the video ends when I find my first 5 star book of the year ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

By the end of this video, we will have found a new five star book. It doesn't matter how long it takes. It doesn't matter if it kills me. This is my Everest. I am not finishing this video until we find a new favorite book. I don't know where this challenge started, but I've seen so many of my favorite booktubers do this video. And I just feel like Squidward when he's looking out the window watching SpongeBob and Patrick having fun. And I want to be involved. I have FOMO. I would like to participate, please. I feel like I've turned up to the party when like the balloons are deflated. The birthday cake has been eaten. The big light is on. Everyone is going home. And I'm like, I still want to have fun. Like I feel like everyone has made this video except me. So welcome to the video. Welcome to the challenge. There is only one rule to this challenge. And that is that the video will not end until I find a five star book. So I thought it might be helpful to start off by telling you how I review books, how I rate books, because I feel like as time has gone on, I've become a much harsher critic, you know? I used to be like Oprah Winfrey, dishing out those five star reviews, like nobody's business. You get a five star, you get a five star, not anymore. I feel like I'm kind of stingy these days, you know? A book has to really blow me away. Like my feet need to be chilly because my socks have been knocked off. So let's start at the bottom with one star reviews. What do I mean when I say a book is one star? I kind of mean that it's not worth the paper that it's printed on. For me, a one star book is like, maybe it's kind of a scam. Maybe it feels damaging in some way. It should be tried at the Hague for crimes to literature. Full offense intended, all tea, all shade, all offense, you know? Like a one star review, to get a one star from me, it has to be really, really bad. I actually think those books should count as kind of like minus one in your reading challenge. Like if you have a goal of how many books you want to read in a year, if you read one of those books, you should have to read two. So like make up for it, to compensate. The author should have to pay reparations. You know like when you are playing Monopoly and you get sent to jail and you have to pay $50 to get back out again? That's what I think these authors should have to do. They should pay for their crimes. That's one star books. A two star book is like, I actively did not enjoy this book. I understand why it was written. I understand that there is a purpose to it, but I would only wish this book on someone I despise. These books were my 13th reason. The next thing the author should write is an apology addressed to me. Then we get into the realm of three star books. And a three star book, it's like I understand what the author was trying to do. I just didn't necessarily enjoy the execution of that thing. You know, often it's a great concept, but not great execution, or it's just like aggressively okay. You know what I mean? Aggressively average. Getting a three star review, I actually think sometimes is worse than getting a one star review because a one star is like, oh, you just hated it. Okay, whatever. Three stars is like, I see what you were trying to do and I didn't enjoy it. That's a dagger to the soul. Just like throw me to the ground and kick me while you're at it. Then we get into four star territory. This is good. This is a happy place. Four stars means I enjoyed this. I feel confident recommending this to someone, even if they didn't like it. Well, actually they're wrong. They didn't like it. These books are well executed, resonated with me. Nice. Five stars. If you get a five star review from me, you're a new favorite. You are in the hall of fame. One star hall of shame, five star hall of fame. You should be studied in schools. I think you're a modern classic. You have changed me in some way. She's an icon. She's a legend. And she is the moment. Now, come on now. I'm a better person because I've read this book. A little piece of my heart is left within the pages. Maybe they're a little wet from my tears. You know, I think that five star books evoke a visceral reaction from you. You feel it like deep within your body. So, you know, is that too much to ask for? I'm hoping that we're going to find another book to enter that literary hall of fame this week. And I'm going to be reading each book and sharing a review. And I'll let you know what I think. The bar is not exactly low. So I feel like it could take us a while, but I have faith in the books that I've picked. But at least one of them will be in that top, top tier. It could be book one. This could be an incredibly short video. This could be more like a TikTok than a YouTube video if I just find it straight off the bat. But I feel like within this home library I've got going on, there's got to be at least one more five star book that I haven't yet got around to reading. So let's give it a go. Welcome to the video. Thank you for being here. And you know what? I actually