2022 year in reading (so far)... meh 😩

**Fictional Crushes and Book Recommendations**

As a self-proclaimed character-driven story enthusiast, I have to say that I'm more drawn to books with well-developed characters than plots. Once I've finished reading a book, my memory is literally so poor that I can barely remember the main character's names, let alone their motivations and backstories. However, when it comes to fictional crushes, I have to admit that I get caught up in the romance and angst of it all.

Take Alessandra from Trisha Levenseller's "Shadows Between Us", for instance. She's a complex and driven character who doesn't care about much except for her own desires, and that's exactly what drew me to her. Her relationship with the Shadow King is fake, but it's full of angst and emotion, which is just my cup of tea when it comes to romance. And as for the Shadow King himself? I wouldn't be mad at him either.

I also have a confession to make: I have a secret crush on Olive from Brittany Morris's "The Love Hypothesis". She's a fun and adorable character who cares deeply about her friends, and her goofy side had me laughing out loud. While the fake-dating setup in the book was a bit far-fetched at times, I appreciate that she was willing to do whatever it took to help out her friends. And let's be real - Olive is just a great character all around.

**Reading Books That Make Us Cry**

Of course, not every book will make us happy or smile. Sometimes, we're subjected to the raw emotion of a well-crafted story that really hits home. For me, one of those books was Brittany Morris's "The Cost of Knowing". I remember getting chills down my spine as I read the final pages of this heart-wrenching novel. The author had a way of making us feel all the feels, even when we knew what was coming.

While I couldn't actually cry reading it (I'm still working on that whole emotional thing), I did feel deeply affected by the story and its characters. It's one of those books that stays with you long after you finish reading it, and I appreciate its ability to evoke strong emotions in the reader.

**Authors Who Make Me Smile**

There are some authors who have a way of making us smile, no matter what book they're writing. For me, that author is Talia Hibbert. Her books are always witty, whip-smart, and full of clever banter between her characters. I particularly love how she writes conversations - it's like we're eavesdropping on the most hilarious and romantic conversations ever.

One of my favorite books by Tibert is "Actress", which follows the Brown sisters as they navigate love, family, and identity. It's a heartwarming story that had me grinning from ear to ear, and I'm so sad that it's over (but hey - she's working on some new YA projects, so fingers crossed!).

**Collecting Beautiful Books**

Speaking of beautiful books, I have to mention my own bookshelf. As someone who loves collecting pretty editions of favorite novels, I'm always on the lookout for new and exciting designs. Recently, I picked up a stunning copy of Chris Riddell's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", which features gorgeous illustrations that had me swooning.

I love how these classic stories have been reimagined with such style and flair, and it's always a thrill to add new editions to my collection. And yes, sometimes I do buy books just because of their beautiful covers - there's something special about owning a physical copy that sparks joy!

