i've read some pretty great books this year. let's chat about them!

Hello friends, welcome back to my channel. It is time for my quarterly wrap-up for Q1, baby. Q... 1. Today we're gonna be wrapping up all the reading I did in January, February and March. The way that I structure my quarterly wrap-ups is we do all my reading statistics and then we go through my worst and best reads of the quarter. Shall we just get into it, starting with my reading statistics? Okay, it's time to talk reading stats. Let's dive into it, shall we? I just need to tell you guys though, like, I'm on my period. Sorry TMI. And my energy is so low. I have been sitting here for probably like an hour not filming, like head on my desk, falling asleep. I am so tired of my energy. We gotta pick it up. We gotta pick up for like the 20 minutes it's gonna take me to film this video. Okay, so I read 17 books this quarter. I read two in January because we moved in January. It was crazy. I was also ill all of January. Life didn't exist. But they were both 4.5 stars, so great average rating for January. I then read seven in February. There's some good ones in there. Two, I think, in February. I ended up finishing, starting one in January, finishing in February, that I can't talk to you about. I can't tell you. They're a secret. They're top secret. And then I read eight books in March, which was kind of like two main videos. The Goodreads Choice Awards winners and Your Best Books of 2025 were the books I read in March. I read 6,808 pages. That averages out to 75 pages a day, which is like not awful considering that I barely read in January. And 400 pages per book. So listen, I didn't read a ton of books, but the books I read were longer, much longer than usual. Usually I think my average pages per book is kind of around the low 300s, like 320 mark. So definitely a lot longer in terms of books I read this month. My average rating, are you ready for this? My average rating, 3.9. 3.9! This is a reason to celebrate. Can you believe it? I can't believe it either. That is the best average rating I've had for a quarter in a long time. I can't remember the last time I cracked a 3.9 average rating. So this is what I was saying recently. I feel like my reading is going to pick up in terms of like number of books now we're out of the first quarter and life is a bit more settled. But yeah, although I haven't read a ton of numbers of books, I've loved a lot of what I've read, which we're actually going to talk about in a second because we're going to miss out a whole section of this video. We'll talk about that in a second. But I've loved my reading. I've loved, loved, loved my reading this quarter. I've read some great books. I've had a lot of really highly rated books. I've had a lot of fun reading. So 3.9. That's amazing. Imagine if I can keep that up the whole year. Imagine if I end this year with a 3.9 average rating. I feel like I could do it, you know? I feel like especially if I become more of a DNFer, you know, I want to get through the TBR quite a lot in the rest of this year. And I feel like I may have to DNF some books. I feel like, you know, maybe we need to start doing that. So if I start DNFing rather than rating books low, that would also help with that. The average number of books spent on my TBR was seven months. I mean, this is all, you know, goes up and down because there's loads of books on there that had been on my TBR for like zero months or one month or something. Okay, let's get into the ratings. Let's talk about the average rating because I know I said 3.9 average rating. I have given one book two stars. One book two stars and then everything else is a 3.5 or above. I had, how many of these did I have? I had seven 3.5s, four four stars, four 4.5 stars and one five star. One five star. I would like more five stars. I feel like I need more five stars. I'm giving out a lot of 4.5s as you see. Books that are so close, so close but don't quite have that five star feeling, hello? Hi queen. In terms of genre, a very wide array of genres as I always like to have, I read two contemporary books, four fantasy books, one horror book, one memoir, two mystery, I'd like a few more mystery, three non-fiction, two romance, one sci-fi, one thriller. I mean, a mix of everything. There's room for everyone, let's just say that. Four non-fiction, four non-fiction guys, four. She's incredibly intelligent. People, it would scare them if they knew how smart she is. I love reading, you know, we know this but I love reading a wide mix of genres. That makes me happy. 16 novels, one was a graphic novel. I'd love to read more graphic novels. I love graphic novel but I don't really have many graphic novels on my TBR because I read them as soon as they appear. I read a lot, I did a lot of tandem reading. I did a lot. I have become a bit dependent on the audiobook. The book I'm currently reading I'm going to try and read just physically. That's crazy. I read one book with just the audiobook, 14 with the audiobook and the physical book and two physically and one of them was a graphic novel. So yeah, I have become dependent on the audiobook. I can admit that. I'm going to try and wean myself off this course now. There's just been a lot going on and I have a lot more chores to do than I used to. I'm making dinner every night and sometimes, often I do watch YouTube whilst I'm making dinner but you know when I'm doing the laundry or stuff I often, I was doing laundry before, I