Top 5 fantasy books I read in 2023

Hey nerds, what's up? Today I'm giving my top five fantasy books that I read in 2023. This is one of my favorite videos to make of the year where I get to just gush about my favorite books. Now I am going to take a little moment at the beginning here to talk about my reading year just overall and some interesting things I noticed. So if you're not interested in that, I have chapters and you can just skip over to book one and then you will get to see my top five books right away. Now a little bit about my reading year. I read significantly less this year. I was actually kind of surprised when I went over my excel spreadsheet that I keep on my reading. I kind of felt that I had read less but I think it was like 20% less when I finally did the calculations. Now this doesn't like necessarily bother me. I'm not someone who's overly concerned with numbers. I just thought it was really interesting and I was trying to be like why did I read so much less this year? And I have a few reasons I think that happened. The first was that I read some big series this year, um Malazan being one of them, and those books took a lot of attention from me. Like those books took me a lot of time to read because I felt like I really had to focus and read carefully and they're very long and they weren't something like I could just sit down and binge. So two of the three Malazan books that I read, you see me keep struggling, I keep trying to say it the right way, the Malazan books that I read took a full month to read which is like unusual for me personally as a reader. And then I also read three A Song of Ice and Fire books which are also very long. Um even if they were less dense necessarily than Malazan, I had to take a break like in Storm of Swords for emotional reasons. So those also took up a big chunk of time. So I do think I just read kind of longer books this year which obviously will make overall book count go down. I also had some things happen that just took up a lot of time. For example covering the Wheel of Time takes a ton of time and energy for me. I am doing one to two extra videos a week with that which that cuts down on my reading time because that's when I usually be reading. And then finally Tears of the Kingdom came out and I actually went and looked to see how many hours I spent on that this year and it is such an embarrassingly high number that I decided not to say it on the internet. It's only embarrassing, like the number itself isn't too high, it's just for where I am in the game because I estimate I'm like 60% of the way through the game the way I play it because I'm like an uber completionist when it comes to that. How many sections I still have to open I'm just like wow that's a lot of time. Like I've already met my Breath of the Wild time and I feel like I'm 60% of the way through the game. That's fine. I absolutely have loved playing Tears of the Kingdom. I do not regret it in any way. It is just a reason I have read less this year. Uh something else I wanted to talk about before we dove in was that something really cool that I noticed was that four of my five favorite books this year I would have not read if I was not on the booktube community which was really cool to me. Like four of my five favorite books I have read in 2023 some of these books who probably catapulted into my favorite series or books of all time I would have never read if I didn't meet the community on youtube three years ago and that made me feel warm and fuzzy so I wanted to share it and I will share a little more about why or which books those are as we get into it but yes that's it okay without further ado I'll see you after the jump. Okay so I should have also mentioned earlier these are in no particular order. I hate ordering my favorite books. If you've been here a while you'll know that so I'm just doing it mostly in kind of the order I read them or whatever I picked them off my shelf. So the first book I actually read this year made my top five which is Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. Yes the first secret project made one of my favorite books of the year. I've spoken a lot about Tress and why I love it. I love the fairy tale nature. I love that it was a different style for Sanderson. It was really kind of the book I needed on January 1st just like a very warm and fuzzy light-hearted story. I think the cosmere elements in this book were perfectly balanced in a way that maybe they weren't balanced in some of the other secret projects. I really liked our main character. It was just a lovely story and that's what I needed at the time. Kind of like a cup of hot cocoa and because of that it's just one of my favorite reads of the year. It was kicking off the secret projects. The whole thing about it I think also goes into it. The hype, the excitement, getting that first book, looking at how gorgeous the art was, getting to go to Brandon's book club, like all of that is part of it even though I liked it just for what it was. Um and so it's always gonna hold a special place in my heart so no surprises here. I think that Tress made it into my top five. Okay the second book that is in my top five books of the year is The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence. Now I should have said Tress was a book I would have read no matter what, right? I was a huge Sanderson fan for years before getting on YouTube. Would have read Tress no matter what. Um this one was actually an ARC that was sent to me by Mark Lawrence because I am a judge in his self-published fantasy blog off competition which I've talked a lot about but here's a video on it if you somehow missed it. And so he offered a lot of the judges an ARC of this book and it was actually my first Mark Lawrence I ever read. Obviously wouldn't have read it if he hadn't sent it to me and fell immediately in love. Immediately in love. I have gifted this book to so many people. I