Hey guys! It's Olivia here from Olivia's Catastrophe and today I'm here to
give you my top reads of 2019! And I'm so
so excited.
I read 178 books this year as I
mentioned in my previous video, and I'm
probably gonna read two more but I don't
think they're gonna be five stars...
I didn't just pull all my five stars. But
I had a lot of them! That is how good a
reading year it was. But I couldn't choose
10 so I have 15. I hope you don't mind
that I have 15. But let's get right down
to it because this is gonna take a while
otherwise, and I do want to tell you
about all these books in as much detail
as I can. So the first book I have to
talk about is The Hate U Give by
Angie Thomas. This is a backlist book
but I read it for the first time this
year. And The Hate U Give is a young
adult contemporary that focuses on Starr.
And she's in the car when she's pulled
over and her best friend is shot by the
police unjustly. And this is about
protest and about her thoughts, feelings
and reactions to black culture and
police brutality. This book. This. Book.
There was nothing in this book that I
didn't agree with and she said
everything that I would have wanted to
have said about black culture, about
racism, about police brutality and what's
happening in America lately. And at the
moment with how the police are a bit too
trigger-happy in some situations. And I
feel like it dealt with this huge topic
really well and narrowed it down to some
focus points and themes and subjects
that she really could dig her fingers
deep into in this book. And she was very
careful with her wording of things and
I felt like it was done very
sensitively when it comes to the grief
of the situation, when it comes to the
politics of the situation, whether you
feel like you can make a change as a
young teenager or not. And it was just
such a powerful and moving read. I
recommended it to my mum who enjoyed it.
I recommended it to my sister. I watched the
film adaption. It was a fantastic book.
Definitely recommend to everyone out
there. Secondly, I want to talk about
Becoming by Michelle Obama and this is a
nonfiction book that follows Michelle
Obama's life. And I know you think it
might just be about her being the
president's wife, but it really does go
back
to the beginning of her life and talks
about herself before it comes to her
being married to Obama while he's
president. And also it talks about her
own achievements as first lady during
that time. This one I listened to on
audiobook and I highly highly recommend
that because Michelle Obama reads it
herself so it's like you're just
listening to her talk about her life. And
I have to admit I was someone who had no
interest in presidency... and, you know,
American politics. I keep up with it
because that's kind of just what you do,
but I wasn't that interested in it. But
this really changed my perceptions on
what it means to be president what she
was doing, and what he was doing and the
difficulties of navigating being a
mother while also being a politician.
Thirdly, I want to talk about A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer and
well as that I'm also including the
sequel A Heart so Fierce and Broken by
Brigid Kemmerer. Because although this comes
out in January I was lucky enough to get
a review copy from Bloomsbury Australia,
so thank you for that. And I've read that
one already and I also absolutely
head-over-heels loved it.
Definitely, definitely one of my
favourites this year. So this is a fantasy
series and it's a retelling of Beauty
and the Beast but it's one of the best
and most realistic retellings of Beauty and the Beast that I've ever read. Harper is
this very smart and very strong-willed
character who's full of kindness. She has
cerebral palsy which affects one of her
legs. And she gets dragged into this
fantasy world by this guardsman called
Grey who is looking for a girl who can
break this curse which transforms the
Prince into a monster every season or
every term, until he can break the curse. And although it feels like it's one of
your stereotypical routine Beauty and the Beast
retellings with some disabled rep in
there -- which it is. But it's more. Because
you're going to fall for these
characters. You are going to love these
characters. You are going to see how
decisions royals make also affects
citizens and you really get a good look
at how it's affecting other people and
the world and you are just... I don't have
words for how this book is going to make
you feel. But it's one that can make you laugh, it
is one that can make you nervous. There
were plot twist that you will not see
coming and the ending.. that ending, guys!
Please read it. Please buy the sequel
next year. Please love it. Next up I have to talk
about The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid which I assume is
gonna be on many people's list this year. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo follows Evelyn Hugo.