don't know why I'm acting as if I've always done my own laundry. Always. I was two years old doing my own laundry. What am I saying? That's the delirium and tiredness. I am so bone deep tired. **** periods. Dina put your middle finger up. You're so lucky you don't have to have periods. Can you imagine if, I can't imagine having a cat. We're getting on a tangent. We're having a cat who's not, is it spayed? Is that the right word? She ain't having no babies. Although we do joke, this is a tangent, we do joke that, or not even really joke, I would be interested in cloning her and just having Dina for the rest of my life. You guys are f***ing crazy. I'm out of here. Because I'm not sure I can live without her. Like that's my f***ing baby. I don't think there's a better cat in the world. Like me and Tom say you can't get a better cat, she's everything. She's perfect. So maybe we'll look into cloning you. Joking, I'm not doing that. In terms of author status, nine were new to me and one was a debut. So a lot of authors I hadn't read from before, which is interesting. And seven were authors I'd read from before. In terms of where the books came from, oh my God, nine were gifted to me. So those are from my TBR, but someone gifted them to me. And then a further four were from my TBR, but I had bought them. Three were books I bought for videos and one was sent to me by the publisher. So that would have been on my TBR as well. So three were not on my TBR, 14 were from my TBR. In terms of the audience, 15 were adult and two were YA. In terms of countries, three books were set in the UK, four were set in the USA, one is in Canada and one is in Antarctica. Antarctica, Antarctica, why did I? Whoa, that went strange. Series status, I didn't do a lot of series reading. 13 were standalones, two were first in the series and two were part. Way few series. In terms of what was first in a series, I'm continuing both of them. I'm continuing A Case of Mice and Murder, The Trials of Gabriel Ward, Murder Mystery series, and I'm continuing Dungeon Caller Carl. So two series we've started. And we've made progress in two, but you know. Oh, I need to update my series spreadsheet. Let's remember to do that, Megan. Colour cover, over half of the books I read had a blue cover. The ****? Let's have some, let's get some variation going on in that, shall we? This, this, this week? A hint for the next video, a hint. Publication year, eight were publica- This is awful. I can't believe I'm filming a video like this, this is crazy. Okay, eight were published in 2025. I have yet to read, and then the rest, there's three from 2023, three from 2024, one from 2019, one from 2020, and one from 2022. I'm yet to read a 2026 release. Yeah, I'm yet to own a 2026 release. I don't own a single 2026 release. I have not, I'm being a good girl, I'm not buying books. I did just buy a lot of books, but I did tell a bit of a lie there. We'll talk about that in the next TBR 200. You'll understand why, you'll understand, you'll completely understand why I just bought five books, four of which we'll be adding to the TBR. But for the most part, I'm not buying books, like I'm really trying to not buy books. I'm trying to keep the TBR down, and I've got a lot of TBR 200 episodes coming in the next quarter, so hopefully we're really going to get the TBR down. Okay, that's enough of stat. Shall we go talk about some of the books that I want to highlight that I read? Goodbye. Okay, this is usually the point where I do my worst books of the quarter. However, I'm not doing that today. This video is going to be shorter than usual, because I had one book I gave two stars. It is a book I can't tell you about. We've got to keep the suspense, we've got to keep the secret. I can't tell you about that book for a long, long, long time. I gave that one book two stars, and everything else was a 3.5 or above. Everything else was something that I enjoyed to some extent, and I don't really feel right about doing a worst book that is four 3.5s and a four star. Like, that's just not... it doesn't work like that. So I just had too good a reading quarter to do a worst book, so that's just the way it works. So we're not doing it. We're not doing it. We're just going to get straight on to the best, and the best... we're going to do my top four, not five, because my fifth one is the last book I gave a 4.5, and it's another book I can't tell you about. You naughty, naughty. You teasing me, you naughty, naughty. There's loads of books I could tell you about that I gave like four stars or 3.5. The two I can't tell you about are the two that I should tell you about. So we're going to do my top four books of the quarter. So shall we just dive into my best books? Okie dokie. Number four on my list of best books of the quarter is The Beast of Littleton Woods by T.E. Kinsey. I'm up to date. I'm up to date with the Lady Hardcastle series. It's really emotional for me. I don't want to talk about it. It's very sad. Yeah, hard to talk about. It really is emotional. This was my first book of the year. It was the perfect book for my first book of the year because I moved in like the first week of the year, and so it was just the perfect thing. It was the perfect thing. Lady Hardcastle and Flo. I don't know what number this is. I'm deep in 12 maybe. I don't know. This is a murder mystery series set in Edwardian England, like 1910s, and we're following Lady Hardcastle and Flo, best mates. Flo is her maid, but they're