**End-of-Year Reading Goals**

Last but not least, I want to ask: what books should we read by the end of the year? As it happens, I've got my own list going (and maybe even a video coming soon?), but I'd love to hear from you - what are your reading goals for the rest of the year? Are there any authors or genres that you're determined to explore further? Let me know in the comments below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eneveryone it's haley and today i'm going to be doing the mid-ear freakout book tag so i love doing this tag every year it's like the one tag that i make sure that i always do and yeah it's basically just like we're at the midway point of the year so there are a few questions that i'm going to be answering about how my reading has been so far and i'm not going to lie like i don't want to sound negative but when i was thinking of books for this video and i was like looking at the questions i realized that my reading year has honestly been pretty mediocre i am like super disappointed about that but i feel like i don't really have that many standout reads for this year don't get me wrong i've read some really amazing books but like i'll get into it as we get into the questions let's just get to that the first question is what is the best book that you've read so far in 2022 and this is kind of the question that made me realize not that i don't have a best book but there's nothing that like really stands out to me as that number one favorite i feel like in past years when i read a book i know right away i'm like oh yeah that's definitely like my favorite book of the year and it's not something that i really need to think about all that much but this year it's been really different because i had to think about it a lot like last year i knew once i read we are not free by tracy that that was my favorite book i 100 knew in the year before that and the year before that like i've always known what it is but now i was just kind of like i guess like so i picked two because i'm not really sure but i guess that my favorite book that i've read so far this year would be book lovers by emily henry i love emily henry and i think this was a really great installment and it's not a series they're not companions but you know what i mean like she writes romances that all kind of have to do with books in some way and i felt like this one was no exception to how incredible the other books by her are and she definitely has like become a favorite author of mine for sure so book lovers is definitely a favorite of mine of the year is it the number one i don't really know yet but the other book that i thought of was also you've reached sam by dustin tau which i wasn't really expecting to enjoy quite as much as i did but i was pretty blown away by that one i felt like it did exactly what it set out to do and it did it very well and it just doesn't read like a debut like it was just such a great read honestly so yeah i think that those two would be my two favorites of the year but that being said i kind of like i'm not really sure if i am going to say that like one of them is my favorite i don't know we'll see once the end of the year comes but yeah it's definitely been a very interesting and different reading year like i feel like i kind of felt similarly at this point last year as well but that was also like i had been moving and everything so i was really exhausted so i guess that like me having a new job is the new moving but it's kind of left me not having a lot of reading time but that's something i'm working on so then maybe i'll have like more of a clear favorite if that makes any sense question number two is the best sequel you've read so far in 2022 and i actually have only read one sequel this year and that is cytonic by brandon sanderson so that is the third book in the skyward trilogy or series actually because i think there's another book coming out but i didn't really love cytonic like i enjoyed it i liked the series a lot but i was kind of let down because i liked the second book so much i thought the second book was really great and cytonic i just kind of felt like was not as good it was still enjoyable but it just wasn't as good so it would be the best sequel i've read because i haven't read any others i don't think like i thought about it but i don't think i've read any others but it's not one that like completely blew me away and apparently he has started coming out with some like short stories and compilations that are in the same world and they add to the story but like i don't want to have to read some short stories in order to get the whole picture of things maybe that's just me and that's just a pet peeve of mine but yeah i'm just i'm not into that question number three is a new release that you haven't read yet but want to and i didn't actually write down an answer for this one because i had a hard time kind of thinking of just one because there are honestly so many books that have come out recently that i would really like to read but i kind of been in a slumpy mood obviously so i haven't done a lot of reading i guess i would say tokyo what is it tokyo dreaming tokyo dreaming by mikko jean is definitely one that one just came out um i honestly don't know there's so many like that's just because tokyo ever after sitting next to me that i thought of that one but the new christina lauren as well something wilder i haven't read every summer after yet by carly fortune and that one has just been all over the place and it's made me really want to read it the new um casey mcquisten like there are so many i could go on and on and on number four is your most anticipated release for the second half of the year and i actually have two so we have a million to one by adiba jagiridar and this book i'm so excited for because you guys know i've mentioned