Thank you for your description of Monstrulio. I now know that I don’t need to pick it up. The Tainted Cup was good and I love love love Into the Drowning Deep. For me, The Lavender House and Dead Dead Girls are about equally upper mid level books for me. I love how they are exploring the hard boiled detective subgenre. I did like Andy? from Lavender House better than the MC from Dead Dead Girls. I did enjoy When the Moon Hatched. It was my first ‘Tik Tok’ romantasy. I have not read any Sarah J Maas, Jennifer L Armantrout, etc. So I had nothing to compare it to. Also I watched a spoiler filled blog before hand, so I knew what to expect. I also listened on audio and sped it up. So I wasn’t paying too much attention to details of the world or about how long various things went on. I didn’t mind her wordy descriptions of things, but what did annoy me was the dialogue. When we would go from lush purple prose descriptions that was enjoying to characters choppy dialogue with real world curse words thrown in randomly, it would throw me out of the story every time. So I can’t say why others enjoyed it, but I enjoyed it as my first Tik Tok romantasy with some political world building that I liked. I won’t be seeking out any lore romantasy books, but this one was a fun try for me.
So interesting! We have a lot of overlap in our book taste, but a couple places where we really differ. More that we agree on though! Loved hearing your thoughts on all of these!
you need to read Rolling in the Deep (the prequel story) and then reread Into the Drowning Deep. I did that this year and found so many new things in it!
I'm very excited to read The Tainted Cup in January and I also have an ARC of A Drop of Corruption (so does Bri). Maybe we can all read book 2 together?!
i am going to do a video inspird by you again!! Choose two books out of this list that you want me to to read and i will choose two of my own!!! I WOULD love your feedback!! i love hearing your thoughts as always!!
Haha I love how you managed to add a mystery book to almost every category! 😂 I don’t think I’ve read any of the books you mentioned but I started reading The Spellshop a few weeks ago… I’m 5 chapters in (real life got in the way) and I must say the main character is already annoying me quite a bit. It’s a shame because I was really looking forward to it, but we’ll see how I feel about it by the end. A book I really enjoyed this year is Lone Women by Victor LaValle. It’s not in my usual genres but I read it in January and it has definitely stuck with me! (edited because I accidentally sent the comment before I finished typing)
So many great books! Into the Drowning Deep is a book i really want to reread. It's so well done Tainted Cup! Such a good genre blend Psalm for the Wild Build, cute read Its fun seeing a couple of the worst books that I've liked 😅😂
I'm the same as you. I despise infidelity. I'll read thrillers where this is a thing, but only if it's shown as the horrible thing that it is. If it's not frowned upon I can't do it. Also I LOVE how you framed this video. I've never seen anyone do it by genera's and not just top and bottom of the year. Super fun!
It's always funny when making this kind of video because I think "A lot of what I say is already public knowledge" 😅 but what's funnier is when the comments say the same thing because I ALSO know how you feel about these books 🤣❤
@@rainybluereads hahaha I was honestly thinking throughout this video, “there are so many ups and downs where either Rainy and I are on the SAME page or SO DIFFERENT.” 🤪😂
Thank you for talking about Strange Sally Diamond! I’m not a fan of that type of like abuse fiction, like a Little Life or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Can safely remove that one from my TBR
This comment alone has made it worth putting my worst books of 2024 out there! ❤️ And “abuse fiction” is a great way to describe these titles. I’ll be using that from now on 👏
Lindsay Currie's Horror are better, my favorite is Scritch Scratch. I did like the Mystery one but it was not as good as the horror. I think of Deadland as Land Before Time but a bit more thrilling lol. Haha, I liked Something is Killing the Children but I can see you not liking it.