also best mates, as they solve murder mysteries together. And this one, there was a beast. Beast? How dare you? There was a beast in Littleton Castle, tearing people apart, babes, and they have to figure out, like, is this a person reenacting beast, beastly murders, or is it something else going on? And it was just a great time. Listen, we don't need to spend too long on this because I am number 12 in this series. No one's going to pick this book up on my recommendation, but you will pick up Lady Hardcastle at some point. If you're a regular of my channel, just know it's in your destiny to read Lady Hardcastle at some point. Everyone who's read it gives me nothing but rave reviews because it is the best. It's the best cozy mystery series you're ever going to read in your life. It's the best. T.E. Kinsey put some ---- in this. I don't know what he does, pen on fire, like, I don't know how he does it, but it's truly outstanding. I always say if you're going to read these though, audiobooks. Don't, you don't need to get the, I just get the physical because I am a sicko, but I think I only started getting the physical books when I was, like, four or five books into the series. I have them all now. I have my collection. But yeah, the audiobook is definitely the way to go. They're just so fun. They're so light, but they have serious stuff that they tackle as well. I love the ones in the town. I love the cast of characters that we have accrued from being in this series. So yeah, just read Lady Hardcastle. What do you want me to say? Number three is one I have just read, and that is Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinaman. I just read this in the vlog where I read your best books for 2025, the books that you guys loved, and this was the win. This was the standout of the vlog. I loved it. So it opens up, um, just come with me quickly. Princess Donut, who is, um, what's his name? What's the name? Carl, dear god. Carl's ex-girlfriend's cat that he's watching jumps out of a window, okay? Come see my cat on her cardboard throne. How we doing? Yes. Oh, she's awoken because she's seen me. Do you know how perfect you are? Oh, she wants the belly. Okay. Sorry, guys. I know I'm just gonna have to stand here for a little while. Oh my god. This is my Princess Donut. Sorry, I'm kind of trapped now. Yeah, I gotta go, baby. Oh, no, no, don't show off your naughty side. Don't show off your naughty, rambunctious side. Okay, we're going. Yeah, the reason I love Princess Donut so much is because she is Dita. They're slightly different breeds, but it's Dita, babe. It's Dita. Anyways, yeah, Princess Donut jumps out the window. He's like, oh my god, it's freezing outside. I need to go get her. He jumps out in, like, his boxes, and then everything in the world gets sucked down into the core of the earth. He witnesses his old neighbor get killed in front of him, and thus begins the dungeon that he has to go into, where anyone who was not inside on earth is still alive. Anyone who was inside at the time sleeping is dead, babe. They're dead. And yeah, he has to fight to survive on this dungeon reality TV show, and it is so fun. It is so fun. It's very, like, video game coded. So, like, he gets loot boxes, and there's bosses he has to defeat, and there's this, like, I said in a, guys, I said in the vlog, oh, the audiobook's great because there's different voices for, like, the announcer or whatever. I know the same guy did the whole audiobook. I didn't say there's different narrators, but there's different voices. He puts on different voice effects for different, like, characters, or, like, you've got this. Welcome to this, boss, or whatever, you know. It's a voice. It's a voice. That's what I meant. This is so fun, and obviously this series is, like, eight books now. I can't wait to get more into it. It is just a romp of a time, babe. It's a romp of a time. I love Donut. I love Crawlers, and, like, I enjoy the slightly different story structure in this. It doesn't follow, like, beginning, middle, end. There's kind of, like, lots of beginning and middle ends across the whole series, and there's gonna be parts of storylines across the whole series. Oh, it's so good. I fear I'm not making any sense. I fear. I'm trying my best here. I'm trying my best here, guys. So fun. I think I'm gonna, like, be giving the whole series tens across the board eventually. Like, it was a great, great time, and I really, really enjoyed my time reading it. Number two, my second favourite book of the quarter is Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang. Oh, home run, babe. Home run. This is a truly outstanding book, and it's a book that I kind of don't think you should know too much going into it. We're on this kind of village on a mountainside. We meet a family, right? We meet the Matsuda family, and particularly their eldest son, but also the mother, and we're following both of them. It's just, like, a fighting family. Like, you're brought up in the society. They are the Sword of Kaigen, this village. So Kaigen is the empire, and they are the sword of it. So they are seen as, like, expert fighters in this village. I think that's all you really need to know. This is an outstanding fantasy standalone. It is a journey. It's a very emotional journey. You'll probably cry. It's so detailed. We're following, like I say, mainly the mother and son in this family, but a lot of other characters as well. And a lot of characters we follow in this book, and