this before but i used to have an obsession with shipwrecks when i was a kid and tonight on the titanic the mary pope osborne magic treehouse book was my favorite out of all of them it was better dolphins at daybreak but like for this video's purposes it was the titanic one and i just enjoyed that one so much so what that has to do with this is that a million to one is actually about the titanic it's a titanic based story and i just i want to read like all the books like that so i'm definitely excited for a new one i think it's coming out in december and then the other book that's coming out in december is never ever getting back together by sophie gonzalez and i've been seeing this book it keeps on getting recommended to me on goodreads and i really am into it like it's kind of giving me selection vibes it's like an lgbtq plus but it's like a dating show sort of thing i can't remember exactly what it is but i know that when i read the synopsis i was like oh my goodness like this is everything that i want and more so that definitely is one that is super on my radar but also that answer kind of changes all the time like based on what mood i'm in it will definitely change question number five is your biggest disappointment of the year so once again i have two because i can't make decisions but the spanish love deception by elena armes was definitely a disappointment for me it was so hyped up and i was expecting to like it a lot because it deals with travel like spain all of those things that i like fake dating it just seems like a recipe for success but it just kind of was a very average book in my opinion and i feel like i've read books that do a similar thing but they do it better so i just kind of didn't fall in love with it and since it was so hyped up i think that's why i was let down by it because as much as hype is a great thing it can also be a detriment to different books and it definitely was the case with that one and then the other book that i would say let me down is set on you by amy lee i was so excited for this book because it's about a body positive fitness influencer and like i just really am into fitness so i felt like that seemed like a lot of fun i never thought those were words that would kind of like come out of my mouth but i really enjoy working out and everything and going to the gym and i was super excited to read a book that focused on that and it's an enemies to love her story and it's based in the gym like that's where it starts and everything but i just was kind of let down by this one i wasn't a huge fan of the characters and i felt like the execution was blah like they do things in the gym locker room and i just wasn't really a fan of that like in the gym showers i was like do you need to like that's gross that's not sanitary but maybe that's just me and maybe i'm being improved but i just wasn't really a fan of that that's not why like that's not the only reason why i just overall wasn't really a fan of the characters and i found the main character could kind of be a hypocrite at times and i wasn't a huge fan of that yeah it just there were a lot of things that happened like conveniently and i was just meh about the whole thing number six is your biggest surprises so i would say that one of the biggest surprises for me was verity by colleen hoover it surprised me in multiple ways so i've read colleen hoover before like i just recently did a reading vlog reading just colleen hoover and that was the first time that i've read her books in a really long time in years and that being said i hadn't read any of her more like mystery stories her thrillers so verity is one that i went into i knew it was a thriller didn't really know what to expect but oh my goodness it's like it was wild it blew my mind in the end and like the whole way through it was just colleen hoover how i'd never seen her before and i felt like her writing really shone in that book because sometimes with her more romancy stories they can be very like a little bit too corny for my personal tastes i say that when like all i've been reading recently is romances but sometimes there's certain lines and things and i'm like like particularly the names of her characters i just kind of am not the biggest fan of sometimes like i'm thinking of in confess in particular when the character's initials were omg and he like didn't want to show her his license because he was like you're gonna laugh and i'm like who looks at someone's license and is like oh your initials are omg and then they think it's the funniest thing in the world i don't know it's just things like that but that stuff was very noticeably absent from verity and i'm glad that it was because i think it can work in the context of her romances but in verity i think it would have brought the story down a few notches but that wasn't there and i felt like it just it did absolutely blow my mind to be honest and also as someone who's not really a big fan typically of thrillers or mysteries i was surprised by how much i actually enjoyed it in the end because i think it was like a good mix of the writing that makes her book so like compulsively readable and that thriller aspect another book that really surprised me was one true loves by elise bryant it's not that i didn't expect to like this book it's just i didn't really know what to expect going into it i wasn't exactly sure and i felt like it was a book that had a very good message it dealt with that transformative period between high school and university really well i think it's a story that a lot of people could benefit from as this main character is struggling to make decisions for herself and what she wants to do with her whole life but also trying to please her family at the same time so there was a lot of introspective uh elements to it and it was a very coming-of-age story