I also really liked how you acknowledged the complexity of separating artist and art. Each case can be so different and they can also impact the reader (or consumer) so differently. Society needs to fix the approach on this topic and learn how to work to improve. So thank you, I loved how open you were.
We lived in Hollywood too fast a time. Now quiet extras in a bored cafe, our phone screens make our faces black and white; the modern human mourning former fame. It’s time to flee this monotone burlesque with stolen boas, stolen fedoras. Which microphone will hear our happy breaths? panting when we leap back into color. Oh, Sunlight fund the studio within; a theater that our grief and joy has built. Let’s help the angels find their seats again. They want to watch our introspective film. Forget you’re acting. Take the chance to live, and smile when you rip prewritten scripts. - a sonnet that I wrote
I also want to add that the people who wrote mean comments to you for buying Mists of Avalon clearly don’t know what they’re talking about because that author is literally dead so you can’t “support” her. Plus I’m pretty sure the publisher donates the proceeds of her books to anti-child abuse charities now so…don’t feel bad about buying. Especially because you didn’t even know at the time! People need to chill.
I really recommend the audiobook for The City We Became! I feel like it enhanced the book 200% because they play around with audio glitching and it’s just *chef’s kiss*
Some Kind of Happiness holds a special place in my heart. It makes me cry every time I read it. But most of all , I resonated so hard with the main character’s struggles of sadness while being a child. My favorite part was how the author used the character’s imagination/ fairytales to make sense of her mind.
This made me realise we have some diverging tastes in books. But still interesting to see the motivations behind your unhaul and your fashion always slays ❤
I love the way you did your hair! I just recently gave a lot of my books away too! Some were The Box In The Woods by Maureen Johnson (I loved the first 3 truly devious books but not that one), The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and Forest of Souls.
I really enjoyed the Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson, though I think it does take some time to get into in my experience. I don't fault you for getting rid of your physical copy, but I think it's worth keeping on the TBR and reading later either as an audiobook or borrowing it from the library!
I love the Monstress series (well, the first 4, i haven't been able to read the rest because my library never purchased them😢 ) so im a bit sad you're parting ways with that one! But on the other hand, feel very relieved to hear someone else thought 7 and a half deaths was boring 😂 i struggled through that book.
Ahhh I’m on the fourth volume of Monstress and It is the best graphic novel I’ve ever read!! The art is gorgeous it has a very lovable diverse cast of characters…granted it is violent because war and I would look up trigger warnings even though it’s not like game of thrones level I can see it bothering some people. It is such an addicting story. The first volume is very info dumpy because of the vast fantasy world full of different races and their connections but after that it’s a smooth ride 10/10
Monica, thank you for calling out depictions of grief. It’s very hard to write about articulately (obviously) but everyone thinks they can pull it off.
I’m currently reading How We Fall Apart and you may want to keep that one as the timelines are a little confusing in the book and helps to flip back so an audiobook may not help with that. There’s also a couple letters in it too!
some kind of happiness is an INCREDIBLE book, i literally only bought it because of the cover but reading it felt like i was giving my childhood self a hug (and also made me cry for over half of it which feels a bit rude) but i would highly reccomend reading it even if it's just through audiobook!!
Here comes the convincing: I absolutely adore The Glass Town Game! It's a lovely combination between fantasy and history and literature full of whimsy but also dealing with some heavier themes in a heartwarming way. Valente is one of my favorite authors but her style is not everyone's cup of tea; beautiful writing with a lot of (sometimes obscure) references and bits of trivia sprinkled in. Her books are very dense and fantastical, but (to me) pack a lot of feelings. I recommend picking up the audiobook narrated by Kate Reading 🥰
Our deaths the apple’s holy skin reflects, unless it’s plucked and put below our chin. Instead of having hobbies, live obsessed; thy breath the fog upon the apple’s skin. An echo’s in that universal crunch- -oh put a smile on those puffed-out cheeks! so that in laughter streams of cider flood. No one to taste it when our hands retreat. The greatest basket is the human hand; the palm where just a single apple lays, one apple while others crowd the branch. Forget the rest. Obsess about its taste. Adore. Indulge. Enjoy. Commit. Obsess. Obsess and savor. Keep such flavor fresh. ... a sonnet that i wrote
Feeling validated about the House in the Cerulean Sea! Not sure if it was overhyped to me so my expections were too high, but it didn't hit for me as more than "good".