63 years ago my parents separated because of my dad’s infidelity. I was only 6. And I was the first child in my large elementary school whose parents were headed for divorce. It took 3 years for the divorce to be finalized. (That felt like forever to me.) i was the only child in my school touched by divorce. And I saw a lot of finger pointing at me during school events. I have absolutely no patience for infidelity in real life or in literature. My dad was on his 4th wife when he was 50 and had a massive heart attack and died in his sleep. My mom’s second second was a really good man, also divorced, and he had a son with his first wife. So I had a built-in little brother and a solid example of what a good father should be. Romantic infidelity is absolutely unpardonable. Have you ever read anything by Sarah Addison Allen? Her book, Garden Spells, was my introduction to magical realism. If you haven’t read any of her work, I highly recommend this one. It is pure magic.
@@KatieReadsKoziesAndMore First off, thank you so much, Katie, for offering your own experiences with this issue. It shows just how destructive and selfish the act of infidelity is for SO MANY people involved. And it’s extremely frustrating when an author has characters we are meant to root for participating in cheating. No patience indeed 👏👏 I am adding Sarah Addison Allen to my radar because I haven’t read it! Thank you for the recommendation!
oh no romance is Leandra's least favorite genre! lol didn't see that one coming *sarcasm* haha i KNEW what your worst book(s) was when you started with romance
Wishing you many fantastic reads in 2025!
And wishing you the same, Tennille!!
Thank you for your description of Monstrulio. I now know that I don’t need to pick it up. The Tainted Cup was good and I love love love Into the Drowning Deep.
For me, The Lavender House and Dead Dead Girls are about equally upper mid level books for me. I love how they are exploring the hard boiled detective subgenre. I did like Andy? from Lavender House better than the MC from Dead Dead Girls.
I did enjoy When the Moon Hatched. It was my first ‘Tik Tok’ romantasy. I have not read any Sarah J Maas, Jennifer L Armantrout, etc. So I had nothing to compare it to. Also I watched a spoiler filled blog before hand, so I knew what to expect. I also listened on audio and sped it up. So I wasn’t paying too much attention to details of the world or about how long various things went on. I didn’t mind her wordy descriptions of things, but what did annoy me was the dialogue. When we would go from lush purple prose descriptions that was enjoying to characters choppy dialogue with real world curse words thrown in randomly, it would throw me out of the story every time. So I can’t say why others enjoyed it, but I enjoyed it as my first Tik Tok romantasy with some political world building that I liked. I won’t be seeking out any lore romantasy books, but this one was a fun try for me.
This was so much fun! I loved news reported Leandra! And YES Song for the Wild Built is so great
😅😂 Thank you! I need to work on my anchor newscaster voice in case she ever makes another appearance! And 100% agree! A Psalm is so good!!
So interesting! We have a lot of overlap in our book taste, but a couple places where we really differ. More that we agree on though! Loved hearing your thoughts on all of these!
you need to read Rolling in the Deep (the prequel story) and then reread Into the Drowning Deep. I did that this year and found so many new things in it!
I agree!! I actually love the prequel more. It's probably one of my favorite books of all time.
I'm very excited to read The Tainted Cup in January and I also have an ARC of A Drop of Corruption (so does Bri). Maybe we can all read book 2 together?!
i am going to do a video inspird by you again!! Choose two books out of this list that you want me to to read and i will choose two of my own!!! I WOULD love your feedback!! i love hearing your thoughts as always!!
@@Laurasbookishlife aw how sweet, Laura! I’ll go with my favorite manga and favorite middle grade book 🤗
@@leandrathetbrzero thanks putting them on hold as we speak!!
Haha I love how you managed to add a mystery book to almost every category! 😂
I don’t think I’ve read any of the books you mentioned but I started reading The Spellshop a few weeks ago… I’m 5 chapters in (real life got in the way) and I must say the main character is already annoying me quite a bit. It’s a shame because I was really looking forward to it, but we’ll see how I feel about it by the end.
A book I really enjoyed this year is Lone Women by Victor LaValle. It’s not in my usual genres but I read it in January and it has definitely stuck with me!