but it also had a lot of fun elements because it was set on this mediterranean cruise i loved how involved the family was there was a romance to it and everything it had a little bit of everything and i was just very pleasantly surprised number seven is your favorite new author so this can be a debut author or new to you and mine is actually a debut i believe the book actually came out in december of last year though but that author is farida abike ayamide i i did look that up and i think i'm saying it correctly i apologize if my pronunciation is incorrect but this is the author of ace of spades and i was just blown away that this was a debut dustin tau is obviously another one where i was blown away that is a debut but ace of spades just like completely blew my mind because it's a story where it's like a thriller but there's a lot going on you're questioning everything it's dealing with institutionalized racism and it does it so expertly well it was a story that had my jaw dropping the entire time i was reading it as i was flipping the pages i was like oh my goodness wow like this author really did that and i just can't wait to read more by this author if that first book is any indication then i cannot even imagine what is to come number eight is your newest fictional crush and i feel like i like i don't really get fictional crunches anymore i guess i don't know i'm not reading i love characters obviously but once i'm done a book while i'm reading it i'm reading for the characters and i'm loving the characters i would say i'm more of like a character driven story preference than plot but once i'm finished the book because my memory is literally so poor i just remember the bigger picture of things so i can't even remember what characters names are but for my fictional crush i put the shadow king or alessandra which are both from shadows between us by trisha levinseller trisha levinseller just writes really amazing books and she also writes really amazing characters and those are literally the two main characters that are like in a relationship and it is like a fake relationship but this like angsty relationship between the two of them in the shadows between us and the angst of it and everything just got me i love how driven alessandra is and like how she doesn't care at all so i she would definitely be a good crush but also the shadow king i wouldn't be mad at him either number nine is your newest favorite character so same sort of thing but i put olive from the love hypothesis i would say once again olive or i think his name's adam but i can't honestly remember but basically all of where the love interest from the love hypothesis but probably olive i thought olive was just a really fun and adorable character i loved like how much she cared for her friends and well i do think that the whole setup for the fake dating was a little bit unbelievable i do appreciate that she was trying to do something for her friends and i think that that definitely like her friends matter a lot to her she's a really driven character she didn't let anything stop her but she's also kind of goofy and fun at the same time so yeah i do really enjoy her as a character number 10 is a book that made you cry and i would say that one of my like first reads of the year is definitely one that made me cry and that's the cost of knowing by brittany morris it's one of those books where like you know what's gonna happen in the end but it doesn't lessen the blow anymore it doesn't make it any less painful when it does happen because you're kind of hoping the whole time that it won't but yeah it was just like a really really eye-opening and incredible but sad read so it definitely is one that got me i didn't like actually cry because i can't even remember the last time that i actually cried reading a book but it is one that made me emotional it made me feel a lot conversely number 11 is a book that made you happy and i think a book that made me happy and just an author that makes me happy is actor age eve brown by talia hibbert so talia hibbert is an author that her books make me smile her characters are amazing and her writing is so witty and just whip smart and i adore it i love the way that her characters talk she writes conversations so incredibly well and i loved the character of eve brown as well i loved spending this last book with the brown sisters like as i've gotten to know them over the course of three books i've fallen in love with them and i just i'm so sad that that series is over but she's writing a ya book so that's really exciting but yeah she definitely writes books that make me smile number 12 is the most beautiful book that you've bought so far this year or received so i bought myself a copy of chris rydell's alice in wonderland and through the looking glass so they're behind all my filming equipment so i'll show you them later i'll do like a clip for you guys but they are super beautiful i love the way that he illustrated it definitely like took his own twist on things like i love the fact that the cheshire cat is orange it just brings me a little bit of joy because it makes me think of jackson but i love having new editions of alice and those are always really lovely to add to my collection so i don't think i've really bought that many like collectible books this year or more pretty books so i think that i mean i could say books with like a beautiful cover like daughter of the moon goddess but i'm going to stick with my original answer because there are really beautiful illustrations inside as well okay and number 13 i always think it's kind of a throwaway question for me because there's so many but what books do you need to read by the end of the year and honestly there's so many like i could do a separate video if you wanted on my end of the year tbr even though we're halfway through