think I have the perfect book in mind to start with. This feels very appropriate. It's right here on my shelf of Japanese literature. It is literally called, what you are looking for is in the library. So I mean, come on. This was a Japanese bestseller. Best believe if I see a Japanese book with a cat and some books on the cover, I'm ready for a cozy read. So I'm going to read this and I will report back to you when I'm done. Okay. So I do believe that what I'm looking for is in the library. It might just not be this one. Let's start off with the positives though. What I will say about this book is that it is like hope core in a book. I don't know if you've seen that kind of TikTok aesthetic, I guess, of people finding hope in the mundane and looking for the subtle beauties in life. That's kind of what this embodies. It's essentially a series of stories, but they're connected by one common thread. And that is the local librarian. Each one of these people is going through a personal crisis, some sort of dilemma, and they go to the library to seek out some advice. And the local librarian recommends them a book, which serves as the kind of antidote to their woes. And it sort of just like puts them back on a correction course. Like it helps them to get back on track with where they are supposed to be and finding hope, I guess. So I liked that element. There were some really lovely lines that are quite reassuring. I liked this for the same reason I liked the book, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, which also encouraged you to just like slow down, take some time. That book says you are a little boat in a harbor. You know, you're between journeys right now. It's okay to rest and recuperate. I will say I preferred that book to this one just because the short story style kind of ended up making this feel a little bit formulaic. Like each time someone presented a problem, you kind of knew they were gonna go to the library, the librarian would give them a book, and then it would be resolved in some way. But I do think that is partially the point to reassure the reader that, you know, problems in their work life, in their relationship, problems with their self-esteem, et cetera, et cetera, can be resolved. Like no thing is too big to be resolved. And it can be as simple as reading a book that you feel truly understands you. Sometimes you just need a little bit of help on the way down, a little bit of guidance. And I don't know if this is intentional, but I sort of saw this as a bit of an allegory for therapy in a way. In recommending these books, the librarian sort of sends them in the right direction. And I think that's sort of what a therapist does too. They sort of help you to solve issues, not by giving, you know, didactic advice, but by helping you to access the part inside of you that will be able to resolve them. The first part of the battle is realizing that you need help and asking for that assistance and that guidance, specifically an expert in the field. And so that's why I think the librarian in this book sort of seemed to me to be a stand-in for a therapist kind of role. And I mean, going to the library truly does feel like therapy. So I can get behind that for sure. And though the language in this book is very simplistic, I would say, it does make it really accessible and readable. It's a love story ultimately to reading and recovery. However, and this is like a BBL sized but, the descriptions of the librarian are pretty unpleasant to read. Each time someone encounters her, almost an entire page, if not two pages, are dedicated to speaking about how fat she is. It will describe how kind of like grotesquely large she is. And it's actually really uncomfortable to read. If there is one thing this author wants you to know, it's that this lady is fat, F-A-T, all caps, in bold, underlined, italicized. She's like, I need you to leave this book knowing that this woman is fat. And I don't know, it just felt kind of a bit weird to be reading something like that. It honestly just felt a bit cruel and it sort of meant that I stopped rooting for the characters because I was like, God, these people are just horrible. Just made me sort of squirm with discomfort at times. I want to give you an example, just so you can see what I mean. So, you know, I'm not exaggerating here. I poke my head around the corner and yikes, my eyes nearly jump out of their sockets. The librarian is huge. I mean like really huge. She takes up the entire space. Her skin is super pale. You can't even see where her chin ends and her neck begins. She reminds me of a polar bear curled up in a cave for winter. She's stabbing a needle at something the size of a ping pong ball balanced on a mat the size of a handkerchief. What is she doing? Putting a jinx on someone? I almost scream out loud. You know, it just feels a bit mean. It's kind of brutal. It's brutal out here. And listen, I am aware that this is a kind of cultural difference and that has to be acknowledged. Like this is a translation from Japanese and in Japanese society, I learned this a lot while I was traveling around Japan a couple of years ago. It is