And she is a celebrity who
is quite old now and all of the people
that she's had very close to her, and who
she really loves have either passed away
or are not very connected to her anymore. So
she decides that she is going to hire an
interviewer and have an interview where
she spills everything about her life and
her seven husbands. She has chosen this
young journalist who is not very well
known for this huge interview with this
major celebrity. And Monique, who is that
journalist, does not understand why
Evelyn has chosen her. But Evelyn has her
reasons. What can I say about this book
other than it's really interesting and it
changed my perceptions on love and
marriage. And it showed me that love and
marriage can really mean different
things for different people. Evelyn Hugo
is not the most likeable character and
yet I absolutely loved her. And I feel
like people have a complex relationship
with Evelyn Hugo. You can dislike
parts of her and love other parts of her. She feels so real. It's like she can jump
out of the pages. Her story is so
interesting but it shows a strong woman.
And the romance in this one... I can't even...
it was just--it was something else. I've
never read a book like it and
everybody's hyping it up and you should
definitely read it too. The fifth book I
have to talk about is A Monster Calls by
Patrick Ness and Patrick Ness is going to
make a return onto this list later on as
well. A Monster Calls is actually a middle
grade read. I recommend the one that's
illustrated by Jim Kay. And it's about
this young boy whose mother is very ill
at the moment and yes... he's got a lot of
emotions and struggling with her illness.
And when he's dreaming this monster
calls to him.
And that's really all it is but what can
I say about this book other than it
handles the topics of sadness, death,
illness and grief very very well. And it
does it in a way that children can
understand. It does it in a way that
adults can understand. And it does it in
a way that was really powerful and very
emotional. I felt it personally because
I've had my grandfather's passed away
from cancer but I feel like this is one
that's gonna manifest in different
emotional ways for everyone. But either
which way it's an absolutely beautiful
story, marvelously written. 100% recommend. Moving on we have The Nowhere Girls
Amy Reed and this is one of my most
feminist and female strong books that I've
read this year. Ae follow these three -- I can't remember if it was three or four girls? And
they live in this small town where rape
culture and misogyny is quite high and
guys are getting away with doing the
most awful things. There was a girl who
claims that she was raped at a party and
she was kind of... she had to move out of
town because of all the backlash that
she got for declaring this. And when
these girls all meet up in the school
they decide hey, it's about time we do
something about this disgusting rape
culture that we have going on. And they
are taking a stand for themselves. What
can I say about this book other than it
was like The Hate U Give but it was
not about police brutality and black
culture, but it was about feminism and
intersectional feminism at that. And I
felt like there was nothing said in this
book about feminism and
intersectionality that I didn't agree
with. Everything she said I completely
support. And it was just magnificent for
what was said about intersectional
feminism -- like, it includes everything. LGBTQ+ feminism, black and minority
feminism. It was just so well worded, so well handled and such a very
carefully planned book. You follow
different main characters. So we've got a
main character who is autistic, we've got
a main character who is Latinx and
we've just got what a variety that
we follow. But the us chapters are what
made it very magical because it
incorporated other girls opinions on the
movement that was going on. Which meant
that you got to see from different perspectives and
that's where the intersectionality
really struck home for me. And I also
just want to say that personally as a
Christian, you probably see me where this
cost necklace in a lot of my videos if
you watch me regularly. But as a
Christian it was a very groundbreaking
book for me because I read a lot of
lgbtq+ books because I want to show my
support, of course. And I'm not saying
it's a bad thing but in a lot of these
books Christianity is kind of really
frowned upon and portrayed in a very
negative light. A lot of it is
extreme Christian representation, but it
doesn't specify that it's extreme which
is a bit hard for me to handle. To always
see my religion in such a negative light.
It is a dominant religion and I know
that a lot of people have been harmed by
Christians in their life, which is fair. Especially the lgbtq+ community, which is
again, I say, fair. But as someone who is
a Christian and also supportive of the
community it was really really nice and
really groundbreaking for me to see my
views on the lgbtq+ community plus being
Christian combined. And I've never
actually seen a representation of my
belief in such an accurate manner. And it
was really emotional and powerful for me. And every time I think about it I get a
little bit teary which is new for me. So
seeing that representation was really
powerful and I just urge any other
Christians out there who are supportive
of the community as well. I do you
recommend you read The Nowhere Girls. It's
going to be groundbreaking for you and
you are gonna feel so emotionally
connected. It's gonna be a long video
guys. I have to talk about The Patron
Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. And I
was given a review copy of this by
Stripes Books so thank you very much. This one is an eye-opening book for me.