the year i could do like my halfway through the year tvr if you guys would like that let me know but yeah thank you guys so much for watching today's video i hope you enjoyed and i will see you in another new one soon byeeveryone it's haley and today i'm going to be doing the mid-ear freakout book tag so i love doing this tag every year it's like the one tag that i make sure that i always do and yeah it's basically just like we're at the midway point of the year so there are a few questions that i'm going to be answering about how my reading has been so far and i'm not going to lie like i don't want to sound negative but when i was thinking of books for this video and i was like looking at the questions i realized that my reading year has honestly been pretty mediocre i am like super disappointed about that but i feel like i don't really have that many standout reads for this year don't get me wrong i've read some really amazing books but like i'll get into it as we get into the questions let's just get to that the first question is what is the best book that you've read so far in 2022 and this is kind of the question that made me realize not that i don't have a best book but there's nothing that like really stands out to me as that number one favorite i feel like in past years when i read a book i know right away i'm like oh yeah that's definitely like my favorite book of the year and it's not something that i really need to think about all that much but this year it's been really different because i had to think about it a lot like last year i knew once i read we are not free by tracy that that was my favorite book i 100 knew in the year before that and the year before that like i've always known what it is but now i was just kind of like i guess like so i picked two because i'm not really sure but i guess that my favorite book that i've read so far this year would be book lovers by emily henry i love emily henry and i think this was a really great installment and it's not a series they're not companions but you know what i mean like she writes romances that all kind of have to do with books in some way and i felt like this one was no exception to how incredible the other books by her are and she definitely has like become a favorite author of mine for sure so book lovers is definitely a favorite of mine of the year is it the number one i don't really know yet but the other book that i thought of was also you've reached sam by dustin tau which i wasn't really expecting to enjoy quite as much as i did but i was pretty blown away by that one i felt like it did exactly what it set out to do and it did it very well and it just doesn't read like a debut like it was just such a great read honestly so yeah i think that those two would be my two favorites of the year but that being said i kind of like i'm not really sure if i am going to say that like one of them is my favorite i don't know we'll see once the end of the year comes but yeah it's definitely been a very interesting and different reading year like i feel like i kind of felt similarly at this point last year as well but that was also like i had been moving and everything so i was really exhausted so i guess that like me having a new job is the new moving but it's kind of left me not having a lot of reading time but that's something i'm working on so then maybe i'll have like more of a clear favorite if that makes any sense question number two is the best sequel you've read so far in 2022 and i actually have only read one sequel this year and that is cytonic by brandon sanderson so that is the third book in the skyward trilogy or series actually because i think there's another book coming out but i didn't really love cytonic like i enjoyed it i liked the series a lot but i was kind of let down because i liked the second book so much i thought the second book was really great and cytonic i just kind of felt like was not as good it was still enjoyable but it just wasn't as good so it would be the best sequel i've read because i haven't read any others i don't think like i thought about it but i don't think i've read any others but it's not one that like completely blew me away and apparently he has started coming out with some like short stories and compilations that are in the same world and they add to the story but like i don't want to have to read some short stories in order to get the whole picture of things maybe that's just me and that's just a pet peeve of mine but yeah i'm just i'm not into that question number three is a new release that you haven't read yet but want to and i didn't actually write down an answer for this one because i had a hard time kind of thinking of just one because there are honestly so many books that have come out recently that i would really like to read but i kind of been in a slumpy mood obviously so i haven't done a lot of reading i guess i would say tokyo what is it tokyo dreaming tokyo dreaming by mikko jean is definitely one that one just came out um i honestly don't know there's so many like that's just because tokyo ever after sitting next to me that i thought of that one but the new christina lauren as well something wilder i haven't read every summer after yet by carly fortune and that one has just been all over the place and it's made me really want to read it the new um casey mcquisten like there are so many i could go on and on and on number four is your most anticipated release for the second half of the year and i actually have two so we have a million to one by adiba jagiridar and this book i'm so excited for because you guys know i've mentioned this before but i used to have an obsession with shipwrecks when i was a kid and tonight on the titanic the mary pope osborne magic treehouse book was my favorite out of all of them it was better dolphins at daybreak but like