way more stigmatized to be a larger person and fat shaming is a lot more socially acceptable. And of course this translation needs to remain faithful to the original language and capture that sentiment that is being conveyed, but it's a lot. It is really a lot. And so that mixed with how formulaic the book felt after a while, you know, I kind of, I got a little bit bored by the halfway point because I sort of knew where each story was going to go. This to me was, I wanted to go for three stars, but I think it would be more of a 2.75. I liked the idea, but not always the way it was done. Was it cozy? Yes, but I think that that was sort of corrupted by how rude and mean it was. You know, it's hard to have sympathy for these characters when they're actively quite horrible to the like, the poor librarian. She's just minding her business, giving out all this free advice. This is how they repay her? Yeah, I don't know about that. So I'm going to try again. And I hope that what I am looking for is in the library. It's just something else. And there is actually a book I've been recommended so many times. It's been on my reading list for over a year now, but it is a mammoth of a book. Like it is a doorstop of a book. It's very, very thick. It's nearly as large as the librarian in that book, apparently. It is this one right here. Did you see what I mean? Huge. It's called Our Evenings. It's by Alan Hollinghurst, who also wrote The Line of Beauty, which won the Booker Prize in 2004. And I've just had so many incredible things about this. It was in a lot of lists and a lot of publications about the best books of 2024. Alan Hollinghurst's writing is just a blind spot for me. He feels like a writer I should have read something from, but I haven't yet. So we're going to fix that. So we will see. I will let you know how I find it once I'm done. So I finished Our Evenings. Okay. Just take a deep breath before filming this because this book made me weep. Last night, it was a mess. I was a wreck. I just read the last, I'm getting emotional to thinking about it now. This is insane. Okay. I'm so serious. This broke my little heart. This just knocked the wind out of my lungs. And I wanted to film kind of in the moment, but I was like, I actually have to compose myself because I don't think there was an intelligent thought in my head, just pure devastation. Obviously no spoilers. This is The Portrait of One Man's Life. And it just feels to me at least like an instant classic. Like this to me, modern classic, straight away. It's the kind of book that makes you want to just immediately go and write an essay about it. You know how good a book has to be for you to want to write an essay about it? I could talk about this all day, but I'll try and keep it concise. I want to start by saying it was like this close to being a five-star read. My only criticism, honestly, is I wish it was longer. And for a 700-page book, a mammoth book like this, for you to leave it wishing there had been more, that is a great sign. There are just moments where the author really withholds some of the information. And for example, because you're seeing the complete breadth of this man's life, there will be, I don't know, 10 chapters where he's dating someone. And then in the next chapter, he's like, oh yeah, and I broke up with that person and now I'm doing this. I'm like, wait, what? Because I guess to me, I felt like some of those moments I would have loved to have seen fully fleshed out. I think breaking up with someone, choosing to break up with someone you've been with for 10 chapters, and you know, in this man's life, it was, I don't know, five years. I'm thinking, hang on, I need to know the thought process. I need to know the confrontation, how you plucked up the courage to have that conversation. You know, there were just parts where I wanted more, but the author kind of glides over them a little bit. And like I said, despite this book's enormous volume, it is so bingeable and so readable. The prose is so silky smooth. It's kind of like if you could read Velvet. You know, if Velvet was a 700 page novel, it would be this one. I do feel sort of annoyed that I haven't got anything done in the last few days, because I've just been completely distracted by this book. I couldn't stop reading it. Every time I would start to do something else, I was like, well, I guess I could carve out this time to read instead. And that is a great sign, you know? So let me explain the plot of this book. So we're following this queer Burmese actor throughout his life, from childhood through to adulthood, as he is coming of age, coming out. And it's also a story about his childhood patron, Giles, who kind of becomes radicalized over the course of his life. And it's fascinating seeing these two people with almost identical education, growing up and going down completely different trajectories, different paths. And I think that's important to think about in our modern age, where we're thinking about things like the manosphere and people being radicalized, especially on the right, people kind of falling into conspiracy theories and becoming filled with hatred. And