Nothing by TJ Klune has ever lived up to the hype for me, I feel like I must be missing something. Not that I even really buy into hype, but his writing tends to be really heavy handed and kind of juvenile in a way that doesn't rise above a lot of fanfic. So I just truly do not understand the high praise.
@@FloraSprout Totally! I personally felt the same way about Matt Haig with Midnight Library. Concept-wise I thought it would be good, but delivery was a bit shallow for me.
@Jilian H are we the same haha I felt the same about midnight library! Spoiler for anyone to skip: the fact that she was finally "happy" in tbe universe where she had a husband and kid felt like a slap in the face. Like yep, husband and kid solve the problems! I know ultimately she didn't stay there but I was gobsmacked by that. And the whole narrative premise contradicted itself in places. I'm sure it really resonates with some people but I am not one of them lol
I am glad I am not the only person who didn't vibe with House on the Cerulean Sea lol. It had so many elements that I love (gay romance, magical children), but I could just not bring myself to care about most of the characters. Keeper of the Night does have a sequel, if you want to check it out.
I also struggle with rehoming books, especially if I haven’t read them, but life is short and space is limited. By getting rid of these books, you might be helping someone else discover their favorite book! ❤
I've heard that a lot about the city we became, people expected to love it because of the fifth season and then just didn't. I read another series of hers too that wasn't as good as the broken earth series.
I also found out about Marion Zimmer Bradley after having bought Mists of Avalon but before reading it. I couldn’t stomach trying to read it. I think what makes it so much more heinous to me is that she DIRECTLY did the bad things, not just *saying* problematic things like a lot of authors do. Obviously either one is bad but the fact the she was directly responsible for these truly disgusting acts made it all the more difficult to look past. If I’d read it I would have been constantly wondering if she’d SAed her daughter on the same day as writing the chapter and that was too much for me. Maybe I’m hypocritical since I still own and reread HP but idk… Bradley is a pretty extreme case.
Truly Devious is so over-hyped. I'm still going to read the vanishing stair, but I'm borrowing it from the library so I don't waste money on the rest of the series 😅
I always do this (recommending stuff unrelated to the topic of your video) but I’d like to make a recommendation for a visual novel: The House in Fata Morgana. One of the highest rated games on switch. If you’re into literary fiction you’ve a chance of liking it. It takes a couple hours to get into as the first set of characters are quite unlikeable and some of the music is grating but the pay off is major if you get past that and it deals with some difficult themes surprisingly well.
I'm laughing because I just finished The House in the Cerulean Sea and found it really kind of just meh. The librarian was gushing over it as I checked it out because it's one of her favourite all-time books and now I'm afraid to see her because she'll want to know what I thought 😆. I understand what you mean about not connecting with the characters.....even though I technically should have? I found the same with the author's other book Under The Whispering Door which was also underwhelming. And thank you for addressing the issue of artist vs. art -- it really is a much more nuanced thing than the internet likes to make it. That said, I read Mists of Avalon back in the 90s (dating myself here!) and LOVED it...at the time, it was so brilliant to see the Arthurian legend from a female perspective. I still have the book on my shelf but in light of what I now know, it's hard for me to look at it the same way. That doesn't change how profoundly it impacted me, though. *shrug* Like I said, it's a complicated issue.
About the mists of Avalon: I do not know the book or the author. I studied literature and there have been raised these questions about what to do when an author did something that is not okay (I mostly learned of the context around WWI where Belgian authors for example helped the Germans). And I really think it depends of what the author did. And of what you describe I totally understand why you would want to get rid of that book. If every time you look at it, it makes you uncomfortable, you do not have to keep it.
I did not like Monstress but I loved The Night Eaters and gave it 5 stars. And I was honestly confused at all the gushing over House in the Cerulean Sea, I had read from TJ Klune before as one of many authors I read during my M/M romance phase, and the only thing that made the Cerulean Sea special was the cover art and maybe good editing which self-published books often lack. And I don't mind reading problematic authors, we can't really study literature or history without them, but I draw the line at known criminals.
