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adding later, daughter of the forest by juliet marillier and the invocations by krystal sutherland deserve a honorable honorable mention for fantasy!
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my favorite books of 2024 might surprise you
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try Mirror, your new favorite browser – https://mrr.re/invite/VCHNPBIYDJ/
adding later, daughter of the forest by juliet marillier and the invocations by krystal sutherland deserve a honorable honorable mention for fantasy!
not being able to rank-list your books is so real, thank you for this video even though dreaded!! currently updating my TBR… 🙂
I read Where Sleeping Girls Lie because of your recommendation in a previous video and I LOVED it. It was 5 stars from me! Thanks for the rec!
My newly found discovery for 2025 is that, Cari, you look SO much like Amy Adams!! just younger…also please watch the film Arrival – I think you'll eat it up
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I swear you're like the only YouTuber that can actually make me add books to my TBR, I usually never do this but your picks always sound so unique
Cari please finish the Mistborn trilogy I BEG YOU
I am a huge fan of CM Waggoner's books and have never heard anyone mention them. Unnatural Magic would be the first I recommend reading followed by A Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry. They're just so fun and the WORLD BUILDING UGH. It's incredible. I love them so much she just pulled me into the world so fast and the characters are all so fun and interesting. Would love it if someone else read them so I can hear their thoughts 😆I haven't read her latest book yet which as far as I'm aware is not set in the same world but it's up next on my stack and I cannot wait
I feel like you would eat up Dark of the West by Joanna Hathaway. YA fantasy that came out a few years ago. Super well done, fantastic character development, deep political intrigue, and a cool WWI-esque setting. And no magic! Which is wild for a fantasy.
Agua viva isn’t that bad. It just takes a little bit to get into and it’s okay to just let it wash over you and be open to rereads
CARI!! MY FAV!!! MY DAY ONE!!
I love the book series and TV show Three Body Problem. Please read that if you are getting into sci fi i would LOVE to know your thoughts
Boozhoo (hello)! As a potawatomi person, it's so delightful that you read braiding sweetgrass, its one of my favorite books and if you love her work, she's written others, including her newest one, the serviceberry. It's a very short read! I hope you continue to check out some of the amazing indigenous nonfiction writers out there!
I look forward to all of your videos. Thank you
thank you for sharing all of these without any spoilers!! i added so many to my list for this year 🙂
apologies if i've missed a video where you read any of these but my favorites from 2024 that i'd recommend are: small things like these & so late in the day by claire keegan, i hope this finds you well by natalie sue.
I‘ve been in a reading slump this year bc fantasy is my favourite genre but i hate romance, and there are so few non-romantic fantasy books these days… i‘m crossing my fingers for a better reading year 2025 ❤ thanks for the vid!
The Braiding Sweetgrass audiobook was everything 🙌🏻 it ranked on my third spot for yearly favourites. Spot 1 was taken by Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe and The Spirit Bares its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White, spot 2 by Deutschland Schwarz Weiß by Noah Sow and spot 4 by He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan.
Wishing you a great new reading year 📚✨
I’ve been using mirror since you first announced it, for both work and personal life things! It’s game changer, I love it SO much!!!
Would you like to read manga?😊
Literally said "yesssssss" out loud when you announced your book of the year. One of my all time favs, so glad you loved it!
My top 4 books of the year were In Memoriam by Alice Winn (it ruined my life big time), My Darling Dreadful Thing (sapphic hauntings), Against the Loveless World (Palestinian narrative of resistance) and The Light Pirate (super interesting climate fiction!). I also feel like I had a rough reading year, I gave very few 5 stars and just felt kind of mid about a lot of books. Trying to develop a really strong 2025 TBR that I'll love!
The Library at Mount Char was like a fever dream, but I was kind of into it lol 😏.
My goal is more translated to English books. Not sure if you have a video on this? I'm really enjoying discovering international authors. Convenience Store Woman was one that stuck with me all year for examp!e.
Really liked your eclectic list, it was refreshing to watch. Here's to 2025 🎉📚
34:08 the sunlight in here is a paid actor ✌️😎 it made your hair look stunning even more
I highly recommend the book " I feed her the beast and the beast is me" ny Jamison Shea!! the prose is SO good. I also relate to fantasy being kinda bleh this year. I really do wonder if there is something going on w the publishing industry where they are prioritizing quantity and $$$ over actual quality. its disappointing but heres to a better 2025 reading year!!