you kind of think, where has this come from? How did you end up on this path? Giles becomes this very pro-Brexit, radicalized politician. He's sort of Boris Johnson, but more extreme. So we watch as these two men diverge in their lives. And I think that Alan Hollinghurst, the writer, traverses that with expert subtlety. It isn't gimmicky. It doesn't feel like a caricature. It's really believable. These characters could get up and walk off the page. But I think the most interesting element of the book for me is the concept of the microaggression. It's a book where you see prejudices and discourse affecting someone over the course of their life. But each individual occurrence of a microaggression feels too minor to sort of call out and address individually, you know? And yet these small moments that have no consequences at the time end up having huge, enormous consequences. And it is devastating to realize how these occasional blips or these occasional occurrences boil up to the point of bubbling over eventually. They can be dismissed in casual conversation. And this is as true in the book as it is in the real world. But the book goes on to consider how these silly quips and invasive questions can escalate rapidly into deep-rooted prejudice and hatred and xenophobia and an atmosphere of hostility and that can have dire consequences. Art Evenings is also about how love can manifest in a myriad of forms. It's a book about a deep-rooted desire to know and to be known. So it's safe to say that I loved it. I did just sometimes want that extra little layer of introspection and more depth as well as breadth at times. I could comfortably have read another 200 pages of this and not been bored. And that is saying something. And like I said, the final chapter just floored me. So this nearly was a very short video. We nearly struck gold on the second attempt. In conclusion, I think this was, I think I'm gonna rate it 4.5 out of five. Unfortunately, no one can borrow my edition because it is water damaged from the tears I shed in that final section. But this book got me, it got me so good. The search continues. Guys, the way I chose deliberately not to read this book first because I was so convinced this would be the five-star book. Like I genuinely thought, oh, this will be the end of the video. Wrong. The gag is, I actually think this will end up in my worst books of the year video. This is Pineapple Street. It's by Jenny Jackson. And it's about this kind of like top 1% family who are living in New York City. And you meet all the different members of the family. They've all got their own thing kind of going on. It's kind of like an episode of Real Housewives if like nothing happened for the first two thirds. And then right before the end, they just all got super woke for some reason. But not in a complex and deep and nuanced way or kind of thought provoking way, just in the way of like, I saw this on TikTok one time and now I'm an expert in this field. That kind of way. We all know people like that, but reading a book about people like that is truly insufferable. It's meant to be sort of about like the glittery parties and the glamour of this family. But ultimately you just don't care about any of them. Like to give you an example, one of the characters has this random outburst at a party about how gender is a spectrum, but just like never elaborates on that. And has never really expressed any interest in it before. Like it's so random. It feels like just kind of checking boxes. This felt extremely surface level. I remember reading reviews of this that said it was funny. I don't necessarily agree with that. Also that these characters were lovable, but fallible. And I just think they were fallible. I just think they were flawed. I don't think they were lovable at all. And it's weird because it's written by someone who has edited loads of like major, major books. But maybe some more time should have been spent on this one, babe. You know, I kind of miss when rich people would write about being rich in a fun way, instead of writing about the fodder of rich people for two thirds and then suddenly being like, oh, and also we care about social issues. It feels like a way of trying to avoid criticism. But if you talk about these issues with no nuance, you might as well have not spoken about them at all. Do you know what I mean? So for me, unfortunately, this book, I think I would rate two stars. I'm so upset. But something that is reliable and consistently five stars, which I would heartily recommend is Squarespace, the sponsor of today's video. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building a website. And the best news is you don't need any coding experience. You don't need to be a professional web developer. You don't need to read a book about how to design a website. Squarespace has loads of incredible templates, which you can customize and make completely your own. All you need is the vision and Squarespace will help you bring it to life. So you can add features like a blog. You can build an email signup list. Your customers can have flexible payments. And there's also AISEO, which basically means that once you've made your website, you can use AI to make sure it actually appears on search results so that people can find the beautiful website that I've just designed. If all of this sounds good to you, you can head to squarespace.com right now for a free trial. And then when you're ready to launch your beautiful new website, you can head to squarespace.com slash Jack Edwards and use the code Jack Edwards to get 10% off the first purchase of a website or domain. So thank you so, so much to Squarespace for working with me. And now time to get reading the next book. So I think we need to change approach. I'm thinking that my next read is going to be this one. This is called Sociopath and it's actually a memoir. I'm thinking maybe we need to go down the nonfiction route. I'm thinking maybe we need to go for a real life story. I don't know. And apparently, I mean, I've heard great reviews about this book. I feel like it's kind of been everywhere. So I think that's my next read. Fingers crossed. We have a little bit more luck. Hi. Oh, oh no. So unfortunate update. I did not. This actually was my first DNF of the video, but also of the year. So assignment, wait, what? Since when could my camera do that? Oh, okay. What the hell? Sure. Unfortunately, the assignment was not understood. We were actually looking for a new favorite book, not a new least favorite. And trust me, I persevered. I got to like the 60% mark and I was really not enjoying it. So then I switched to audio and I was listening to the audio book version and I managed to end up at 20%. But then at the 80% mark, I just thought this isn't getting any better. This is a memoir by a self-proclaimed sociopath kind of talking about what it is like to experience the world in this way. And it's something I'm really interested in on a psychological level. I've read a lot of books by John Bronson, for example, The Psychopath Test, where he talks about the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths. So this has been on my wishlist to read since the moment it was first teased. And yet it just felt self-indulgent to me. She basically has written this book about how she's actively horrible to be around and how she committed crimes and how she cares about no one but herself. But ultimately it is just extremely unpleasant to read. It's just like pure narcissism. There's no medical backing. And I thought that's what I was kind of interested in. I think maybe this is like, I picked up the wrong book for me because I was hoping that there would be some sort of science involved, even just explanations. You know, I really like memoirs where there's narrative to it, but ultimately you are actually learning something. I didn't learn anything from this aside from I would hate to be around this person. And the reason it's surprising that there is no science, there are no case studies, there's no evidence, there are no statistics. It's because the author brags about their PhD in the back of the book. She earned a PhD in clinical psychology with a dissertation that examined the relationship between sociopathy and anxiety. Well, where was that? Where was that information? Where was the science that you would have to do? Where was the research? So I ended up Googling it and there are some questions, it seems, online about the validity of Patrick Gagne's degree and qualification. I'm not gonna get into that because that's none of my business. I think that's what was so surprising to me. It felt like it would be written in a slightly different way if you were kind of qualified to talk about this. This is, yeah, just a total ego trip and I feel really annoyed that I spent money on it. I'm the fool. I am the fool for wasting money on this, but this is my public service to tell you, you shouldn't. She's just like, oh yeah, I stole this thing once and I betrayed this person and their trust. Clap if you care. All right, let's move on. This mostly comprises of anecdotes of her being kind of a naughty child, but none of them are particularly interesting. Like, they're not actually good stories. And so you're kind of like, why am I reading this? It's a book about a person who doesn't feel very much and I also just felt nothing while reading it. Like, less than nothing. I feel like pain would watch this book dry. It basically feels like a way of justifying bad behavior by kind of assigning a label to it. Honestly, one star. I just, I don't think this is worth reading at all. There's also just no real personality in the writing. It's not even like the writing saved it. The writing is dull. The stories are self-indulgent. I don't have a lot to say on this other than that I really didn't like it and I definitely do not recommend it. Yeah, I'm sorry. Choosing not to finish this book feels like a radical act of self-love. Like sometimes you really just have to choose inner peace. That's what we've done. I'm drawing a line in the sand and I'm proud of myself. I actually have more self-respect now because I was able to give up. It's very, very rare, as you guys know, that I DNF a book, do not finish a book. I am very committed to the fact that if I'm going to critique