It follows this main character who lives
in the States and he has a cousin who he
used to be very close with, but he's kind
of fallen out with. And his cousin lives
in the Philippines. He's actually
American-Filipino. And his cousin gets
killed. But nobody wants to talk about
how he died, or how he was killed or why
he was killed. And he is very frustrated by
this because he wants answers
even if they've been estranged for quite
a while. So he decides he's going to go
to the Philippines and find out some
things for himself. All I can say is wow! 
This book deals with two things in a
very good way. The first one was that was
my first book set in the Philippines and
it also deals with the drug war
happening in the Philippines and a
leader in the Philippines. And it's a
situation that's ongoing today that I
knew absolutely nothing about and I feel
lik,  in the Western world at least, a lot
of people don't know that much about it. So if you want to read a book that's
going to be quite informative and
eye-opening, but still is young adult, I
would definitely recommend reading this
one. But it also deals with grief in a
very different way than I've ever seen
it. Because even if you used to be close
to someone and you're no longer close to
them, you can still grieve. You can still
feel sad. You can still feel guilty. And I
feel like grief in books is often
portrayed as someone close to you that
you really are familiar with and that
you know, but not someone that you've
known but has passed on. That was a new
take on grief that I don't usually get
to see in books and it was handled very
well. And it's a very character-driven
book, but the accumulation of all the
things that was happening and all the
emotions and the cultural struggle
between being, you know, Filipino but also
being American was just handled so well.
And it was... it was spectacular. I feel
like it's an underrated book and more
people need to read it. Then we're gonna
bring Patrick Ness back we're going to
talk about The Chaos Walking trilogy. This book came out ages ago but I only
read it this year. I loved this series,
and if I'm going to pick out a favourite
of all three of them it would be The Ask and The Answer which is the second book.
I can only tell you about the first book
but I do want to say that the books
really do change a lot. Like, the first
one has a certain theme, then the second
one has another theme and the third one
has a different theme. And it handles each
of those themes very very well. Not gonna
tell you what they are because I feel
like it's best to go in not knowing it. But the first one... I'll just tell you
about the situation. You follow Todd
who is this young boy who is 12 and when
you turn 13, that's when you become a man
in this world. But he lives in this very
unique world where all your thoughts are
on the outside and people can hear your
thoughts. And they call this the noise. They hear all your thoughts on the
outside like
chaotic sound and there are only men in
his world. There are no women whatsoever. It's just men and their thoughts which
are out loud. However, Todd discovers something which
leads him to believe that he needs to
run away from everything he's known
before. And while he's on the run he
comes across a girl. And guess what? The
girl emits no noise. He cannot see her
thoughts. That's basically the premise
for this book. But I just want to say
that this book goes way way deeper. Of
course, there are some discussions about
gender and how women are treated and how
men are treated. But also the noise comes
into play with that which really means
you can dig in deep. There's also this
kind of native species which exists in
this world, so you get kind of the
conversations of, you know, colonizers
versus indigenous. You get some
environmental discussion. You get some
gender discussion. It really overlies a
whole lot of things. As the future books
come in it spirals into some more themes
which are also just handled spectacularly. I
do want to do a serious review later on
but don't miss out on this series. Don't
do it! And I want to talk about The Space
We're In by Katya Balin. This is one
of my favourite middle grades that I've
read this year. It's a contemporary and
we follow these two boys, Frank who is 10
and Max who is 5. We're following from
Frank's perspective. And Frank is the old
about that too Max who has severe autism.
Colours are very painful for him, he can
only eat certain foods, he doesn't
communicate with his voice. So Frank is
just kind of living his life as a child.
And it's very difficult for him because
he loves Max... Of course he does. Max is
his brother. But at the same time Max
gets lots of attention and, you
know, ten-year-old children: they also
need their fair share of attention. Their
mum is also very strung out looking
after both boys. And then tragedy strikes
the family and it's about them trying to
cope with that. This book was emotionally
a wreck for me. It's the one that probably
made me feel the most while I was
reading because I am NOT someone who cries
when I read books. But I had tears in my
eyes basically the whole second half of
the book. Like, something sad happened?
