prodigy painter she has a dangerous set of clients who are fairies and they are dangerous because these are Immortal beings that could fucking finesse you like they can manipulate you and make you do dangerous shit So they cannot be trusted at all So one day she gets a client and he is a fairy Prince that asks her to draw a portrait of him And so she does they have instant love this is one of the complaints that a lot of people had about the book but I kind of saw it as infatuation and then later that would develop into actual love but in the beginning it was insula because at first it was like some juicy bullshit and then later after She sets over the portrait the fairy gets mad at her because she actually drew sorrow in his eyes Which is a bad thing because now all the other fairies know that he's a pussy So he snatches her up to go to the course so she can beast out on trial And so that's when she's like wait a minute This guy's kind of an asshole and so they go on this adventure together and the adventure drags on for a very long time that there's another thing that people had a complaint about because they kind of just meandered, you know nowhere, but along the way they fall in love and really that's all I care about again I a must Oh, ho I never recommend this book. I just happen to give it 5 stars because I felt like it I just thought the characters were super cute I thought it was a fluffy story if you just want to be a simple ho and enjoy like a cute fluffy story and you don't want to be Critical about the plot or anything, you know, just sit back relax, enjoy a simple fairy tale story and that's it But don't be mad at me if you don't like it. Ok, cuz I never said that I had good taste the last one I'm saving for last because I don't even know if it deserves five stars. It was how to make friends what it goes This is a picture book and honestly it I mean it's exactly how you see it. The art style is really cute The story is very simple is for children I mean, I don't know what else to say about it the advice about how to make friends with a ghost was pretty creative I don't know. I need to increase my average Catrice rating. It's just cute and quirky and I mean Why not give it a 5 stars. I want to mention some runner-ups of books that I really really enjoyed I just didn't give them 5 stars for whatever reason but I still Think there are pretty damn good The number one book that I think is the most Underrated one out of everything that I've read is an unkindness of ghost by River Solomon This is a sci-fi book about a young black girl who is autistic she lives in the loads act slums of a spaceship that is basically organized to be like the antebellum south they actively Oppress the darker skinned passengers like the main character and view them as less than human There were some pacing issues with this but I still really really liked the ideas and the concepts behind this I love it when there are John Ross I buy or fantasy that take place in a different universe or a different world But they parallel issues that we have today It was super interesting that the concept of gender identity was explored in a sci-fi setting - it's like a very subtle way of Dehumanizing someone even if it's not physically shown. I mean there definitely is like a lot of physical violence So you need the best of both worlds. It was very fascinating to explore all of those little dynamics with gender and And colorism and even autism it was a very ambitious attempt for a debut novel I am definitely planning on Reading the rest of their books as they keep on writing another book that I enjoyed was called make time This is a nonfiction book on how to focus on what matters not spending your whole fucking life just dedicated to your job or getting all these errands done and never making time for Your passion projects or your family or whatever else that you value if we live our lives so passively like that It really sucks because then we're just on autopilot the whole time. It's always a good reminder to redefine productivity so that it's not based on how busy you are all the time all the busy work that we put on ourselves as If it's like an accomplishment really it's more like what how do you want to spend your time? Like what do you want to do in your life? It's just a good reminder to just make time for shit that matters on a similar note There was another nonfiction book. I read called proposals for the feminine economy. This is a super short book It's more like a manifesto It's not really like a self-help guide or a hard-hitting economics book or anything But it's similar in a sense that it's a nice reminder to redefine something that is so ingrained in your brain and Adjust it so that it's just more to something that is true to you We view a lot of power structures in a masculine way Why don't we focus it on nourishment instead and other traditionally feminine qualities that are often seen as inferior? But use it as a way of strength. I like that it strips away this idea of being this cold abrasive Businesswoman the next book that I really enjoyed was to kill a kingdom is a standalone novel Thank fucking god because I'm tired of fantasy series that have like seven books this is a retelling of the Little Mermaid a main character is a siren and then the prince character is actually a siren killer she Loses her Siren capabilities and then she turns into a human She must seduce the Prince and steal his heart in order to become a siren Once again the protagonist fucking hate each other and I love it I usually don't like enemies two lovers trope. But this one it was done pretty well. I loved their banter The adventure was really fun to read it also doesn't bog you with a bunch of