something and share a review online, I need to have read the entire thing. But there are exceptions to every rule. Damn. Oh dear, this is going terribly. But I think I have a plan. I think I know the book that is going to be the five-star read. So I will see you once I finish it. So I was starting to get a little bit nervous that this video was just never going to end. Like it would be 2027 and I would still be looking for my next five-star read. Well, okay. Oh my God, you're drunk. Go home. Okay. So I decided to pull in The Big Guns, Eva Baltazar, translated by Julia Sanchez. Now, if you've been watching my channel for more than five minutes, you will know that I have been ranting and raving about how much I love this book, Boulder, by Eva Baltazar since the second I put it down. Like I have not shut up about this. Eva Baltazar is actually going to get a restraining order against me because I will not leave her alone. And so I read the sequel, which is called Permafrost. I also loved that. And when I was starting to get a little nervous that I wasn't going to find my five-star book in this video, I picked up the third book in this. Well, technically it's a trilogy, but not in the traditional sense. So it's not like we follow the same character in a series of different circumstances. It's actually more of a thematic trilogy. So each of these books explores similar themes with similar characters, but not the same characters, if that makes sense. And they're not interlinked. So technically the order is Permafrost first, Boulder second, and then Mammoth third. I actually read Boulder first because it was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. So even though I read these two books in technically the wrong order, it didn't actually matter. And I love the way that these books explore womanhood and femininity and love. This book specifically is about the tension between love and freedom. And then this one is more about kind of life and death. This book, I don't know what happened. These two, absolute hits. This one, a little bit of a miss for me. This one is definitely kind of like the weirdest. Again, it follows a disenchanted young lesbian. In this one, our main character chooses to swap her sort of city life for a life on the farm. But this book doesn't really follow the kind of pastoral tradition. It's more about social despair. It's definitely a bit more abstract than the other ones, I think. But for me, it just felt like a bit of a disappointment. Normally when I'm reading, I read with a pen in my hand so I can underline my favorite quotes. And with these two books, I basically ran out of ink. This book in particular, I think is such a good demonstration of how literary fiction can be sexy and it can be smutty and it can be erotic and evocative. I thought this was so incredible. This one, I don't know. It almost felt like it had lost its spark a little bit. I feel like we ended the trilogy on more of a whimper than a bang. So guys, I don't know what to do. This book, I would give three stars. Maybe this was a victim of expectation because I love the other books so much. I would say my final ranking would be, this one's number one, this in close second, and then this in third place by a long way. This one isn't just on a different page, it's in a different library. So yeah, onto the next book, I guess. We go again. Oh my gosh, you guys, we did it. We found a five-star book. I honestly, for a moment, thought this day would never come, but we did it, we made it. We have a five-star book. A new favorite, for sure. This is The Coin. It's by Yasmin Zaher, who is a Palestinian writer based in New York City. This book is all about New York and it kind of revels in the filthiness of the city. And I have to say, as someone who spent over two years living in New York City, I was reading this and just actively holding my neck to stop my head from just nodding the entire time. She talks about how accustomed New Yorkers are to just the squalor around them. New Yorkers could walk by a splatter of diarrhea on the subway tiles, bagel and coffee in hand, and not think twice. They would still live there tomorrow in the greatest city on earth. The city embraced the dirt like it was an aesthetic. Rust and bricks, black trash bags lining the trenches, millions of pieces of gum on the sidewalks like polka dots by Yayoi Kusama. There's like a real rhythm to the writing, but it's also completely irreverent. I love books where the author has a kind of audacity. That's why I love writers like Eve Babitz and Joan Didion, because they write with self-assurance. When they talk about a place, they talk about it with authority. So let me set the scene. Basically, our main character is working as a teacher at a school for boys. And she kind of has some unconventional teaching methods. She's very practical. She wants them to learn actual real life lessons as well as just what's on the curriculum. And I mean, she does say, the character is like, I did actually teach them the curriculum. I'm just telling you about the crazy stuff that I did, because otherwise I think you'd be like, God, this is actually the worst