**A Taste Test: Reading Rachel's Book Recommendations**

As I sat down to watch Rachel's latest video, I was excited to see what book recommendations she had for me. With her diverse taste in books and personal anecdotes about each title, I knew that this video would be a fun and engaging watch.

One of the first things that struck me as I began watching the video was how well-planned out the plot summary seemed to be. Rachel started by explaining that the main character is hired to do jobs for an employer or employers (she wasn't entirely sure who, but that didn't matter). After leaving one job feeling unsettled, she stumbles upon a guy in an inn and gets bet on by one of her friends to retrieve something from the sky. The story takes a thrilling turn as she ends up getting arrested by the man and is taken to meet the Emperor or some grand ruler of this particular country realm.

As I watched Rachel's commentary on this opening, I couldn't help but notice how well-developed the main character was compared to Poppy Pimento from "From Blood and Ash". The writing in this book seemed to have a certain luster that really drew me in. With each passing moment, I found myself becoming more and more invested in the story.

However, as much as I enjoyed Rachel's commentary on this first book, I couldn't shake off the feeling that she might not be in the mood for it at the time of recording. She mentioned that her attention was elsewhere and that she didn't want to give this book half-assed attention. While this might have been a minor drawback, it also gave me an appreciation for how much effort and enthusiasm goes into creating content.

Throughout the video, Rachel shared her thoughts on each of the books she recommended, from "Yolk" by Mary H.K. Choi to "A Dowry of Blood". She discussed the themes and messages that resonated with her, and even highlighted some aspects of the writing that stood out. While not every book was a perfect fit for her taste, it was clear that she had genuinely enjoyed each one.

One notable exception was "Magnolia Parks", which unfortunately didn't quite resonate with Rachel. She mentioned that while she understood how others might enjoy this book, it simply wasn't her cup of tea. However, even in cases where the books didn't align with her tastes, Rachel's commentary still provided valuable insights into each title.

As the video progressed, I found myself becoming more and more engaged with Rachel's recommendations. Her enthusiasm for certain titles was infectious, and I couldn't help but want to pick up each book and read it for myself. While not every recommendation worked out perfectly (I'll be keeping an eye on "The Song of the Marx" – more on that later!), overall, I was really happy with how this taste test turned out.

Finally, Rachel shared her thoughts on how she has developed a better understanding of what books to recommend based on their themes and messages. She mentioned that while her personal tastes may align with some of her favorite authors, others might not resonate with the same level of enthusiasm. With this newfound insight, I'm excited to see which titles Rachel recommends in future videos.

**A Few Final Thoughts**

If you're a fan of Rachel's content, I highly recommend checking out her channel. Her passion for reading and sharing her knowledge is evident throughout each video, and her commentary on these book recommendations was both informative and engaging. As for the books themselves? Well, that's up to you – but with Rachel's enthusiasm as a guide, you can't go wrong.

And so, I'll leave off here, having thoroughly enjoyed this taste test. If you have any thoughts or opinions on the books discussed in this video, be sure to share them in the comments below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my channel and welcome to the 12th episode of taste test wherein i test other booktubers taste in books to see how our tastes align in today's video i'm going to be taste testing rachel from ravenhaired reader i am so excited to be doing this rachel is fairly new i would say to booktube just like in the grand scheme of things i have been enamored with her videos ever since she started uploading it seems like any time she talks about books i'm tempted to pick them up even if our genre preferences don't necessarily always align i feel like rachel tends to read a lot more fantasy than i do but she does pick up a fair amount of romance as well so this video is going to be super interesting and i'm really excited to see how i taste the line again because i have been watching her videos and i'm always tempted to pick up the things that she talks about and that's why i hit her up and was like hey can i read your favorites because i gotta see if your tastes are similar to my taste because i just love how you talk about books so that's we're going to be doing here in this video today let me quickly run you through the five books that i'm going to be reading i'm not going to give you any like long drawn out synopsis because we're going to be talking about what these books are about as we read them but let me at least tell you what the titles of books that we're going to be reading are first up we have the song of the march by sm gaither this is one of the books actually that made me want to do this video in the first place it is a fantasy romance that i'd never heard of before but i remember watching rachel talk about this in a vlog and i was like okay well i have to pick this up obviously if she enjoys it like there's a pretty high chance i will i know she really likes sarah j maas book so i'm wondering if this is going to be similar to a sarah j maas book i have heard that there is sort of like a band of friends in the story and that's something that i tend to kind of like to read when i'm reading a fantasy romance so i'm very excited to give this one a try and it is available on ku which is obviously a perk next up we have rebecca by daphne du maurier this one i'm really excited to give a try it's one that's been on my radar for forever i feel like everyone and their mother has read this book i think it's like kind of a thriller kind of like a romantic suspense novel and it is obviously an older book i did notice that whenever rachel handed me her list of uh favorites there were quite a few older books on there for me to choose from i think dorian gray was also on there as well i wanted to give myself i would say like the best shot at liking the books on rachel's list so i picked ones that i thought i would be more likely to enjoy so that's why i picked up this one um i am excited to give it a go finally get in the loop about what the story is about i know there was like a movie recently as well so excited to give this one a try next up we have a dowry of blood by st gibson this one i don't know that much about i think it's like some sort of dracula reimagining retelling i think it's told from the point of view of one of dracula's brides and i have heard it's like sapphic so very excited to give this one a try next we have one i would say that i'm pretty tentative about going into but i picked it up because i figured it would be easy to read i don't know why but i chose yolk by mary h k choi this is a why a contemporary novel and it's about sisters and that's literally all i know i've had kind of mixed luck with mary hk choi in the past but i am willing to pick this one up because it does have a sister relationship and i do have sister of my own so i'm wondering if this is gonna be like relatable in some way and then lastly the book that i'm sure you clicked on this video for magnolia parks by jessa hastings this is a book that's getting so much buzz and i think that is definitely due in part to rachel and some of rachel's friends over on instagram i feel like i see pictures of this book oh god daily at this point because everyone seems to be really into it it's kind of like gossip girl set in london is what i've heard i am very excited and interested to give this one a go and see if i end up enjoying it because i've heard mixed things and i don't know it seems like an angsty story that i may or may not like angst kind of goes one of two ways for me so definitely excited to give this one a try but before we get into the taste test i'd like to take a chance to tell you a little bit about the sponsor of today's video wondershare filmora 11. wondershare filmora is an easy to use video editing software with powerful skills to help your videos shine filmora has all of the features you want in editing software from built-in templates like texts and overlays to ai powered speech to text that can help you add subtitles to your videos the two features that i love the most are the title editing function and the color match feature you'll know i like to keep the editing in my videos pretty simple but filmora's title editing functionality is so easy to use with its built-in text overlays you can customize the font animation color and even more settings with ease i'm really excited to see how this feature can bring even more life to my weekly reading vlogs i also love that with filmora i'm able to efficiently match the colors across all the clips for my videos nothing bugs me more than when i have to stop recording mid-film and then when i press record again the color of the clips doesn't quite line up filmora i'm able to get a really consistent look with very little effort wondershare filmora 11 is free to try and is definitely worth the download especially considering that it's less expensive than other leading video editing software click the link in my description to check out the amazing features and start editing today thank you to wondershare for sponsoring this video now let's go ahead and get into the vlog portion of the video alright so we have some books to talk about i finished yolk by mary hk choi last night this is a book that i didn't update you at the 50 mark iv because i wasn't really sure how i felt about it i didn't want to give some big explanation of what the book's about and just tell you i don't know how i feel now that i'm finished with the book i definitely have firm feelings and i can i feel like more completely tell you what the story is about so i think at the core this book is about a sister relationship between young adults or women on the kind of like cusp of full adulthood the men who have graduated or will soon graduate from university and kind of the relationship that they have with each other so this book is about june and jane june is the older sister jane is the younger one and the book is told from the point of view of jane and she gets kind of back into contact with her older sister they've kind of been out of like true contact for a couple of years get back in contact because june unfortunately has endometrial cancer or uterine