yess and so hard to know that so many possible favorites are just sitting there 😭 maybe i’ll get deep into comics again and finally read it one day tho! 💗
The Mists of Avalon author has about five or six pseudonyms that they wrote under. I had no idea that the author had allegedly done all of that. I paused your video to pull up information on the author in Wikipedia, to see what the world is going on. My goodness! I agree with you in that I don’t always just boycott people for the sake of boycotting them, however, with the list of things I read I don’t even want to read anything by this person. Given the long list of literary works they wrote, it’s unfortunate. I have bought books without knowing things like this too. I hope those that they allegedly did things to have a healing and light in their lives.
honestly I really like Monstress!! I'd give it a try and if the vibes aren't there just unhaul it. Also I feel you about the mists of avalon, I bought it at a second hand store and at some point while reading googled the author and yikes... especially consdering the amount of incest that's in that book
House in the cerulean sea is not that good. And the story is based on the sixties scoop but not done well at all. I'm a bit surprised that so many people like it that much
What the blank is wrong with today's generation?! if we went by that standard everyone would have to stop reading anything by H.G. Wells or Charles Dickens, etc.. Their works are great, but they stunk as human beings.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I also really liked how you acknowledged the complexity of separating artist and art. Each case can be so different and they can also impact the reader (or consumer) so differently. Society needs to fix the approach on this topic and learn how to work to improve. So thank you, I loved how open you were.
yes agree, it’s def a nuanced topic and one that’s gonna be personal to each individual. thank you so much! 💗
We lived in Hollywood too fast a time.
Now quiet extras in a bored cafe,
our phone screens make our faces black and white;
the modern human mourning former fame.
It’s time to flee this monotone burlesque
with stolen boas, stolen fedoras.
Which microphone will hear our happy breaths?
panting when we leap back into color.
Oh, Sunlight fund the studio within;
a theater that our grief and joy has built.
Let’s help the angels find their seats again.
They want to watch our introspective film.
Forget you’re acting. Take the chance to live,
and smile when you rip prewritten scripts.
- a sonnet that I wrote
I also want to add that the people who wrote mean comments to you for buying Mists of Avalon clearly don’t know what they’re talking about because that author is literally dead so you can’t “support” her. Plus I’m pretty sure the publisher donates the proceeds of her books to anti-child abuse charities now so…don’t feel bad about buying. Especially because you didn’t even know at the time! People need to chill.
I really recommend the audiobook for The City We Became! I feel like it enhanced the book 200% because they play around with audio glitching and it’s just *chef’s kiss*
With all the book haul videos I’ve seen, it’s refreshing to see an Unhaul video lol
It’s so nice to see a new video from you again! Hope you and everyone at home are well.
thank you so much 💗💗
Some Kind of Happiness holds a special place in my heart. It makes me cry every time I read it. But most of all , I resonated so hard with the main character’s struggles of sadness while being a child. My favorite part was how the author used the character’s imagination/ fairytales to make sense of her mind.
I know the feeling of not being afraid/not wanting to let things go 😅😊🙃
I think you handled the Mists of Avalon explanation so well 👏👏👏
Thanks for the video! I love these types of videos as a book lover. seeing fellow book lovers and their collections is so satisfying
This made me realise we have some diverging tastes in books. But still interesting to see the motivations behind your unhaul and your fashion always slays ❤
I love the way you did your hair! I just recently gave a lot of my books away too! Some were The Box In The Woods by Maureen Johnson (I loved the first 3 truly devious books but not that one), The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and Forest of Souls.
Today you echoed my views so much! I agree that sometimes grief is hard to read and we def need to know when or if we are up to the read.
🫶🫶🫶
Agreed, The Prince and the Dressmaker is a great book!
I really enjoyed the Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson, though I think it does take some time to get into in my experience. I don't fault you for getting rid of your physical copy, but I think it's worth keeping on the TBR and reading later either as an audiobook or borrowing it from the library!
agreed about the house in the cerulean sea
I love your style! It's so cute 💞
I love the Monstress series (well, the first 4, i haven't been able to read the rest because my library never purchased them😢 ) so im a bit sad you're parting ways with that one! But on the other hand, feel very relieved to hear someone else thought 7 and a half deaths was boring 😂 i struggled through that book.
Ahhh I’m on the fourth volume of Monstress and It is the best graphic novel I’ve ever read!! The art is gorgeous it has a very lovable diverse cast of characters…granted it is violent because war and I would look up trigger warnings even though it’s not like game of thrones level I can see it bothering some people. It is such an addicting story. The first volume is very info dumpy because of the vast fantasy world full of different races and their connections but after that it’s a smooth ride 10/10
Monica, thank you for calling out depictions of grief. It’s very hard to write about articulately (obviously) but everyone thinks they can pull it off.