I started using audiobooks for really long or slow books I’d been struggling to get through on paper like Lord of the Rings (absolute hit) or The Terror (miss for me). I also learned the hard way that I really don’t enjoy first person romance in audiobook form. It felt waaaaay too intimate to have someone saying that shit directly into my ear holes 😅
happy new year!! <3
For some sapphic sci-fi, I really really recommend Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. Also has great trans rep. And aliens backing donuts.
drive your plow over the bones of the dead is one of the BEST books i’ve ever read EVER !! i’m so glad you loved it too and it’s so awesome to see it shouted out 😍
Book rec! This is a very specfic mood but my favorite author is toni morrison and you would love Sula. Its so perfect in a way only this author can be!!
Wow, you really love when people go missing eh? lol
and honorable mention to Kurt lol!! I’ve been loving mirror as someone who is highly organized yet deathly afraid to close a tab
and honorable mention to Kurt lol!! I’ve been loving mirror as someone who is highly organized yet deathly afraid to close a tab
A real surprise would’ve been metal slinger 💀
I go to the theatre quite a bit and the adaptation of drive your plot over the bones of the dead is only of only two shows we’ve walked out of during the interval 🫠
amina ik that ur here too bestyy watching our fav gurlllll<3
Honestly this year was a harry Potter year for me! I never read the books and i happened to have a month long project so i just listened to Stephen Fry narrating it and i just lost it!!!!! Never in my life have i read a better series or heard a better narrator✨💖 so after them i got a slump where nothing was good enough
But, Belgravia by julian fellowes was amazingly good. 5 star read
The giver of stars by Jojo Moyes was good too 4 stars
I revisited an old fav: the bear and the Nightingale
And i also got my hands on the full series of Brambly Hedge by jill birklim and the art took my breath away!!!!!!
Another good book this year was little women and Once upon a River by Diane Setterfield.
I hope at least one book from this list is interesting to u 🪼
Ooo I just LOVE your thumbnail font!
one that really stuck with me was that it was written decades ago, too. the master and margarita by bulgakov. it was so unexpectedly entertaining. i was really intimidated by it at first. but it was delightful and really honest. it sent me into a rabbit hole of russian authors. i loved the captain's daughter by pushkin and chekhov is also amazing. there's something about the tone that felt comfortable but expansive at the same time. felt like i was learning a lot but not intimidated. happy next year 🎉❤
good to know that this was a rough year for fantasy for other people too!! all of my dnf’s were fantasy. hoping a five star fantasy is on the horizon in 2025 🤞🏻
Throwing my hat in the ring – you should read Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr! It ties the lives of characters living centuries apart with a story passed through the ages in a really beautiful way. I've come to think of it like a love letter to stories and what they represent, and how they can mean such different things to different people. I also read When Women Were Dragons this past year and it has remained such a memorable book for me even though I read it months ago – I didn't expect to like it as much as I did but it was such a validating, meaningful read about feminism, women's rights, the power of love and acceptance, all the good things!
If you like When Ghosts Call Us Home, you will LOOVVVEEE Night Film by Marisha Pessl. I read it around halloween and it was 🤌🏼🤌🏼aRt🤌🏼🤌🏼
2 very good sci-fi (with a horror feel) books are Dead Silence and Ghost Station. Both by S.A. Barnes.
SWIMMING IN THE DARK MENTIONED 😮💨 YUH
Heir is def on my immediate TBR bc I didn’t know it’s a continuation of the ember series?? (Literally such a criminally underrated series tbh)
added a memory called empire thanks
What does sapphic mean to you? Google was confusing 😂
My favorites of 2024 were the Heartstopper graphic novels (only read 1-4 so far), Queen of Shadows, A Curse for True Love, Just for the Summer, Yours Truly, Brown Girl Dreaming, The Unmaking of June Farrow, Love Theoretically, and Funny Story. I also did a reread of Song of Achilles and Sorcery of Thorns.
In the vein of sapphic scifi with 'star' in the name, look into "Star Splitter" by Matthew Kirby!
I ADORED A Memory Called Empire!! Also feel the same exact way about The Library at Mount Char. I think my favorite 2024 books are split into two categories.
One is also a “I can’t get this freaking book out of my head” list: The Philosopher’s Flight (plus The Philosopher’s War), Dead Girls Don’t Say Sorry, and All That’s Left to Say
And then what I call my “F*ck You (Affectionate)” list of books, where the authors have to answer for their crimes [of making me cry]: Blood over Bright Haven, Just for the Summer, The Aurelian Cycle trilogy, The Warm Hands of Ghosts, and The Six Deaths of the Saint.
Plus I reread The Bone Season series to get ready for The Dark Mirror releasing in February and I will shout about those books ‘till the day I die.
The Hollow and the Haunted omg i also thought it was a singlet but noooo? no it is a duology and yet. AND YET I NEED IT? i need the sequel. omg. It's so good.
Foster was made into a wonderful film called 'The Quiet Girl'. Very cry worthy.
I really have to extend thanks for making me aware of a memory called empire because it's definitely one of my favorites from this year