cancer essentially she's going to have to have her uterus and fallopian tubes completely removed kind of needs her sister's help and i don't really want to say what her sister's help will include because that would be spoiling the book but they come into contact because of like medical you know issue that june is facing and jane has to kind of grapple with this sort of weird relationship she has with her sister and also the weird relationship she has with herself and her mother right off the bat i wasn't sure how to feel about this book because i felt like the prose was really impressive but this didn't really feel like a young adult story for me and i feel like i had different expectations going into this book than were delivered and that's not necessarily a bad thing i just feel like this story didn't really in any way feel like young adult book despite the kind of ages of the characters being sort of y-a-ish i want to say that june is like 23 and jane is like 19 or 20 or something like that the way that the book is told definitely reads very literary fiction and i kind of wish that this had been placed in the literary fiction kind of space because i feel like the reception of the story would be a lot different than the reviews are on goodreads i feel like a lot of the reviews on goodreads are kind of negative about this book and i think a lot of that could be chalked up to kind of the age demographic this book is targeting i was feeling weird about this book not really feeling like it was in the right age demographic and then also i feel like i didn't really know the direction the story was going it kind of meanders a bit it definitely focuses more on the relationships than anything else there's really no point i guess you could say to this book the book ends with the medical procedure happening and that's it like that's the end of the book there are relationships and kind of romantic things that happen throughout the story as well that never really fully get resolved so i feel like if i had updated you at the 50 mark like what would i have said i don't know what's happening with the story i mean to be honest even having finished the story i don't really know that i know what's going on with it but i did feel like this was a pretty good exploration of familial relationships and culture different cultures i guess like conceptualize family and what family means it was interesting hearing june and jane's parents kind of like talk about their relationships with family and with the idea of family her dad basically says like you know what it's like the one family you've got and even though you know a sister relationship is hard to deal with it's nice to have someone there for you and i think that's kind of like the resounding message here it's like even though sometimes family can be challenging it's kind of nice to know that there's someone that has your back even if y'all are not willing to like really say i love you it's nice knowing someone is there i don't know if that's a message that will necessarily work for everyone given that some of the things that happen between the siblings and also just between the family in general are a little bit like rough i think you have to obviously make that decision for yourself in your own relationships like if you want to carry on a relationship that could be potentially like toxic even if it is your family but i don't even know what to say beyond that i just feel like this is a really interesting look at family and relationships i do feel like some of the things that were said were kind of profound i felt myself pondering the relationship between june and jane now considering some things i will say my relationship with my sister could not be more different than the relationship that is displayed in this book so it wasn't something that was really relatable in a way but i do feel like this felt like an authentic representation i guess you could say of like the sister relationship how sometimes that can be tricky and also how your interpretation i guess a family can be so different i think that was maybe the most interesting thing to me was how june and jane like they had similar upbringings but they also kind of reflected their upbringings differently and the way that they present to the world and in the ways in which they either want to kind of perform to the world or not and how that affects our relationship i don't know i thought it was interesting i thought this was a really solid book i mean this is like a three-star read this is not one that really really stuck with me i feel like i wanted there to be more of a point i wanted there to be more of a concrete ending to the story it didn't need to be like some grand happy ending but i feel like there are just a few too many loose ends kind of left at the end of the book but you definitely see how rachel could enjoy this story because this feels like a rachel book if that makes sense i'm 50 into another book and spoiler alert actually read the third book for this video first so i feel like i'm kind of getting understanding of rachel's taste and the kinds of books that she tends to gravitate towards and they seem to be books that do kind of have pretty writing a slightly more profound approach to storytelling books that um are deeply emotional i would say it seems even the fantasies that i know that she likes seem to have kind of an emotional kind of bend to them not in terms of like sappy emotion but really getting you to dig deep i guess overall this is a three star like it was my favorite thing that i've ever read but i don't think i would have picked this up had it not been for this video even though i'd heard a lot of different things about this book and i'm definitely glad that i read this book i think i think it was interesting and i will say if you enjoy new york city or you just like reading about the city in general i feel like this was a really good look at what people actually like about the city and kind of what it's all about not a romanticized version but just like what it actually is and i liked that so the next book that i'm like 50 into is a dowry of blood by st gibson this book wow it's an epistolary epistolary uh novel and it is told from the lens of one of the brides of dracula for reference i have never read any books related to dracula i've never read dracula i don't know anything really about the story except for he is a vampire and that's that's about it that's pretty much all i know so i didn't really know if i would connect with this book going into it i also had heard like i just mixed things about this i feel like the majority of people i know like this but i don't know i just didn't know what to expect i'm actually very much enjoying this even more so than yolk and i'm definitely again kind of like picking up on rachel's taste as i as i continue to read so this book is told again from the point of view of one of dracula's bride's i think her name is like constanta or something and it sounds like constanza in the audiobook but it's it's two t's maybe i'm pronouncing it correctly i don't know constanta she at the beginning of the story is saved by dracula she is his war bride i guess she is someone who almost died at the hands of invading forces she's found like on a battlefield and dracula saves her and makes her the first of his brides so she has an interesting relationship with him at the beginning she realizes that he is definitely not um best husband ever not the best husband material he is definitely a complex individual who definitely likes to get his way but she also has this kind of inexplicable pull towards him maybe not inexplicable because it makes sense like he saved her she would be you know kind of beholden to him the beginning of the story is really her kind of describing the relationship she has with him and then i think the story as it goes on is going to be describing how she feels about the other people being brought into their marriage we've already met magdalena i want to say is the first of dracula's other brides and constanta at the start is kind of irritated that dracula would be taking another bride but she's also very very interested in this person and interested in her like in a sexual way so it's definitely a polyamorous like lgbt story which i appreciate i haven't gotten super far into their relationship yet i just know that constranta and the girl magdalena are gonna like make out soon i don't know i think they're like out and about just the two of them after a couple of years and they are kind of going to like deepen their own relationship kind of outside of their relationship with dracula and i think that's going to be like the basis of maybe constanta trying to get out of this relationship i think at the beginning of the story we find out that like she's already killed him so clearly she has some issues with him but curious to see kind of where that goes really enjoying the way the story is written it is very descriptive and i feel like the emotions are very palpable i'm not really someone who tends to like fairy flowery writing i'm okay with some description obviously but i don't want anything that just feels like purple prose but it really feels like the author is able to use her prose to articulate the emotions of funstante in a way that is really connecting and i think oftentimes even when an author attempts to make something pretty they're still not necessarily able to accomplish what they're setting out to accomplish i really feel that way about the next book that we're going to talk about i just feel like there's a difference between attempting to make something pretty and then actually accomplishing getting your point across with that pretty language usage and i just feel like someone's kind of doing the damn thing i'm very pleasantly surprised i'm very much enjoying this book and i could definitely see this being a four or five star even though i didn't expect to like this even though this is not like a traditional romance if we're gonna is it a romance i don't know what we're calling this book but it's entertaining and actually is making me interested in the story of dracula so like what a thunk who would have thought i don't know i'm enjoying it i'm going to continue reading i only have like again 50 of this book left which is only like an hour via audio which we love and i'll update you tomorrow with my final thoughts and feelings when my ac is not loud and blasting behind me so as i'm editing this video i realized i never did a final clip for a dowry of blood i distinctly remember filming one but for some reason i can't find it maybe i accidentally deleted it not really sure but i ended up giving this book four stars i really really enjoyed this the writing was just impeccable i feel like it's really a testament to this author's writing