Extraneous information either if you want to be introduced to fantasy without the fear of being bogged down This is a very simple standalone book I also enjoyed full time you buy make Lewis for similar reasons as I enjoyed the other two non-fiction books This is a work book about career development and finding out what are the things that you value? The most in life and what are your unique streams that you can turn into a career? I made my workplace buy this book for me before I quit my workplace and went to my new job So I guess it works she tries to guide you through the different ways for you to identify your strengths and what makes you different from other people and how you Can translate those unique qualities into a career that is tailored for you I want to reserve this last section for books that I think are good They just weren't for me, but I want to mention them anyway, because maybe they might be for you The next two books I am gonna recommend or for the intellectual bitches out there The first book is her body and other parties. This is a collection of short stories There's a lot of female and female relationships, but that's like not the focus of the story It just happens to be an element of the story as you read all this fucked up shit that's happening it's kind of like a horror in a way because each story focuses on the Violence that women's bodies have faced whether that's from society or from other people or even from the woman themselves I say that this is the book for the intellectual bitches out there because you really have to think when you read these short stories But if you're sick of all the fluffy romance books that I've been rating 5 stars And you actually want to read something with substance and said her body and other parties is one Of the books that I think had a lot of great ideas it just wasn't for me because it varied between being too big for my Pea-brain and being too obvious for my nitpicky brain a similar book along those lines is a memoir called I'm afraid of mint. This is a very short book It's a series of essays that is written by a trans artist who reflects on the ways that masculinity has And impose on her when she was a boy and the repercussions Of what she has to deal with now there's a lot of interesting points as she talks about throughout the book that I hadn't even considered before like how we often view men on a binary between good men and bad men when really Human beings are all kinds of grey in between. I thought her book I read this year That was pretty good was called the poet X. It's about a young girl in Harlem. Who? discovers herself through slam poetry It's not as easy as I make it out to be I kind of expected it to be because apparently the whole book is written as poetry and I was like, oh, I don't know about there's a kind of sounds gimmicky, but honestly, It was actually written pretty well and I heard that the audiobook is even better if you want to listen to the author narrate the poems herself the book did a good job of showing the Complexities of being a teenager who is finding her voice in a culture that often suppresses the voices of young women This is the kind of book that any young girl should read because it's a great example of a coming-of-age novel But let's say you weren't a young girl. Let's say you're a slightly older girl. What should you read instead? Well, another book that I read along similar lines was the calculating stars This is a historical and sci-fi novel about a main character Who is a wasp pilot and a mathematician back in the 50s? I believe there has been a meteorite that fell onto earth Basically Earth is fucked and we gotta find another planet to cohabitate NASA puts together the space program It's only composed of men. And so the main girl is like wait a minute Why the fuck can't we go in? The story is about her fighting to become the first lady astronaut Not only did the book go super into detail with all of the aerospace and the history There was also a huge intersection of how race and gender and mental health were explored among the cast of characters and I don't even mean it as like oh They're a bunch of guys their word mean to the main girl I'm saying that even the main girl was a fucking ignorant bitch, but she learned and that is called growth I did think the writing style was kind of basic Some of it was a little cheesy But I still think that the story holds a lot of merit If I had a daughter I would want her to read that shit. The next book that I think is good is if we were villains it's basically about a bunch of pretentious theater kids who went to this college ten years ago One of the people in their group had been murdered We are reading this in present-day where the main character had been accused of murder, even though he didn't actually do it He tells the detective what really happened ten years ago There's a lot of murder and there's a lot of melodrama if you were super into place You might notice some of the parallels between the events of the book and the plays that they reenact when they were in school Those are all of the books that I really enjoy throughout the year. I definitely don't think that these books were Objectively amazing or anything like that. Some of them work like some of them were really fucking good and some others I don't know. They were just books. I happened to like and it's subjective for everybody the next video that I will make is about the worst books I read in 2019 I'm gonna go take a shower now because I cannot stand my smell anymore don't forget to unsubscribe because I'm stinky You only love me when the lights go down. You only love me with a hangover you lovely when we get You only love me when they play your song