teacher of all time. But she does also teach them really valuable stuff. She is eventually caught up in a scheme to sell Birkin bags. So her and this guy who she calls Trenchcoat travel to Paris and to London, and they dress up in gorgeous, fancy outfits, and they act the part. They help their head up high, and they go to Hermes stores and try to get a Birkin bag. Now I will say, I did not know that much about Birkins, but it's basically down to the Hermes member of staff, what bag you are offered, if you're offered a bag at all. So there's a section where she talks about this. So this is her getting advice on what to do. You're not supposed to look down, he whispered to me. From now on, you only look up or higher, never down. If you have to look at something, do it from the corner of your eye. Never show enthusiasm. The whole model of Birkins was based on rejection. People want to belong to a club that doesn't accept them. It was only noon, but we pretended this was the correct time of our appointment, and the receptionist pretended we were right. But also the book is about politics and class, and it's about these kind of social structures that are put in place that actually sort of divide us. She notes that when you work, you belong to a certain class, and it's ours. You leave your apartment every day at the same time, get on the same train, stop at the same convenience store on the way home, always at the same time. I thought about that often, how there were millions of people in the city, like Trenchcoat, to whom I had no access because we were living on different schedules. This also meant that I shared time and space with a finite group of people, and no matter how many times we came across one another, we would always be strangers. I think this really captures the essence of living in a city, and yeah, there are people who are on the same kind of rhythm and routine as you, but they remain strangers because we all sort of sit in silence, and we look down, we don't make eye contact with one another, we don't talk to each other, and that kind of allows us to become a really individualistic society. The book feels really charged with this acerbic wit, and it's crazy. It will constantly surprise you, it will constantly go in a direction you weren't expecting. The observations are so, so, so sharp. It's just really fun. Like, I genuinely just had such an enjoyable time with this book. It's bonkers, but it has such a strong authorial and narrative voice that you just can't put it down. Like, I read this in a flash. It literally felt like it was glued to my hands. I felt like my eyeballs were glued to the pages, and that is the sign of a great book when the pages just turn themselves. I will say, obviously, this is a very literary fiction kind of book. There's not a massive plot, but there is enough to sort of sink your teeth into. There are character dynamics and relationships that are interesting to follow. There's the tension of whether she'll be caught in this kind of Birkin scheme that she's working on, and I loved that sort of searing commentary on New York culture specifically, which is so particular, and I've always struggled to fully put my finger on it, but this book just really, really nails it in every sense. And so for those reasons, there does seem to feel like there's a kind of suspense interwoven in the pages. Like, you kind of feel a little bit anxious on her behalf, even if she doesn't seem to at times. And of course, for this Palestinian character, there's also that tension of her homeland not really existing in the way that it did when she left it anymore. And so she is trying to put down roots in a place that she feels kind of repels her. And so because that America that she sees around her is stifling her, she almost wants to become the antithesis of that. She becomes obsessed with cleanliness. She thinks a lot about self-image without trying to sort of moralize too much. It's just, it's really complex, but expertly done. It's so well executed. This is a big fat five star. And I'm baffled by the fact that this is a debut novel because it's so good, but also very excited because it means that Yasmin Zahair is an author I'm going to be following for the foreseeable future. I just can't wait to see what she does next. If she's anything like this character, it will be remarkable and surprising and shocking and unpredictable for sure. I loved this. This is my first five star read of the year and one I'm going to spend probably the rest of the year raving about. So prepare to be sick of me. Prepare to be sick of me in this book. I'm so happy. And now I guess that means we can wrap up this video. So thank you so, so much for watching. Remember you can follow me over on TikTok and Instagram, all my other platforms. I will link them all down below. For my everyday book reviews, you can head over to my Goodreads account. But for now, thank you so, so much for watching this video. Subscribe if you're new. Love you so, so much. Let me know in the comment section down below what your first five star book of the year was, or is, or you're hoping will be. And I'll catch you very soon. Bye bye.