for this video's purposes it was the titanic one and i just enjoyed that one so much so what that has to do with this is that a million to one is actually about the titanic it's a titanic based story and i just i want to read like all the books like that so i'm definitely excited for a new one i think it's coming out in december and then the other book that's coming out in december is never ever getting back together by sophie gonzalez and i've been seeing this book it keeps on getting recommended to me on goodreads and i really am into it like it's kind of giving me selection vibes it's like an lgbtq plus but it's like a dating show sort of thing i can't remember exactly what it is but i know that when i read the synopsis i was like oh my goodness like this is everything that i want and more so that definitely is one that is super on my radar but also that answer kind of changes all the time like based on what mood i'm in it will definitely change question number five is your biggest disappointment of the year so once again i have two because i can't make decisions but the spanish love deception by elena armes was definitely a disappointment for me it was so hyped up and i was expecting to like it a lot because it deals with travel like spain all of those things that i like fake dating it just seems like a recipe for success but it just kind of was a very average book in my opinion and i feel like i've read books that do a similar thing but they do it better so i just kind of didn't fall in love with it and since it was so hyped up i think that's why i was let down by it because as much as hype is a great thing it can also be a detriment to different books and it definitely was the case with that one and then the other book that i would say let me down is set on you by amy lee i was so excited for this book because it's about a body positive fitness influencer and like i just really am into fitness so i felt like that seemed like a lot of fun i never thought those were words that would kind of like come out of my mouth but i really enjoy working out and everything and going to the gym and i was super excited to read a book that focused on that and it's an enemies to love her story and it's based in the gym like that's where it starts and everything but i just was kind of let down by this one i wasn't a huge fan of the characters and i felt like the execution was blah like they do things in the gym locker room and i just wasn't really a fan of that like in the gym showers i was like do you need to like that's gross that's not sanitary but maybe that's just me and maybe i'm being improved but i just wasn't really a fan of that that's not why like that's not the only reason why i just overall wasn't really a fan of the characters and i found the main character could kind of be a hypocrite at times and i wasn't a huge fan of that yeah it just there were a lot of things that happened like conveniently and i was just meh about the whole thing number six is your biggest surprises so i would say that one of the biggest surprises for me was verity by colleen hoover it surprised me in multiple ways so i've read colleen hoover before like i just recently did a reading vlog reading just colleen hoover and that was the first time that i've read her books in a really long time in years and that being said i hadn't read any of her more like mystery stories her thrillers so verity is one that i went into i knew it was a thriller didn't really know what to expect but oh my goodness it's like it was wild it blew my mind in the end and like the whole way through it was just colleen hoover how i'd never seen her before and i felt like her writing really shone in that book because sometimes with her more romancy stories they can be very like a little bit too corny for my personal tastes i say that when like all i've been reading recently is romances but sometimes there's certain lines and things and i'm like like particularly the names of her characters i just kind of am not the biggest fan of sometimes like i'm thinking of in confess in particular when the character's initials were omg and he like didn't want to show her his license because he was like you're gonna laugh and i'm like who looks at someone's license and is like oh your initials are omg and then they think it's the funniest thing in the world i don't know it's just things like that but that stuff was very noticeably absent from verity and i'm glad that it was because i think it can work in the context of her romances but in verity i think it would have brought the story down a few notches but that wasn't there and i felt like it just it did absolutely blow my mind to be honest and also as someone who's not really a big fan typically of thrillers or mysteries i was surprised by how much i actually enjoyed it in the end because i think it was like a good mix of the writing that makes her book so like compulsively readable and that thriller aspect another book that really surprised me was one true loves by elise bryant it's not that i didn't expect to like this book it's just i didn't really know what to expect going into it i wasn't exactly sure and i felt like it was a book that had a very good message it dealt with that transformative period between high school and university really well i think it's a story that a lot of people could benefit from as this main character is struggling to make decisions for herself and what she wants to do with her whole life but also trying to please her family at the same time so there was a lot of introspective uh elements to it and it was a very coming-of-age story but it also had a lot of fun elements because it was set on this mediterranean cruise i loved how involved the family was there was a romance to it and everything it had a little bit of everything and i was just very pleasantly