I’m currently reading How We Fall Apart and you may want to keep that one as the timelines are a little confusing in the book and helps to flip back so an audiobook may not help with that. There’s also a couple letters in it too!
Where's your outfit from? Love you Monica! My fav booktuber!
some kind of happiness is an INCREDIBLE book, i literally only bought it because of the cover but reading it felt like i was giving my childhood self a hug (and also made me cry for over half of it which feels a bit rude) but i would highly reccomend reading it even if it's just through audiobook!!
I didnt finish the city we became either and i hadn't heard too much after it came out so i dont think we're missing too much.
Here comes the convincing:
I absolutely adore The Glass Town Game! It's a lovely combination between fantasy and history and literature full of whimsy but also dealing with some heavier themes in a heartwarming way. Valente is one of my favorite authors but her style is not everyone's cup of tea; beautiful writing with a lot of (sometimes obscure) references and bits of trivia sprinkled in. Her books are very dense and fantastical, but (to me) pack a lot of feelings. I recommend picking up the audiobook narrated by Kate Reading 🥰
Our deaths the apple’s holy skin reflects,
unless it’s plucked and put below our chin.
Instead of having hobbies, live obsessed;
thy breath the fog upon the apple’s skin.
An echo’s in that universal crunch-
-oh put a smile on those puffed-out cheeks!
so that in laughter streams of cider flood.
No one to taste it when our hands retreat.
The greatest basket is the human hand;
the palm where just a single apple lays,
one apple while others crowd the branch.
Forget the rest. Obsess about its taste.
Adore. Indulge. Enjoy. Commit. Obsess.
Obsess and savor. Keep such flavor fresh.
... a sonnet that i wrote
love a good unhaul 💖
Feeling validated about the House in the Cerulean Sea! Not sure if it was overhyped to me so my expections were too high, but it didn't hit for me as more than "good".
Nothing by TJ Klune has ever lived up to the hype for me, I feel like I must be missing something. Not that I even really buy into hype, but his writing tends to be really heavy handed and kind of juvenile in a way that doesn't rise above a lot of fanfic. So I just truly do not understand the high praise.
@@FloraSprout Totally! I personally felt the same way about Matt Haig with Midnight Library. Concept-wise I thought it would be good, but delivery was a bit shallow for me.
@Jilian H are we the same haha I felt the same about midnight library! Spoiler for anyone to skip: the fact that she was finally "happy" in tbe universe where she had a husband and kid felt like a slap in the face. Like yep, husband and kid solve the problems! I know ultimately she didn't stay there but I was gobsmacked by that. And the whole narrative premise contradicted itself in places. I'm sure it really resonates with some people but I am not one of them lol
I am glad I am not the only person who didn't vibe with House on the Cerulean Sea lol. It had so many elements that I love (gay romance, magical children), but I could just not bring myself to care about most of the characters.
Keeper of the Night does have a sequel, if you want to check it out.
I also struggle with rehoming books, especially if I haven’t read them, but life is short and space is limited. By getting rid of these books, you might be helping someone else discover their favorite book! ❤
I've heard that a lot about the city we became, people expected to love it because of the fifth season and then just didn't. I read another series of hers too that wasn't as good as the broken earth series.
I also found out about Marion Zimmer Bradley after having bought Mists of Avalon but before reading it. I couldn’t stomach trying to read it. I think what makes it so much more heinous to me is that she DIRECTLY did the bad things, not just *saying* problematic things like a lot of authors do. Obviously either one is bad but the fact the she was directly responsible for these truly disgusting acts made it all the more difficult to look past. If I’d read it I would have been constantly wondering if she’d SAed her daughter on the same day as writing the chapter and that was too much for me. Maybe I’m hypocritical since I still own and reread HP but idk… Bradley is a pretty extreme case.
i need to be ruthless in giving away books that i've accumulated and not read, this is good motivation for that!
it’s def such a freeing feeling! 💗
Truly devious series has amazing audio books! I never got around to reading the books on my shelves either :')
good to know!! i have them in my audio library so i def plan on getting to them…one day ahaha 💕
Truly Devious is so over-hyped. I'm still going to read the vanishing stair, but I'm borrowing it from the library so I don't waste money on the rest of the series 😅
So excited to hear about your vacation. It sounds exciting already.