have tried to convince so many people to read this this year. I just I feel evangelical about it. I think I said when I did the review that it kind of is up there with Piranesi where I feel like I just can't shut up about it. I have to be that obnoxious. Things I loved about this book. Love Lawrence's prose style. I love how evocative it is. The very first page he he's known for good first lines. This was no exception. Loved the first line. Really liked our two main characters especially the way he wrote the female character. I thought was very good. It takes place in a library. I am a sucker for that kind of setting and I think it was done well. Not all library settings are done well. There was a mysterious element to it. I thought it had a very good ending. This was a book actually once I hit about halfway I think I finished the other like 300 pages in a single sitting so it had a lot of momentum. Something I wanted to say is that one of the reasons I hadn't read Lawrence up until this point is that my husband had read his Prince of Thorns series and loved it but was like you can't read that because it is way too grim for you and so in my head it was just like well everything Lawrence writes is going to be too grim. I say this is even close to grimdark. This is not grimdark at all. This is an extremely hopeful book following very good characters so if you're like me and you've avoided Lawrence because you kind of have that reputation I think that's really only that series. This one at the very least like not at all like that. It's just very regular fantasy so if that was a concern for you I just want to get that out of the way. The only other thing I said about this this was a five star book for me. There is time travel kind of similar stuff and I know that that can bother a lot of people so that was my only recommendation of way like if you know that that's going to bother you as a plot element then maybe you should stay away from this book. However I absolutely loved it and so I highly recommend it. If you like none of these are I'm just realizing none of these are a surprise if you've been following my channel I am sure because I've done dedicated reviews on all of these but the next up is The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie, the second installment in the Age of Madness trilogy in the First Lost series. Five out of five stars, perfect, every sentence was great. You know one of the reasons I kept with the First Lost series even though I didn't like best served cold um if you want the full explanation you can see my ranking video that I just did last video because everyone was freaking out about Age of Madness and honestly it totally delivered. Trouble with Peace though is just like the it's just the book. It is my favorite Abercrombie. The way the characters develop in this book, the way there is kind of a a new a new development around every corner. I think the Age of Madness is his strongest character work personally. He does such a fabulous job with the nuances of every character and even somehow better character voice which is crazy because he has great character voice in all of his novels. I liked how it forwarded themes that he's been trying to have come together in the whole First Lost trilogy or not trilogy series. Can't really say much about it because it's more about it because obviously this is book nine in a 10 book series pretty much so you know I don't want to be spoilery but I will say if you have been just like generally generally enjoying Abercrombie even if it's not your favorite because that's kind of how I was feeling I think it's worth it to keep going in the series because you get to Age of Madness and it's just so good. But anyway Trouble with Peace could have to be on my top five books of the year. I was just about to move on but then I did say why Trouble with Peace wouldn't have been read without booktube. I think after Besser Cold I probably would have stopped reading Abercrombie because I liked the first trilogy. I wasn't feeling like evangelical about it and then Besser Cold I was like fine. It was like three stars. I might not have continued except that my friend Leanna from Leanna's library loves this series so much. I was like well I have to at least get another chance and that's when I read The Heroes and Fell in Love so I just don't think I would have made it this far if it wasn't for booktube. So that's why this one I don't think I would have read if it wasn't for booktube. Okay and my next book is A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin. Yes I read three A Song of Ice and Fire books this year which was on not on my bingo card not on anyone's bingo cards I think. I had very strictly been like no I haven't read it I'm not gonna read it. A classic book that I would not have read if I was not on booktube where I have people I trust telling me hey the show gave the books a bad rap for how graphic it is like I think you could get through the books. It's not that much worse than Abercrombie and then ultimately I read it as a birthday gift to Kyle from Read by Kyle. Like that is the only reason. I could not think of a birthday gift for him and I thought wouldn't it be fun. I'll read A Game of Thrones and if I hate it I'll never tell anyone. I'll just tell him I read it and I can't try and well here we are. Uh yeah I mean what is there to say? This is widely regarded by many people as one of the best fantasy books ever written. I don't think I'm really uh going against the grain here saying that this book is one of my top five books that I read this year. It is I think I said in my review emotionally eviscerating five stars. Right now I would say that this book of any fiction book I've ever read gave me the most intense emotional reaction and I have read a lot of books over a lot of years and this one takes the cake right now of just really actually mentally destroying me. So you know that has that