surprised number seven is your favorite new author so this can be a debut author or new to you and mine is actually a debut i believe the book actually came out in december of last year though but that author is farida abike ayamide i i did look that up and i think i'm saying it correctly i apologize if my pronunciation is incorrect but this is the author of ace of spades and i was just blown away that this was a debut dustin tau is obviously another one where i was blown away that is a debut but ace of spades just like completely blew my mind because it's a story where it's like a thriller but there's a lot going on you're questioning everything it's dealing with institutionalized racism and it does it so expertly well it was a story that had my jaw dropping the entire time i was reading it as i was flipping the pages i was like oh my goodness wow like this author really did that and i just can't wait to read more by this author if that first book is any indication then i cannot even imagine what is to come number eight is your newest fictional crush and i feel like i like i don't really get fictional crunches anymore i guess i don't know i'm not reading i love characters obviously but once i'm done a book while i'm reading it i'm reading for the characters and i'm loving the characters i would say i'm more of like a character driven story preference than plot but once i'm finished the book because my memory is literally so poor i just remember the bigger picture of things so i can't even remember what characters names are but for my fictional crush i put the shadow king or alessandra which are both from shadows between us by trisha levinseller trisha levinseller just writes really amazing books and she also writes really amazing characters and those are literally the two main characters that are like in a relationship and it is like a fake relationship but this like angsty relationship between the two of them in the shadows between us and the angst of it and everything just got me i love how driven alessandra is and like how she doesn't care at all so i she would definitely be a good crush but also the shadow king i wouldn't be mad at him either number nine is your newest favorite character so same sort of thing but i put olive from the love hypothesis i would say once again olive or i think his name's adam but i can't honestly remember but basically all of where the love interest from the love hypothesis but probably olive i thought olive was just a really fun and adorable character i loved like how much she cared for her friends and well i do think that the whole setup for the fake dating was a little bit unbelievable i do appreciate that she was trying to do something for her friends and i think that that definitely like her friends matter a lot to her she's a really driven character she didn't let anything stop her but she's also kind of goofy and fun at the same time so yeah i do really enjoy her as a character number 10 is a book that made you cry and i would say that one of my like first reads of the year is definitely one that made me cry and that's the cost of knowing by brittany morris it's one of those books where like you know what's gonna happen in the end but it doesn't lessen the blow anymore it doesn't make it any less painful when it does happen because you're kind of hoping the whole time that it won't but yeah it was just like a really really eye-opening and incredible but sad read so it definitely is one that got me i didn't like actually cry because i can't even remember the last time that i actually cried reading a book but it is one that made me emotional it made me feel a lot conversely number 11 is a book that made you happy and i think a book that made me happy and just an author that makes me happy is actor age eve brown by talia hibbert so talia hibbert is an author that her books make me smile her characters are amazing and her writing is so witty and just whip smart and i adore it i love the way that her characters talk she writes conversations so incredibly well and i loved the character of eve brown as well i loved spending this last book with the brown sisters like as i've gotten to know them over the course of three books i've fallen in love with them and i just i'm so sad that that series is over but she's writing a ya book so that's really exciting but yeah she definitely writes books that make me smile number 12 is the most beautiful book that you've bought so far this year or received so i bought myself a copy of chris rydell's alice in wonderland and through the looking glass so they're behind all my filming equipment so i'll show you them later i'll do like a clip for you guys but they are super beautiful i love the way that he illustrated it definitely like took his own twist on things like i love the fact that the cheshire cat is orange it just brings me a little bit of joy because it makes me think of jackson but i love having new editions of alice and those are always really lovely to add to my collection so i don't think i've really bought that many like collectible books this year or more pretty books so i think that i mean i could say books with like a beautiful cover like daughter of the moon goddess but i'm going to stick with my original answer because there are really beautiful illustrations inside as well okay and number 13 i always think it's kind of a throwaway question for me because there's so many but what books do you need to read by the end of the year and honestly there's so many like i could do a separate video if you wanted on my end of the year tbr even though we're halfway through the year i could do like my halfway through the year tvr if you guys would like that let me know but yeah thank you guys so much for watching today's video i hope you enjoyed and i will see you in another new one soon bye\n"