that i enjoyed this book because the subject matter at hand and the fact that i knew nothing about dracula definitely made me think that i wouldn't enjoy this book but it was a total winner now the only reason i didn't give this book five stars was because i didn't totally love when alexi came into the story i just kind of took my enjoyment down a bit i guess that makes sense given that that's kind of when things start to unfold in the lives of constanta and magdalena as well but other than that i just really liked this book one of those like go girl moments like i was just very excited for all three of the wives to be able to get out of the situation to have their own autonomy and to really decide what they're doing for themselves i'd be lying if i said that the ending was like perfect for me i did kind of want to see it go in a slightly different direction however again it was really cool getting to see these people vampires i guess like be in charge of their lives and their own destinies and not have to be pulled into the their creator i guess it's like i don't even know what to say about this book to really get you to pick it up because it is such a strange one but i feel like if it appeals at all to you if you want something kind of like spooky and creepy um with some commentary to it i feel like this is a really good book to pick up in the fall and i had a really good time with it like i would not have picked this up on my own for sure but i'm really glad that i picked up for this taste test and again it's a four star read for me so that is all i have to say about this book let's go ahead and get into magnolia parks the moment we've all been waiting for i am 2 ish 100 pages into magnolia parks i'm actually filming this clip before any of these other clips if you want to know how the movie magic happens yes i was going to put this one in the middle of the video so you would watch my opinions on these other books probably skipped around anyway but magnolia parks obviously i'm reading this because it's a book that rachel really likes it might be rachel's new all-time favorite book she specifically messaged me and said read this and so i am reading it i have thoughts and feelings i certainly do if you like sally rooney more power to you this is sally rooney drank a couple of glasses of champagne and decided to pretend like she was gossip girl so this book is okay so this book follows magnolia parks she is a british socialite and she is in an off-again on-again relationship with a man named bj bj valentine and he's so cool and she's so cool she is i would say pretty similar to like a blair character perhaps a little less uptight but i don't even know if i would say that she has a lot of opinions she is slightly unlikable but somehow bj thinks that the sun shines out of her ass he has gotten no fewer than 20 tattoos dedicated all to her he is just enamored with her he absolutely loves her but not enough to not cheat on her so this story kind of follows them after the fallout of their breakup they date other people they sleep with other people they wind up in each other's beds but not sleeping together it also follows the exploits of their friend group who you were introduced to in the beginning of the book and you're kind of like who the are all of these people they're mostly men and i am not going to keep any of their names straight my issue oh i have money the first one is that the writing of this book oh my god it's not sally rooney writing there are quotation marks thank the lord however the way that these sentences are strung together is absolutely insane trying to find the one sentence that i had to read about six times it's in the first chapter of the book and the first chapter of the book really throws you because you start it up and you're like wow um wasn't expecting this it's not that it's terrible and once you get immersed in the story the writing kind of fades into the background which i appreciate but getting into this book is inexplicably challenging i would highly recommend reading the sample of the first chapter before i don't know spending 20-ish dollars on the physical copy of the book now lucky me hayden has a lot of amazon gift cards lying around that's why i have the physical copy of this book i wouldn't spend money on a book that i've never read before at this stage in my life so the writing aside the idea of it right i like the idea of will they want the angsty pining relationship my issue though is that i like people who use their words i like people who who communicate at my big age i need people to talk with their mouths and words and communicate i i like my angst and pining to be built on a reason and i understand that what bj did is perhaps warranting some of the behavior on the part of parks however if they would just talk admit their feelings for each other and move on oh my god this book would probably be done within the first hundred pages right that's not the case instead we have them pining for each other but it's not like it's not like it's an unbelievable pining or angst it's just something that i'm like okay like i know y'all wanna so why don't you just i like my angst intention to be built on something like oh i don't know you want to have sex with your ex boyfriend's best friend that's that's a reason right the reason they aren't together is because they don't know how to talk that's frustrating on top of that i think that the characters are kind of unlikable and i get maybe that's like your thing but i think magnolia is kind of unlikable i don't understand why you would get 20 tattoos dedicated to her 22 tattoos i don't remember the exact number because do i care no sally rooney fans this is your this is your stuff right here right here you know normal people it's like rich normal people i think like if i were reading this book right now it'd be three stars right it's not i don't hate it i don't i want you to know right now that i don't hate this book however i am a bit worried because i'm 200 pages in and we've already had so many micro conflicts that i'm wondering how this book could possibly go on and i'm wondering if it has any central plot i'm guessing that it won't and that's going to frustrate me personally i am fine with a will they won't they thing whatever what is carrying these characters forward we do have some progression in the fact that magnolia has like started seriously not seriously dating seriously fake dating a guy but i i don't see that being long lived i mean is she gonna like fall for him and that's gonna be the conflict is like is she gonna be with this new guy or someone else i okay i was gonna say i have powerful fingers but that just sounds gross um i just flipped two about this part you know this is the end this is the end of the book i flipped her right here and my prediction i believe is true i am gonna keep reading i guess i'll update you when something happens so god knows when that will be i am more than halfway through this godforsaken book things have happened not much not much that is like super interesting to me but things have happened right so we've had a little bit of a plot twist i didn't personally see coming with family members of magnolia i don't want to get into the details because like it's a spoiler or whatever so i'm not going to uh and then we've had repeated betrayals by bj that's something else i guess i don't know y'all this is just like the more i read the more that the words feel so empty to me right attempts are made to make us really care for the characters and to make us feel things i've compared this to sally rooney and sally rooney's normal people i'm pretty sure i stand by that i think like there are definitely some similarities but i think honestly even though i didn't like that book and i feel like it needed quotation marks that book elicited emotion and feeling from me because the way that it was written was subtle the betrayals and the things that happened i think they were different enough every time to get you to think and kind of wonder who was in the wrong right because they like do things to each other um or do things without considering the other person and it's interesting the issue that i have with this book is that the betrayals are not interesting things that they do are patterns right bj continuously cheats on magnolia magnolia ends up dating different people over and over again not sleeping with them but dating them which upsets bj so they just have this endless cycle of hurting each other just to hurt each other it's never new it's never interesting and even if she ends up falling for the guy that she's dating right now tom it's not going to feel interesting and fresh it's not going to feel like something nuanced and interesting that i want to read about as much as this book is stuffed with scenes of internal dialogue of the characters talking about how he is the only one that can hurt me and he's the only one that can really attach himself to my emotions like doesn't i don't feel anything reading this i'm like am i just soulless like is it just me misreading this book and i don't think it's that because again i've read books like this before that have impacted me that have you know made me think like wow like this is sad even watching normal people show which i actually take think is better than the book that one heartbreaking you know this doesn't feel heartbreaking this is just like okay rich people drama and i think if you're in the mood for this kind of book it will satisfy you i just think that this is not normally the kind of thing i pick because again there's not really any stakes here and there's no basis for the separation this was never going to work for me i don't know i was hoping that it would turn itself around it just hasn't so that's where i'm at i'm going to finish this book and i will get back to you but so far i'm not loving it i already said this is the first book that i'm reading for this video and i already knew that rachel and i have dissimilar tastes i know that she likes sally rooney it makes sense that she would like this book this is just not for me and that's okay i'm gonna finish it i already know that future me is gonna be really annoyed with myself for not going upstairs and retrieving my copy of magnolia parks who wants to edit in a book cover when you own the book not me i ended up giving this book two stars i really didn't enjoy it the ending was i was gonna say atrocious that seems a bit extreme it was predictable it was nothing that i personally enjoyed and i feel like my overall like feeling about this book like my overall thoughts are that it is i'm gonna say overrated but i feel like this book is a lot of fluff and no substance i wanted there to be more sally rooney poignant moments i wanted there to be more of a question about which characters you