(edited because I accidentally sent the comment before I finished typing)
So many great books!
Into the Drowning Deep is a book i really want to reread. It's so well done
Tainted Cup! Such a good genre blend
Psalm for the Wild Build, cute read
Its fun seeing a couple of the worst books that I've liked 😅😂
🫣 ahhhh FRIEND. 😭❤️ 🤣 But also SO MANY we both loved. Have you read the prequel to Into The Drowning Deep yet?
I'm the same as you. I despise infidelity. I'll read thrillers where this is a thing, but only if it's shown as the horrible thing that it is. If it's not frowned upon I can't do it.
Also I LOVE how you framed this video. I've never seen anyone do it by genera's and not just top and bottom of the year. Super fun!
The Tainted Cup is one of my favorites of the year too!
I also agree with Leandra about infidelity in books when it is not frowned upon. Got more ideas to add to my TBR !
Leandra, I completely agree with you on When the Moon Hatched. And of course, you already know how I feel about Chestnut Springs 😂
It's always funny when making this kind of video because I think "A lot of what I say is already public knowledge" 😅 but what's funnier is when the comments say the same thing because I ALSO know how you feel about these books 🤣❤
Oh don’t you wait- strange sally diamond will be on my list too!! Also I skipped through the heartless stuff 🙈🙉😂
Also I’m still sorry to have made you read the body in question 😂
Also id totally switch up the spellshop and psalm for the wild built 😂
Ugh when the moon hatched- breaking my heart over here 😂😂
@@rainybluereads hahaha I was honestly thinking throughout this video, “there are so many ups and downs where either Rainy and I are on the SAME page or SO DIFFERENT.” 🤪😂
@@leandrathetbrzero our reading relationship is so tumultuous 😂😂
Thank you for talking about Strange Sally Diamond! I’m not a fan of that type of like abuse fiction, like a Little Life or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Can safely remove that one from my TBR
This comment alone has made it worth putting my worst books of 2024 out there! ❤️ And “abuse fiction” is a great way to describe these titles. I’ll be using that from now on 👏
🏆✨️🎭
Lindsay Currie's Horror are better, my favorite is Scritch Scratch. I did like the Mystery one but it was not as good as the horror.
I think of Deadland as Land Before Time but a bit more thrilling lol.
Haha, I liked Something is Killing the Children but I can see you not liking it.
63 years ago my parents separated because of my dad’s infidelity. I was only 6. And I was the first child in my large elementary school whose parents were headed for divorce. It took 3 years for the divorce to be finalized. (That felt like forever to me.) i was the only child in my school touched by divorce. And I saw a lot of finger pointing at me during school events. I have absolutely no patience for infidelity in real life or in literature. My dad was on his 4th wife when he was 50 and had a massive heart attack and died in his sleep. My mom’s second second was a really good man, also divorced, and he had a son with his first wife. So I had a built-in little brother and a solid example of what a good father should be. Romantic infidelity is absolutely unpardonable.
Have you ever read anything by Sarah Addison Allen? Her book, Garden Spells, was my introduction to magical realism. If you haven’t read any of her work, I highly recommend this one. It is pure magic.
@@KatieReadsKoziesAndMore First off, thank you so much, Katie, for offering your own experiences with this issue. It shows just how destructive and selfish the act of infidelity is for SO MANY people involved. And it’s extremely frustrating when an author has characters we are meant to root for participating in cheating. No patience indeed 👏👏
I am adding Sarah Addison Allen to my radar because I haven’t read it! Thank you for the recommendation!
❤❤❤
oh no romance is Leandra's least favorite genre! lol didn't see that one coming *sarcasm*
haha i KNEW what your worst book(s) was when you started with romance
🏆
📚🐰🥂🥉
Cheating automatically drops a star or 2 for me. So gross!
👏👏 I think I’ll be adopting that policy because I am so frustrated at this point!!
There are just some people who have the opposite taste of yours.
100% 👏
🏆