Tears in my eyes. Something happy happened? Tears in my eyes. I just couldn't handle
any more emotions than this book had
already given me. It really handles some
very deep and dark topics for a middle
grade read. There's some grief. There's
some death. And I feel like as somebody
who has a disabled younger sister it
really does a good job of representing
being a sibling to someone who needs
extra care, extra love and extra
attention. And the complicated emotions
that can come with it, especially from a
child's perspective in a way that other
children can understand . It was so
sensitively done and so well done, please
read this book. And I need to mention
Dracul by JD Parker and Dacre Stoker. This
one is a spinoff of Dracula and it's
written by Dracula's
great-great-grandson, I believe. And also
somebody else co-authored. And in this
one the author Bram Stoker, of the
original novel, is put into this book.
And it tells the story that inspired him
to write Dracula. So it's a vampire story
and I can't really go into too much
detail with this one but it reads like a
classic. It's got the kind of classic
writing style that Dracula has. But it
has a bit more of a more interesting
plot in my opinion. That was more
exciting for me to read even if it was
in the classical writing style. And it
was just fantastic. I love vampires so I
just really enjoyed this one which is
why I put it on this list. I just enjoyed
it a lot. Then I need to mention Rend by
Roan Parrish. This is the second book in
a series and it's a new adult series. So,
you can read as a standalone but yes, it's the
second book. And we're following Matt and
Rhys, and they are a married couple. I
find it very rare to find new adult
romances that follow married couples. It's an
m/m romance and these two men are
really close and really in love. However,
Matt tends to spiral in his thoughts and
is a very closed off, inward person. And
when Rhys goes on tour for his music,
Matt is by himself and away from Rhys
for a long period of time which has not
happened before in their married
life. And Matt starts to spiral and just
grow more and more inward as he's alone for
longer and longer. And by the time Rhys
comes back he doesn't trust Rhys
anymore, and he suddenly reversed back to
square one of when him and Rhys met. And
it's about them working as a married
couple to kind of work through Matt's
mental health and bring him into a more
comfortable headspace. It was scary
reading this one because I was relating
to Matt as a character so much, in the
way that Matt thinks. And I was like oh -- I
was reading it as Matt was spiraling and
I was like: oh, I relate to this! I relate
to this! I relate to this! And then it
suddenly hit me as the book also hits
you, that Matt is actually not in a good
headspace when he's thinking all of
these things. And I'm like, man... I was
thinking, wow... I need to change my own
headspace. So personally it was one that really
helped me because it really changed the
way I was thinking and how I was
handling certain situations. And I feel
like it was just such a very powerful
book because we don't get to see books about married couples and some of the
struggles that they go through. And it
also talked a lot about being a foster
child and bad foster care systems. And I
was something I'd never considered and
never thought about too much. So it was
really eye-opening to me as well.
Continuing on the new adult I
need to mention two books by Alexis
Hall and I'kk just mention them as one in
this in this video and that's Waiting
for the Flood which is a very short
novella, hich was very cute. And then
there's also Glitterland by Alexis Hall. Now it might have been the fact that I
moved to Australia this year and I'm
missing England in some ways. But these
are very very English romances. In
Waiting for the Flood we have this like,
grumpy book mender who lives on his own
and he has a stutter. And he's kind of
just closed off and, you know, England has
floods. And he's waiting for this flood
that's supposed to come. And the flood
crew come in to help. And he starts to
fall for one of these cute little flood
maintenance guys. And it was just very
British. And we got to stutter character. And it was just cute. And then in Glitterland
we've got this upper-class, posh, British
guy who ends up falling for this Essex,
you know, very outgoing, very extra guy. And they're from two polar opposite
sides of the... I don't know British
spectrum? But they fall in love and it
comes with like, consequences. One of the
main characters is also bipolar and has
some scars and it kind of unpacked the
mental health side of things - they were
just both very cute and sensitively
written romances that I definitely
recommend. Both male-male romances. And
last but not least I'm going to talk
about plays and poetry. So I've got two
poetry collections for you. The first one
is These Wild Houses by Omar Sakr. He is a Muslim Australian bisexual poet. And
These Wild Houses was just... it's
beautifully written with wonderful
metaphors and images. And the poems are
about, you know, not having a stable house,
some of the pain that comes from
relationships that goes sour, being a Muslim
bisexual writer. And it
captured emotions so well and you would
think that it would be an angry poetry
collection but there's happiness. There's
beauty. Even in the dissonance and
unawareness of what's going on and no
security in the future, but still there
is beauty. And I just felt that it was
such a powerful collection. Really enjoyed it. And then the other one I have to
recommend is For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf
by Ntozake Shange. And this...