would like and support and i'm sorry i didn't really like or support any of the characters in this book i mean obviously i feel bad for magnolia but she is kind of irritating and bj like i'm sorry he didn't have this like gray morality thing going on he was just stupid and made poor decisions and i just like couldn't root for him i definitely understand why rachel enjoys this one because again i think if you like sally rooney but you want something maybe a little bit more dare i say dumbed down but with more like current day language usage and i don't know if you just want more of a gossip girl feel you want sally rooney vibes this is your book right like this will suit you and suit your needs and i understand why rachel likes this book i don't think it's objectively terrible i definitely think that the writing could work for some people it just wasn't deep enough for me i wanted the writing to evoke emotion like a dowry of blood did that one really used this kind of more flowery language to make you feel and in this book i feel like the language didn't really go well but it was trying to accomplish so anyway um two stars disappointing but you know what i think someone will really enjoy finding my copy and half price books in a couple of months so you know not too gutted not too gutted let's talk about a book that i'm 50 into rebecca this is also one that i am like sort of having mixed feelings about right so this is like a very beloved sort of like romantic suspense thrillery sort of book about our narrator who doesn't have a name she's unnamed she is the second wife of mr maxim de winter and she is having to fill some pretty big shoes because her husband's first wife was a force and everyone really really loved rebecca as the story goes on find out that like every character in maxim's life and in our narrator's life has sort of like a complicated history in past with rebecca and so it makes our narrator want to find out like what actually happened to her what were the circumstances surrounding her death it's not really a whodunit i guess i feel like we all kind of know when you start reading the book who done it it's more so about the journey to get there and kind of feel like chilling feeling of it and i will say i am appreciating the way the story is written again with the flowery language i feel like rachel i mean i could be wrong here could just be coincidence but i feel like rachel you like things that have strong writing right this book definitely has strong writing i feel like the language usage is really evoking a sense of place i feel like i definitely know where i am and i feel attached to manderley for sure and at the very beginning of the story i was feeling very sympathetic to our heroine who is kind of plucked out of a sort of random set of circumstances into this really luxurious lifestyle i think where i'm sort of struggling is that at the beginning of this book i was really rooting for our heroine and i was really interested to see her you know sort of like unravel the mystery surrounding manderly and rebecca more time goes on the more irritating and naive she is and i'm assuming that's probably part of the point of the story correct i'm assuming that our heroine is going to get like broken down even more emotionally and mentally as the story goes on and that that will be part of what makes this interesting because it's told from her point of view and i think it would make for a more interesting story for her to just like go down this rabbit hole and have her brain be a little bit up but i'm also kind of like bored i guess at this like 50 mark i would say from like the 25 to the 50 mark not a whole lot is happening we definitely get like creepy feelings from the maid or whatever like the lady of the house i don't head honcho head lady in charge we're getting weird vibes from her and she's definitely a big rebecca fan so she's not a big fan of our narrator and so she is definitely giving good creepy vibes like i'm appreciating that but other than that there's not a whole lot like kind of leading the story forward we've had like one sort of outburst i guess you could say by maxim i'm just i was expecting more creepiness i suppose and i guess i was expecting yeah more of a whodunit sort of situation even though like going into this i feel like i kind of knew who did it i just like i like the the parts of the story but i'm not really sure that i like the sum of this story and i guess we'll see from this 50 mark on how things kind of start unraveling and and how that is told and whether or not that's something that really sticks with me but like right now this is kind of feeling like a two or three start read for me um i would say maybe like a three star like it's certainly not bad again i really like the writing but our narrator is really irritating and i don't feel like much is happening so those are my thoughts and feelings all right i have good news and bad news let's do the good news first i finished rebecca last night and this one really turned itself around it's really challenging to get into without spoiling anything but i feel like this one for me is more of like a three and a half four star which is surprising because i was really like not vibing with it from like that 25 to 50 mark then from the 50 mark on things really changed and honestly all i have to say is good for her i feel like this is the origin almost of like the good for her mystery thriller and i can really appreciate that i feel like i i feel like i know the origin story now maybe there are other ones obviously that were done before this i'm sure there are but this one i really enjoyed listening to i really enjoyed reading it was just it was a fun experience and i feel like i understand why this book has held up so well over time there's so much to explore with this one in terms of the characters and how they interact with each other and also just their character motivations getting to know maxim a little bit more getting to know our heroine more national rebecca moore as the story went on was just it was really immaculate and had a really good time with it um which is good because i do have it somewhere on my shelves here um and i won't be getting rid of it so i guess that is good news like it was a fun time and i can definitely understand why rachel or really anyone would enjoy the story i feel like again if you are someone who likes a good good for her sort of story i think you would enjoy this i think if you are someone who you know likes classics this is definitely one to give a try because it doesn't feel boring and dry i feel like this one instantly sucked me in and again the way that the book is written is so beautiful that it really keeps your attention the entire time and really like sinks you into this place of okay i'm kind of scared i kind of want to know what happens even though the actual subject matter isn't that scary it's the way the book is written that kind of like gives it that atmosphere so had a good time with this one i definitely consider this one a win i feel like i would not hesitate to pick up more like mystery thriller-ish kind of books on rachel's recommendation so glad i picked this one up now for the bad news i am about 25 into the song of the mark and i'm not dnfing it actually i am really enjoying this book but i won't lie i am uh dealing with some rather challenging things in my personal life and instead of drawing this vlog out longer and longer and like attempting to finish this book later on i'd rather just kind of like leave it where it is now and be able to pick up this book later on whenever i am feeling up to it i hate to be vague so i won't like linger on this but i guess i can kind of tell you what this book is about and tell you why i actually am really enjoying this one so this one is battering character cass and at the beginning of the story we find out that she is someone who has a few different hidden identities kind of like miss celaena sardothien in a throne of glass so i can definitely see the similarities there already she also has like friends around her at the very beginning of the story as she is fighting these forces that she didn't expect to fight i don't want to spoil things so i'm gonna like be kind of general i guess you could say with with my plot summary so far we find out that she has an employer and that she is asked to do different jobs for this person or these people i'm not entirely sure to be honest like who she's doing jobs for but after she leaves this one job kind of unsettled at the events that have occurred she comes across this guy in an inn and she is bet by one of her friends that she cannot take um something from the sky and so in doing so in trying to like obtain i think it's like a bracelet or something from this man she ends up getting arrested by him and taken and she is going to be taken i want to say before like the emperor or something like grand ruler of this particular uh country realm whatever and she's on the road with this guy and she's like trying to escape they have kind of this plant playful banter relationship it does kind of remind me the opening for sure of from blood and ash and i have to say that right off the bat this one feels much better done i think part of it's the writing and part of it is that our heroine is better developed and a lot less naive than is it poppy penelope and from blood and ash i'm just i'm liking the story and again it's one that i want to take my time with and i want to be able to like really sit there and like get invested in it i'm not super in the mood for this story right now like i picked it up instantly and was interested i think i'm like sort of not in the mood for it and also my attention is just elsewhere in my personal life so i don't want to give this book like half-assed attention and i feel like it deserves more than that if that makes sense which i feel like is sort of a lackluster way to end a video and i apologize for that however i feel like i've learned some very important things in this year video and i feel like i now know that i think rachel and i have fairly similar taste in books but i feel like i know now what books that she recommends that will work for me versus won't work for me so let's go ahead and run through them first up we have yolk by mary h k choi i'm not super into y a contemporaries typically but this one definitely took me by surprise and i do feel like i learned something new and or gained different perspective on family and what family means so i'm really glad that i picked this one up even again if this is not something that i would have normally picked up on my own next up we have a dowry of blood this is the book that i definitely enjoyed the most out of the ones that i read for this video i gave it four stars and i feel like even if you don't have