that means something right um love the character work. I've been so pleasantly surprised I guess by how great this is. You know I told my husband and it's one of the reasons I think he started reading the first book. I said I haven't felt this way since reading Stormlight Archive. Like I remember the first time reading Stormlight Archive especially Words of Radiance and the feelings it gave me how emotionally invested I was how happy I felt just to be like so invested in a series and you know when Clash of Kings ended I literally picked this up and started page one and I just haven't done that in so long because you know on YouTube you try to vary your content. So even like a series I really like like Joe Abercrombie like I usually read a few books between each book and this one it was just like having that feeling again of being like I cannot put this down. I cannot stop like I have to I am compelled to keep reading. It's like it reminds you why you read and so I just I really love like this book gave me those feelings that some of my very favorite series of all time have elicited in me you know Harry Potter uh Stormlight Archive you know all these books and so yeah it was just great. I'm so so happy I've chosen to read that this this year and yeah there's not much more to say about it. I'm grateful that I read it and I'm grateful for the community that told me to read it definitely top five top five this year. Okay and finally this last book is a little bit of a cheat because it is technically non-fiction but it is by a very famous fantasy author so I think it counts and this is my list so I can do what I want and that is A View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman. I have to say the title that weird because that is a tongue twister say it and you'll see what I mean. This is his book of selected non-fiction would not have read this I mean I probably would have read it eventually well okay I feel like that kombucha meme I'm like no no okay I read Neil Gaiman um several years ago like long before I had my youtube channel I read Neverwhere and was like eh not really into it I was like I guess Neil Gaiman's not for me and I got on booktube I was like well people talk a lot about Neil Gaiman I probably should read some more and then like this year I think I read like five I read three last year all of a sudden he's like the author where I'm like I need to read your entire uh bibliography I want to know it right now so yeah I just don't think this book would have happened if not for booktube but I was going to say it's because of Lianna. Lianna gave this book this is such a long explanation I'm so sorry Lianna from Lianna's library gave this to me for our yearly swap that we do I think because of now I've loved Gaiman I probably would eventually gone to this because I love a collection of non-fiction I read Terry Pratchett's this year too and loved it but this one just really uh connected with me I love his writing I love what he had to say the reason this is in my list this year particularly is because some of the things Neil said in here I think have actually altered my outlook on things permanently I am especially he has several sections in here talking about kids and reading and I have a child who's a voracious reader and so I it's concerning because he's reading way above his age and I was so wrapped up and like what's appropriate how what's he gonna read I'm like I don't want him to read stuff that's like too out and you know is he reading stuff that's too childish but I also want to read stuff that's too adult and I was just like very concerned about it and he has this whole thing about like what he read as a kid and and reading and his view on it as an author and some of the stuff he said obviously much more eloquently than I'm about to repeat here was like let kids read whatever they want like if they are reading stuff that's way below them and it's silly and stupid and not literary who cares they're reading like let them read what people like let them read what they love let kids love reading it doesn't matter if it's not literature like who cares and he also talked about how kids are very good self regulators on what they find interesting so he's like if a book is too old for them it will bore them and you don't need to be so concerned it will bore them and so as I've been trying to navigate this his words like literally come to me so often and it really did like affect how I felt about it and so because of that that feels really important to me like when I read something that kind of alters how I behave and act feels really important so if you're like very interested in you know reading and and you like Neil Gaiman like I highly recommend his book of non-fiction I loved it okay this video was way longer than I anticipated so I apologize for that I meant for this to be a quick thing those are my top five reads of 2023. I do try to keep it so like I kind of choose one book from a series or an author to kind of spread it out so obviously if I love an entire trilogy or series I could technically put them all in my favorite books of the year but I like to keep it a little bit more out there so I will say like Yumi and the Nightmare Painter would probably be a runner a book favorite book of the year same with A Game of Thrones probably A Little Hatred but we kind of I feel like covered those sections in this top five so that's why I left them off the list as always I'd love to hear your number one book of the year or a couple if you're like me and you can't choose what you thought about the books I read like maybe you really just loved one of these I always like to know about that as well and as always if you like this kind of videos please like and subscribe that's the best way to support me and if you want to see what I'm currently reading as well as other nerdy rants you can check me out on instagram at bookworm.reviews I'll see you next time bye!