this is a choreopoem which is something
that she's invented herself. And it's
kind of a mix between a play, and a long
poem and dance. So music has involved. All
these ladies -- it's female centric -- kind of
take on different roles as they enact
what it's like to live in America as a
black woman during the civil rights kind
of movement. And it was very emotional. It
gets really deep and dark. It talks about
unemployment, it talks about
relationships, it talks about being
ignored, it talks about discrimination,
and it just hits you with all of these
things. But it's one long poem and it was
emotional, and it was powerful, and if I
can write a poem like that I know that
like... I've made it in life as a poet
because that was just
something amazing that I recommend to
everyone. You can also go and see it on
stage if you're in America, I believe. If
you're not into reading poetry maybe
that's the best way for you to consume
this but please try and find a way to
have this in your life. Last but not least I'm gonna talk about
two Shakespeare plays. I am a Shakespeare
fangirl and one of these is actually
reread and I was not supposed to put on
this list because I'm not supposed to put
rereads on this list. But I reread it
this year. Like, I read it for the first
time this year and then reread it this
year. The first time I read Antony and
Cleopatra I was not a fan. But then I
watched the adaption and reread it and now
I'm just huge and a huge Antony and Cleopatra fangirl
because in that play it's about Antony and
Cleopatra and Cleopatra's kind of story
line but fictionalized-ish. You know,
Shakespeare. Shakespeare touch! And
Cleopatra is so extra and so dramatic. I
love her. And then Antony is just really
tied between love and duty, and he kind
of makes mistakes. And it was very
dramatic because, you know, Shakespeare's
dramatic. But it was very very good. And
it deals the themes of like: time, love,
politics and war very very well. Then we
also have to mention Coriolanus by
Shakespeare. Which is a political play and
it's about this war officer and he... he's
a very good soldier, basically. He's
really good at what he does but he gets
kind of thrust into the political
limelight. And he doesn't want to be a
politician. He doesn't want to be there
but he ends up being inarticulate about
what he wants so he ends up as a
politician. And then there's all these
people judging him and wanting things
from him and he doesn't want to be a
leader. Basically he's a reluctant hero
in a Shakespeare play. And everybody kind
of just takes things from him and
manipulates him and he just ends up in
places he really doesn't want to be. I
feel like it was very interesting to see
the role of a mother and the influence
of the mother in this play. And I also
liked how it dealt with politics and how
people don't always want to be in the
situation's they end up in. And I felt like
Corilanus was just a character I wanted
to encircle in my arms and protect
forever and keep them away from
everybody who wants a piece of him. And because Shakespeare plays make me feel
they just have to be included. Guys this
is such a long video but I read so many
great books in 2019. These aren't even
all of my five-star reads. There are more
5-star read books but I couldn't include
but I wanted to include but I couldn't.
So in the comment section down below I'm
actually gonna link all of my wrap ups
for 2019. Like, all of them. And I don't mean that you have to go
through and watch all of them. But if you
go through and watch like, a single one
you will probably find a book like
either didn't like or a book that I
loved. Please let me know in the comment
section down below
what was your favourite book in the year
of 2019 or one of them, or many of them
because I couldn't choose either. And
yeah, give this video a thumbs up if you
enjoyed it. Hit that subscribe button if
you want to see more and don't forget to
the notification bell to be updated
every time. I have a new video I've got
some big plans for 2020 so I'll see you
on the other side. Goodbye!