context for dracula you would really potentially enjoy the story the writing is just so lush and i just love that this is a polyamorous queer story it just pick it up pick it up we have magnolia parks which is kind of the one resounding dud of this video i knew that this book would either be a love or a hate for me unfortunately it is i hate however i understand how rachel could enjoy this book it definitely again has that like writing i feel like all of the books really in this video maybe besides the last one have really intensely good and interesting writing this one maybe not my kind of writing but i can appreciate like what it did story unfortunately just like wasn't for me but that's fine it's okay to have it done next up we have rebecca which was one again that kind of took me by surprise i went into it kind of enjoying it then it went downhill and then it went steadily back up the hill because i ended up giving this book like three and a half stars because it's a good time and then lastly we have the song of the marx this again is one that i am intending on finishing at a later date however i can i feel like say with some degree of certainty that this is better than from blood and ash and if you're looking for a good romantic fantasy you should pick this one up i mean i don't want to say that for sure because maybe something wild happens in the last part of this book but i don't think that's the case and i feel pretty confident in recommending this one so so overall i'm really happy with how this taste test turned out i really liked getting to read rachel's favorites if you're not already subscribed go ahead and subscribe to rachel i'll leave a link to her channel down in the description down below if you like my videos i think you're going to actually love her videos she's amazing so thanks so much for watching this video i love y'all so much and until next timehello welcome back to my channel and welcome to the 12th episode of taste test wherein i test other booktubers taste in books to see how our tastes align in today's video i'm going to be taste testing rachel from ravenhaired reader i am so excited to be doing this rachel is fairly new i would say to booktube just like in the grand scheme of things i have been enamored with her videos ever since she started uploading it seems like any time she talks about books i'm tempted to pick them up even if our genre preferences don't necessarily always align i feel like rachel tends to read a lot more fantasy than i do but she does pick up a fair amount of romance as well so this video is going to be super interesting and i'm really excited to see how i taste the line again because i have been watching her videos and i'm always tempted to pick up the things that she talks about and that's why i hit her up and was like hey can i read your favorites because i gotta see if your tastes are similar to my taste because i just love how you talk about books so that's we're going to be doing here in this video today let me quickly run you through the five books that i'm going to be reading i'm not going to give you any like long drawn out synopsis because we're going to be talking about what these books are about as we read them but let me at least tell you what the titles of books that we're going to be reading are first up we have the song of the march by sm gaither this is one of the books actually that made me want to do this video in the first place it is a fantasy romance that i'd never heard of before but i remember watching rachel talk about this in a vlog and i was like okay well i have to pick this up obviously if she enjoys it like there's a pretty high chance i will i know she really likes sarah j maas book so i'm wondering if this is going to be similar to a sarah j maas book i have heard that there is sort of like a band of friends in the story and that's something that i tend to kind of like to read when i'm reading a fantasy romance so i'm very excited to give this one a try and it is available on ku which is obviously a perk next up we have rebecca by daphne du maurier this one i'm really excited to give a try it's one that's been on my radar for forever i feel like everyone and their mother has read this book i think it's like kind of a thriller kind of like a romantic suspense novel and it is obviously an older book i did notice that whenever rachel handed me her list of uh favorites there were quite a few older books on there for me to choose from i think dorian gray was also on there as well i wanted to give myself i would say like the best shot at liking the books on rachel's list so i picked ones that i thought i would be more likely to enjoy so that's why i picked up this one um i am excited to give it a go finally get in the loop about what the story is about i know there was like a movie recently as well so excited to give this one a try next up we have a dowry of blood by st gibson this one i don't know that much about i think it's like some sort of dracula reimagining retelling i think it's told from the point of view of one of dracula's brides and i have heard it's like sapphic so very excited to give this one a try next we have one i would say that i'm pretty tentative about going into but i picked it up because i figured it would be easy to read i don't know why but i chose yolk by mary h k choi this is a why a contemporary novel and it's about sisters and that's literally all i know i've had kind of mixed luck with mary hk choi in the past but i am willing to pick this one up because it does have a sister relationship and i do have sister of my own so i'm wondering if this is gonna be like relatable in some way and then lastly the book that i'm sure you clicked on this video for magnolia parks by jessa hastings this is a book that's getting so much buzz and i think that is definitely due in part to rachel and some of rachel's friends over on instagram i feel like i see pictures of this book oh god daily at this point because everyone seems to be really into it it's kind of like gossip girl set in london is what i've heard i am very excited and interested to give this one a go and see if i end up enjoying it because i've heard mixed things and i don't know it seems like an angsty story that i may or may not like angst kind of goes one of two ways for me so definitely excited to give this one a try but before we get into the taste test i'd like to take a chance to tell you a little bit about the sponsor of today's video wondershare filmora 11. wondershare filmora is an easy to use video editing software with powerful skills to help your videos shine filmora has all of the features you want in editing software from built-in templates like texts and overlays to ai powered speech to text that can help you add subtitles to your videos the two features that i love the most are the title editing function and the color match feature you'll know i like to keep the editing in my videos pretty simple but filmora's title editing functionality is so easy to use with its built-in text overlays you can customize the font animation color and even more settings with ease i'm really excited to see how this feature can bring even more life to my weekly reading vlogs i also love that with filmora i'm able to efficiently match the colors across all the clips for my videos nothing bugs me more than when i have to stop recording mid-film and then when i press record again the color of the clips doesn't quite line up filmora i'm able to get a really consistent look with very little effort wondershare filmora 11 is free to try and is definitely worth the download especially considering that it's less expensive than other leading video editing software click the link in my description to check out the amazing features and start editing today thank you to wondershare for sponsoring this video now let's go ahead and get into the vlog portion of the video alright so we have some books to talk about i finished yolk by mary hk choi last night this is a book that i didn't update you at the 50 mark iv because i wasn't really sure how i felt about it i didn't want to give some big explanation of what the book's about and just tell you i don't know how i feel now that i'm finished with the book i definitely have firm feelings and i can i feel like more completely tell you what the story is about so i think at the core this book is about a sister relationship between young adults or women on the kind of like cusp of full adulthood the men who have graduated or will soon graduate from university and kind of the relationship that they have with each other so this book is about june and jane june is the older sister jane is the younger one and the book is told from the point of view of jane and she gets kind of back into contact with her older sister they've kind of been out of like true contact for a couple of years get back in contact because june unfortunately has endometrial cancer or uterine cancer essentially she's going to have to have her uterus and fallopian tubes completely removed kind of needs her sister's help and i don't really want to say what her sister's help will include because that would be spoiling the book but they come into contact because of like medical you know issue that june is facing and jane has to kind of grapple with this sort of weird relationship she has with her sister and also the weird relationship she has with herself and her mother right off the bat i wasn't sure how to feel about this book because i felt like the prose was really impressive but this didn't really feel like a young adult story for me and i feel like i had different expectations going into this book than were delivered and that's not necessarily a bad thing i just feel like this story didn't really in any way feel like young adult book despite the kind of ages of the characters being sort of y-a-ish i want to say that june is like 23 and jane is like 19 or 20 or something like that the way that the book is told definitely reads very literary fiction and i kind of wish that this had been placed in the literary fiction kind of space because i feel like the reception of the story would be a lot different than the reviews are on goodreads i feel like a lot of the reviews on goodreads are kind of negative about this book and i think a lot of that could be chalked up to kind of the age demographic this book is targeting i was feeling weird about this book not really feeling like it was in the right age demographic and then also i feel like i didn't really know the direction the story was going it kind of meanders a bit it definitely focuses more on the relationships than anything else there's really no point i guess you could say to this book the book ends with the medical procedure happening and that's it like that's the end of the book there are relationships and