P.S. Cindy and you should Collab plz
bestie do not bother with truly devious
I always do this (recommending stuff unrelated to the topic of your video) but I’d like to make a recommendation for a visual novel: The House in Fata Morgana. One of the highest rated games on switch. If you’re into literary fiction you’ve a chance of liking it. It takes a couple hours to get into as the first set of characters are quite unlikeable and some of the music is grating but the pay off is major if you get past that and it deals with some difficult themes surprisingly well.
I'm laughing because I just finished The House in the Cerulean Sea and found it really kind of just meh. The librarian was gushing over it as I checked it out because it's one of her favourite all-time books and now I'm afraid to see her because she'll want to know what I thought 😆. I understand what you mean about not connecting with the characters.....even though I technically should have? I found the same with the author's other book Under The Whispering Door which was also underwhelming. And thank you for addressing the issue of artist vs. art -- it really is a much more nuanced thing than the internet likes to make it. That said, I read Mists of Avalon back in the 90s (dating myself here!) and LOVED it...at the time, it was so brilliant to see the Arthurian legend from a female perspective. I still have the book on my shelf but in light of what I now know, it's hard for me to look at it the same way. That doesn't change how profoundly it impacted me, though. *shrug* Like I said, it's a complicated issue.
Recommendation: ‘Shortcomings’ by Adrian Tomine. It has been adapted into a movie that will release soon.
will look it up! ty!
About the mists of Avalon:
I do not know the book or the author.
I studied literature and there have been raised these questions about what to do when an author did something that is not okay (I mostly learned of the context around WWI where Belgian authors for example helped the Germans). And I really think it depends of what the author did. And of what you describe I totally understand why you would want to get rid of that book. If every time you look at it, it makes you uncomfortable, you do not have to keep it.
I did not like Monstress but I loved The Night Eaters and gave it 5 stars. And I was honestly confused at all the gushing over House in the Cerulean Sea, I had read from TJ Klune before as one of many authors I read during my M/M romance phase, and the only thing that made the Cerulean Sea special was the cover art and maybe good editing which self-published books often lack. And I don't mind reading problematic authors, we can't really study literature or history without them, but I draw the line at known criminals.
I felt the same for Bloom! It was good, but it wasn’t GREAT
I'm so sad you let go of Monstress lol it's one of my favs!! but I know what it's like to just have things rotting on your shelf for years lol
yess and so hard to know that so many possible favorites are just sitting there 😭 maybe i’ll get deep into comics again and finally read it one day tho! 💗
The Mists of Avalon author has about five or six pseudonyms that they wrote under. I had no idea that the author had allegedly done all of that. I paused your video to pull up information on the author in Wikipedia, to see what the world is going on. My goodness! I agree with you in that I don’t always just boycott people for the sake of boycotting them, however, with the list of things I read I don’t even want to read anything by this person. Given the long list of literary works they wrote, it’s unfortunate. I have bought books without knowing things like this too. I hope those that they allegedly did things to have a healing and light in their lives.
Hello Fellow ARMY
You thought ‘The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ wasnoring? Your Booktuber card has been *RESCINDED*
😭😭😭 i’ll give it another go one day!
@@cozymonica I really like 7 1/2 Deaths as an audio book. You might like it more that way.
are maybe planning to sell some of these? 🙈🙈
honestly I really like Monstress!! I'd give it a try and if the vibes aren't there just unhaul it. Also I feel you about the mists of avalon, I bought it at a second hand store and at some point while reading googled the author and yikes... especially consdering the amount of incest that's in that book
second person to say how good monstress is 👀👀 maybe i need to hold on to it ahaha
💟
I’m the wrong person to consult with regarding keeping books because I’m a certified and top of my class hoarder.
Never finishing books? Not me feeling seen 🌝
Don't feel too bad about accidentally supporting MZB, she's been dead for awhile and the profits from her books go to a charity.
Yeah honestly makes it worse people were so rude about it too considering this :(
House in the cerulean sea is not that good. And the story is based on the sixties scoop but not done well at all. I'm a bit surprised that so many people like it that much
Honestly same!
What the blank is wrong with today's generation?! if we went by that standard everyone would have to stop reading anything by H.G. Wells or Charles Dickens, etc.. Their works are great, but they stunk as human beings.
I wish i could give away the books i didn't love 😢