kind of romantic things that happen throughout the story as well that never really fully get resolved so i feel like if i had updated you at the 50 mark like what would i have said i don't know what's happening with the story i mean to be honest even having finished the story i don't really know that i know what's going on with it but i did feel like this was a pretty good exploration of familial relationships and culture different cultures i guess like conceptualize family and what family means it was interesting hearing june and jane's parents kind of like talk about their relationships with family and with the idea of family her dad basically says like you know what it's like the one family you've got and even though you know a sister relationship is hard to deal with it's nice to have someone there for you and i think that's kind of like the resounding message here it's like even though sometimes family can be challenging it's kind of nice to know that there's someone that has your back even if y'all are not willing to like really say i love you it's nice knowing someone is there i don't know if that's a message that will necessarily work for everyone given that some of the things that happen between the siblings and also just between the family in general are a little bit like rough i think you have to obviously make that decision for yourself in your own relationships like if you want to carry on a relationship that could be potentially like toxic even if it is your family but i don't even know what to say beyond that i just feel like this is a really interesting look at family and relationships i do feel like some of the things that were said were kind of profound i felt myself pondering the relationship between june and jane now considering some things i will say my relationship with my sister could not be more different than the relationship that is displayed in this book so it wasn't something that was really relatable in a way but i do feel like this felt like an authentic representation i guess you could say of like the sister relationship how sometimes that can be tricky and also how your interpretation i guess a family can be so different i think that was maybe the most interesting thing to me was how june and jane like they had similar upbringings but they also kind of reflected their upbringings differently and the way that they present to the world and in the ways in which they either want to kind of perform to the world or not and how that affects our relationship i don't know i thought it was interesting i thought this was a really solid book i mean this is like a three-star read this is not one that really really stuck with me i feel like i wanted there to be more of a point i wanted there to be more of a concrete ending to the story it didn't need to be like some grand happy ending but i feel like there are just a few too many loose ends kind of left at the end of the book but you definitely see how rachel could enjoy this story because this feels like a rachel book if that makes sense i'm 50 into another book and spoiler alert actually read the third book for this video first so i feel like i'm kind of getting understanding of rachel's taste and the kinds of books that she tends to gravitate towards and they seem to be books that do kind of have pretty writing a slightly more profound approach to storytelling books that um are deeply emotional i would say it seems even the fantasies that i know that she likes seem to have kind of an emotional kind of bend to them not in terms of like sappy emotion but really getting you to dig deep i guess overall this is a three star like it was my favorite thing that i've ever read but i don't think i would have picked this up had it not been for this video even though i'd heard a lot of different things about this book and i'm definitely glad that i read this book i think i think it was interesting and i will say if you enjoy new york city or you just like reading about the city in general i feel like this was a really good look at what people actually like about the city and kind of what it's all about not a romanticized version but just like what it actually is and i liked that so the next book that i'm like 50 into is a dowry of blood by st gibson this book wow it's an epistolary epistolary uh novel and it is told from the lens of one of the brides of dracula for reference i have never read any books related to dracula i've never read dracula i don't know anything really about the story except for he is a vampire and that's that's about it that's pretty much all i know so i didn't really know if i would connect with this book going into it i also had heard like i just mixed things about this i feel like the majority of people i know like this but i don't know i just didn't know what to expect i'm actually very much enjoying this even more so than yolk and i'm definitely again kind of like picking up on rachel's taste as i as i continue to read so this book is told again from the point of view of one of dracula's bride's i think her name is like constanta or something and it sounds like constanza in the audiobook but it's it's two t's maybe i'm pronouncing it correctly i don't know constanta she at the beginning of the story is saved by dracula she is his war bride i guess she is someone who almost died at the hands of invading forces she's found like on a battlefield and dracula saves her and makes her the first of his brides so she has an interesting relationship with him at the beginning she realizes that he is definitely not um best husband ever not the best husband material he is definitely a complex individual who definitely likes to get his way but she also has this kind of inexplicable pull towards him maybe not inexplicable because it makes sense like he saved her she would be you know kind of beholden to him the beginning of the story is really her kind of describing the relationship she has with him and then i think the story as it goes on is going to be describing how she feels about the other people being brought into their marriage we've already met magdalena i want to say is the first of dracula's other brides and constanta at the start is kind of irritated that dracula would be taking another bride but she's also very very interested in this person and interested in her like in a sexual way so it's definitely a polyamorous like lgbt story which i appreciate i haven't gotten super far into their relationship yet i just know that constranta and the girl magdalena are gonna like make out soon i don't know i think they're like out and about just the two of them after a couple of years and they are kind of going to like deepen their own relationship kind of outside of their relationship with dracula and i think that's going to be like the basis of maybe constanta trying to get out of this relationship i think at the beginning of the story we find out that like she's already killed him so clearly she has some issues with him but curious to see kind of where that goes really enjoying the way the story is written it is very descriptive and i feel like the emotions are very palpable i'm not really someone who tends to like fairy flowery writing i'm okay with some description obviously but i don't want anything that just feels like purple prose but it really feels like the author is able to use her prose to articulate the emotions of funstante in a way that is really connecting and i think oftentimes even when an author attempts to make something pretty they're still not necessarily able to accomplish what they're setting out to accomplish i really feel that way about the next book that we're going to talk about i just feel like there's a difference between attempting to make something pretty and then actually accomplishing getting your point across with that pretty language usage and i just feel like someone's kind of doing the damn thing i'm very pleasantly surprised i'm very much enjoying this book and i could definitely see this being a four or five star even though i didn't expect to like this even though this is not like a traditional romance if we're gonna is it a romance i don't know what we're calling this book but it's entertaining and actually is making me interested in the story of dracula so like what a thunk who would have thought i don't know i'm enjoying it i'm going to continue reading i only have like again 50 of this book left which is only like an hour via audio which we love and i'll update you tomorrow with my final thoughts and feelings when my ac is not loud and blasting behind me so as i'm editing this video i realized i never did a final clip for a dowry of blood i distinctly remember filming one but for some reason i can't find it maybe i accidentally deleted it not really sure but i ended up giving this book four stars i really really enjoyed this the writing was just impeccable i feel like it's really a testament to this author's writing that i enjoyed this book because the subject matter at hand and the fact that i knew nothing about dracula definitely made me think that i wouldn't enjoy this book but it was a total winner now the only reason i didn't give this book five stars was because i didn't totally love when alexi came into the story i just kind of took my enjoyment down a bit i guess that makes sense given that that's kind of when things start to unfold in the lives of constanta and magdalena as well but other than that i just really liked this book one of those like go girl moments like i was just very excited for all three of the wives to be able to get out of the situation to have their own autonomy and to really decide what they're doing for themselves i'd be lying if i said that the ending was like perfect for me i did kind of want to see it go in a slightly different direction however again it was really cool getting to see these people vampires i guess like be in charge of their lives and their own destinies and not have to be pulled into the their creator i guess it's like i don't even know what to say about this book to really get you to pick it up because it is such a strange one but i feel like if it appeals at all to you if you want something kind of like spooky and creepy um with some commentary to it i feel like this is a really good book to pick up in the fall and i had a really good time with it like i would not have picked this up on my own for sure but i'm really glad that i picked up for this taste test and again it's a four star read for me so that is all i have to say about this book let's go ahead and get into magnolia parks the moment we've all been waiting for i am 2 ish 100 pages into magnolia parks i'm actually filming this clip before any of these other clips if you want to know how the movie magic happens yes i was going to put this one in the middle of the video so you would watch my opinions on these other books probably skipped around anyway but magnolia parks obviously i'm reading this because it's a book that rachel really likes it might be rachel's new all-time favorite book she specifically messaged me and said read this and so i am reading it i have thoughts and feelings i certainly do if you like sally rooney more power to you this is sally rooney drank a couple of glasses of champagne and decided to pretend like she was gossip girl so this book is okay so this book follows magnolia parks she is a british socialite and she is in an off-again on-again relationship with a man named bj bj valentine and he's so cool and she's so cool she is i would say pretty similar to like a blair character perhaps a little less uptight but i don't even know if i would say that she has a lot of opinions she is slightly unlikable but somehow bj thinks that the sun shines out of her ass he has gotten no fewer than 20 tattoos dedicated all to her he is just enamored with her he absolutely loves her but not enough to not cheat on her so this story kind of follows them after the fallout of their breakup they date other people they sleep with other people they wind up in each other's beds but not sleeping together it also follows the exploits of their friend group who you were introduced to in the beginning of the book and you're kind of like who the are all of these people they're mostly men and i am not going to keep any of their names straight my issue oh i have money the first one is that the writing of this book oh my god it's not sally rooney writing there are quotation marks thank the lord however the way that these sentences are strung together is absolutely insane trying to find the one sentence that i had to read about six times it's in the first chapter of the book and the first chapter of the book really throws you because you start it up and you're like wow um wasn't expecting this it's not that it's terrible and once you get immersed in the story the writing kind of fades into the background which i appreciate but getting into this book is inexplicably challenging i would highly recommend reading the sample of the first chapter before i don't know spending 20-ish dollars on the physical copy of the book now lucky me hayden has a lot of amazon gift cards lying around that's why i have the physical copy of this book i wouldn't spend money on a book that i've never read before at this stage in my life so the writing aside the idea of it right i like the idea of will they want the angsty pining relationship my issue though is that i like people who use their words i like people who who communicate at my big age i need people to talk with their mouths and words and communicate i i like my angst and pining to be built on a reason and i understand that what bj did is perhaps warranting some of the behavior on the part of parks however if they would just talk admit their feelings for each other and move on oh my god this book would probably be done within the first hundred pages right that's not the case instead we have them pining for each other but it's not like it's not like it's an unbelievable pining or angst it's just something that i'm like okay like i know y'all wanna so why don't you just i like my angst intention to be built on something like oh i don't know you want to have sex with your ex boyfriend's best friend that's that's a reason right the reason they aren't together is because they don't know how to talk that's frustrating on top of that i think that the characters are kind of unlikable and i get maybe that's like your thing but i think magnolia is kind of unlikable i don't understand why you would get 20 tattoos dedicated to her 22 tattoos i don't remember the exact number because do i care no sally rooney fans this is your this is your stuff right here right here you know normal people it's like rich normal people i think like if i were reading this book right now it'd be three stars right it's not i don't hate it i don't i want you to know right now that i don't hate this book however i am a bit worried because i'm 200 pages in and we've already had so many micro conflicts that i'm wondering how this book could possibly go on and i'm wondering if it has any central plot i'm guessing that it won't and that's going to frustrate me personally i am fine with a will they won't they thing whatever what is carrying these characters forward we do have some progression in the fact that magnolia has like started seriously not seriously dating seriously fake dating a guy but i i don't see that being long lived i mean is she gonna like fall for him and that's gonna be the conflict is like is she gonna be with this new guy or someone else i okay i was gonna say i have powerful fingers but that just sounds gross um i just flipped two about this part you know this is the end this is the end of the book i flipped her right here and my prediction i believe is true i am gonna keep reading i guess i'll update you when something happens so god knows when that will be i am more than halfway through this godforsaken book things have happened not much not much that is like super interesting to me but things have happened right so we've had a little bit of a plot twist i didn't personally see coming with family members of magnolia i don't want to get into the details because like it's a spoiler or whatever so i'm not going to uh and then we've had repeated betrayals by bj that's something else i guess i don't know y'all this is just like the more i read the more that the words feel so empty to me right attempts are made to make us really care for the characters and to make us feel things i've compared this to sally rooney and sally rooney's normal people i'm pretty sure i stand by that i think like there are definitely some similarities but i think honestly even though i didn't like that book and i feel like it needed quotation marks that book elicited emotion and feeling from me because the way that it was written was subtle the betrayals and the things that happened i think they were different enough every time to get you to think and kind of wonder who was in the wrong right because they like do things to each other um or do things without considering the other person and it's interesting the issue that i have with this book is that the betrayals are not interesting things that they do are patterns right bj continuously cheats on magnolia magnolia ends up dating different people over and over again not sleeping with them but dating them which upsets bj so they just have this endless cycle of hurting each other just to hurt each other it's never new it's never interesting and even if she ends up falling for the guy that she's dating right now tom it's not going to feel interesting and fresh it's not going to feel like something nuanced and interesting that i want to read about as much as this book is stuffed with scenes of internal dialogue of the characters talking about how he is the only one that can hurt me and he's the only one that can really attach himself to my emotions like doesn't i don't feel anything reading this i'm like am i just soulless like is it just me misreading this book and i don't think it's that because again i've read books like this before that have impacted me that have you know made me think like wow like this is sad even watching normal people show which i actually take think is better than the book that one heartbreaking you know this doesn't feel heartbreaking this is just like okay rich people drama and i think if you're in the mood for this kind of book it will satisfy you i just think that this is not normally the kind of thing i pick because again there's not really any stakes here and there's no basis for the separation this was never going to work for me i don't know i was hoping that it would turn itself around it just hasn't so that's where i'm at i'm going to finish this book and i will get back to you but so far i'm not loving it i already said this is the first book that i'm reading for this video and i already knew that rachel and i have dissimilar tastes i know that she likes sally rooney it makes sense that she would like this book this is just not for me and that's okay i'm gonna finish it i already know that future me is gonna be really annoyed with myself for not going upstairs and retrieving my copy of magnolia parks who wants to edit in a book cover when you own the book not me i ended up giving this book two stars i really didn't enjoy it the ending was i was gonna say atrocious that seems a bit extreme it was predictable it was nothing that i personally enjoyed and i feel like my overall like feeling about this book like my overall thoughts are that it is i'm gonna say overrated but i feel like this book is a lot of fluff and no substance i wanted there to be more sally rooney poignant moments i wanted there to be more of a question about which characters you would like and support and i'm sorry i didn't really like or support any of the characters in this book i mean obviously i feel bad for magnolia but she is kind of irritating and bj like i'm sorry he didn't have this like gray morality thing going on he was just stupid and made poor decisions and i just like couldn't root for him i definitely understand why rachel enjoys this one because again i think if you like sally rooney but you want something maybe a little bit more dare i say dumbed down but with more like current day language usage and i don't know if you just want more of a gossip girl feel you want sally rooney vibes this is your book right like this will suit you and suit your needs and i understand why rachel likes this book i don't think it's objectively terrible i definitely think that the writing could work for some people it just wasn't deep enough for me i wanted the writing to evoke emotion like a dowry of blood did that one really used this kind of more flowery language to make you feel and in this book i feel like the language didn't really go well but it was trying to accomplish so anyway um two stars disappointing but you know what i think someone will really enjoy finding my copy and half price books in a couple of months so you know not too gutted not too gutted let's talk about a book that i'm 50 into rebecca this is also one that i am like sort of having mixed feelings about right so this is like a very beloved sort of like romantic suspense thrillery sort of book about our narrator who doesn't have a name she's unnamed she is the second wife of mr maxim de winter and she is having to fill some pretty big shoes because her husband's first wife was a force and everyone really really loved rebecca as the story goes on find out that like every character in maxim's life and in our narrator's life has sort of like a complicated history in past with rebecca and so it makes our narrator want to find out like what actually happened to her what were the circumstances surrounding her death it's not really a whodunit i guess i feel like we all kind of know when you start reading the book who done it it's more so about the journey to get there and kind of feel like chilling feeling of it and i will say i am appreciating the way the story is written again with the flowery language i feel like rachel i mean i could be wrong here could just be coincidence but i feel like rachel you like things that have strong writing right this book definitely has strong writing i feel like the language usage is really evoking a sense of place i feel like i definitely know where i am and i feel attached to manderley for sure and at the very beginning of the story i was feeling very sympathetic to our heroine who is kind of plucked out of a sort of random set of circumstances into this really luxurious lifestyle i think where i'm sort of struggling is that at the beginning of this book i was really rooting for our heroine and i was really interested to see her you know sort of like unravel the mystery surrounding manderly and rebecca more time goes on the more irritating and naive she is and i'm assuming that's probably part of the point of the story correct i'm assuming that our heroine is going to get like broken down even more emotionally and mentally as the story goes on and that that will be part of what makes this interesting because it's told from her point of view and i think it would make for a more interesting story for her to just like go down this rabbit hole and have her brain be a little bit up but i'm also kind of like bored i guess at this like 50 mark i would say from like the 25 to the 50 mark not a whole lot is happening we definitely get like creepy feelings from the maid or whatever like the lady of the house i don't head honcho head lady in charge we're getting weird vibes from her and she's definitely a big rebecca fan so she's not a big fan of our narrator and so she is definitely giving good creepy vibes like i'm appreciating that but other than that there's not a whole lot like kind of leading the story forward we've had like one sort of outburst i guess you could say by maxim i'm just i was expecting more creepiness i suppose and i guess i was expecting yeah more of a whodunit sort of situation even though like going into this i feel like i kind of knew who did it i just like i like the the parts of the story but i'm not really sure that i like the sum of this story and i guess we'll see from this 50 mark on how things kind of start unraveling and and how that is told and whether or not that's something that really sticks with me but like right now this is kind of feeling like a two or three start read for me um i would say maybe like a three star like it's certainly not bad again i really like the writing but our narrator is really irritating and i don't feel like much is happening so those are my thoughts and feelings all right i have good news and bad news let's do the good news first i finished rebecca last night and this one really turned itself around it's really challenging to get into without spoiling anything but i feel like this one for me is more of like a three and a half four star which is surprising because i was really like not vibing with it from like that 25 to 50 mark then from the 50 mark on things really changed and honestly all i have to say is good for her i feel like this is the origin almost of like the good for her mystery thriller and i can really appreciate that i feel like i i feel like i know the origin story now maybe there are other ones obviously that were done before this i'm sure there are but this one i really enjoyed listening to i really enjoyed reading it was just it was a fun experience and i feel like i understand why this book has held up so well over time there's so much to explore with this one in terms of the characters and how they interact with each other and also just their character motivations getting to know maxim a little bit more getting to know our heroine more national rebecca moore as the story went on was just it was really immaculate and had a really good time with it um which is good because i do have it somewhere on my shelves here um and i won't be getting rid of it so i guess that is good news like it was a fun time and i can definitely understand why rachel or really anyone would enjoy the story i feel like again if you are someone who likes a good good for her sort of story i think you would enjoy this i think if you are someone who you know likes classics this is definitely one to give a try because it doesn't feel boring and dry i feel like this one instantly sucked me in and again the way that the book is written is so beautiful that it really keeps your attention the entire time and really like sinks you into this place of okay i'm kind of scared i kind of want to know what happens even though the actual subject matter isn't that scary it's the way the book is written that kind of like gives it that atmosphere so had a good time with this one i definitely consider this one a win i feel like i would not hesitate to pick up more like mystery thriller-ish kind of books on rachel's recommendation so glad i picked this one up now for the bad news i am about 25 into the song of the mark and i'm not dnfing it actually i am really enjoying this book but i won't lie i am uh dealing with some rather challenging things in my personal life and instead of drawing this vlog out longer and longer and like attempting to finish this book later on i'd rather just kind of like leave it where it is now and be able to pick up this book later on whenever i am feeling up to it i hate to be vague so i won't like linger on this but i guess i can kind of tell you what this book is about and tell you why i actually am really enjoying this one so this one is battering character cass and at the beginning of the story we find out that she is someone who has a few different hidden identities kind of like miss celaena sardothien in a throne of glass so i can definitely see the similarities there already she also has like friends around her at the very beginning of the story as she is fighting these forces that she didn't expect to fight i don't want to spoil things so i'm gonna like be kind of general i guess you could say with with my plot summary so far we find out that she has an employer and that she is asked to do different jobs for this person or these people i'm not entirely sure to be honest like who she's doing jobs for but after she leaves this one job kind of unsettled at the events that have occurred she comes across this guy in an inn and she is bet by one of her friends that she cannot take um something from the sky and so in doing so in trying to like obtain i think it's like a bracelet or something from this man she ends up getting arrested by him and taken and she is going to be taken i want to say before like the emperor or something like grand ruler of this particular uh country realm whatever and she's on the road with this guy and she's like trying to escape they have kind of this plant playful banter relationship it does kind of remind me the opening for sure of from blood and ash and i have to say that right off the bat this one feels much better done i think part of it's the writing and part of it is that our heroine is better developed and a lot less naive than is it poppy penelope and from blood and ash i'm just i'm liking the story and again it's one that i want to take my time with and i want to be able to like really sit there and like get invested in it i'm not super in the mood for this story right now like i picked it up instantly and was interested i think i'm like sort of not in the mood for it and also my attention is just elsewhere in my personal life so i don't want to give this book like half-assed attention and i feel like it deserves more than that if that makes sense which i feel like is sort of a lackluster way to end a video and i apologize for that however i feel like i've learned some very important things in this year video and i feel like i now know that i think rachel and i have fairly similar taste in books but i feel like i know now what books that she recommends that will work for me versus won't work for me so let's go ahead and run through them first up we have yolk by mary h k choi i'm not super into y a contemporaries typically but this one definitely took me by surprise and i do feel like i learned something new and or gained different perspective on family and what family means so i'm really glad that i picked this one up even again if this is not something that i would have normally picked up on my own next up we have a dowry of blood this is the book that i definitely enjoyed the most out of the ones that i read for this video i gave it four stars and i feel like even if you don't have context for dracula you would really potentially enjoy the story the writing is just so lush and i just love that this is a polyamorous queer story it just pick it up pick it up we have magnolia parks which is kind of the one resounding dud of this video i knew that this book would either be a love or a hate for me unfortunately it is i hate however i understand how rachel could enjoy this book it definitely again has that like writing i feel like all of the books really in this video maybe besides the last one have really intensely good and interesting writing this one maybe not my kind of writing but i can appreciate like what it did story unfortunately just like wasn't for me but that's fine it's okay to have it done next up we have rebecca which was one again that kind of took me by surprise i went into it kind of enjoying it then it went downhill and then it went steadily back up the hill because i ended up giving this book like three and a half stars because it's a good time and then lastly we have the song of the marx this again is one that i am intending on finishing at a later date however i can i feel like say with some degree of certainty that this is better than from blood and ash and if you're looking for a good romantic fantasy you should pick this one up i mean i don't want to say that for sure because maybe something wild happens in the last part of this book but i don't think that's the case and i feel pretty confident in recommending this one so so overall i'm really happy with how this taste test turned out i really liked getting to read rachel's favorites if you're not already subscribed go ahead and subscribe to rachel i'll leave a link to her channel down in the description down below if you like my videos i think you're going to actually love her videos she's amazing so thanks so much for watching this video i love y'all so much and until next time\n"