they all feel very compelling to me. They all feel well-rounded. They all feel like they have a very satisfying story art or character development. And there's this big thing that happens in the middle, right? So in a normal book, this book would end up 400 pages long, right? You have a big, big thing happen. But then, rather than just leaving after that, we have 200 pages of aftermath. And this is so different than, like, a traditionally published book. I can see... I don't know if a book like this would ever be traditionally published, right? We get to spend so much time with these characters, seeing the aftermath of something that we don't usually see the aftermath of. We usually see these big fights or battles or whatever in a fantasy series. But then to sit with that, to sit in the silence, to sit in the... yeah, the aftermath of bloodshed is such an interesting thing that I haven't read a lot of, and I loved it. I thought, craft-wise, this is outstanding. It is outstanding. It is wonderful. I can see why everyone hypes this up. I think it's really deserving. This is one instance where usually I'm like, okay, the authors are not editing enough these days. They need to edit more. This is an instance where, if this was traditionally published, so much of this would be edited out, and I'm glad it isn't. I think this book deserves to sit at what? How many pages are we? Just over 600 pages. Nothing is wasted. Everything is there for a reason. She's incredible. She's a beautiful person. Her talent and brilliance is beyond. And it was so good. It was so good. And my best book of Q1 is a nonfiction, and it is Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney, my only five star of the quarter. You guys, go read this book. It's so good. Listen, I'm a Janey lover. You guys know I'm a Janey lover. I love Jane Austen. I adore her. She does a lot for me, because she counsels me. She helps me. She's made me who I am today. She is my best friend. And this book is all about the female authors that Jane Austen would have been reading at the time that she was alive, the authors that would have inspired her, the authors that she references in some of her books. And it's many things, right? This is a story of Rebecca Romney. Where do I start? Okay, her job as a rare book dealer, rare book finder, seller, her journey of finding out which authors Jane Austen would have been inspired by, that author going through the synopses and describing what happens in their books, her experience of reading their books, and talking about that author's life, because obviously these women are living at a time when women had a lot less rights, and some of these women were like controlled by their husbands, or like, you know, having to live a really difficult life in order to write, or whatever. But some were also just really successful authors. But we learn about their life as well. There's so much going on in this nonfiction, and it all weaves in and out perfectly. It's not like a section on this, a section on this, a section on this. For each woman, all those things are blended and amalgamated into a chapter. And it is so good. It is so good. I loved learning about these women. Obviously, you guys know, my kind of other, I love Janie. And then my favorite kind of nonfiction is forgotten women throughout history. I find the way that history has been written by men, about men, infuriating. And I, a lot of my nonfiction that I love is really talking about like, bringing a voice to women who maybe haven't had a voice for a while. And I loved that element of this. But I also loved, I felt like I learned more about Janie. And sorry, I know I shouldn't call her Janie. She's just my best friend. Like, I love her. And I feel quite protective over her, saying in the blog, and like someone to my patrons, like, I feel this deep love for her. And I feel quite sad about Jane Austen, because she died so young. And we got so few Jane Austen books, and she never saw the success that she had in her lifetime. Like that all makes me very sad. And so feeling like I'm learning more about her, learning about the books she would write, or little excerpts that she wrote to her sister about this author or whatever. I really, really loved that side of it as well. This is so well written. It is just like, a masterstroke of a book. It is done perfectly. Like what this book sets out to do, it does it perfectly. So it's also just a love letter to reading and to books. And I love the history of it. I don't, I can't speak highly enough of it. It is perfect. Everything that we work for is right here. You guys need to go give this book a go. It is truly marvellous. You know, I feel like everyone who I've seen read it has really enjoyed it for a reason. I read it for my patron book club, most successful book club pick I think we've ever had. Everyone gave it between a four and a five. No one gave it less than a four. I loved it. I want more Rebecca Romney books, please. I want, and I also want to read more Janey. I have Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley, and I feel like I need to get to that because it makes me, I just love her. I just love her. So wonderful, wonderful, wonderful nonfiction with so many of my intersecting personal interests. Oh, it was so good. So there we have it friends. That is my quarterly wrap up for January, February and March. A little bit shorter than usual because like I say, it was not worth doing a worst books because I don't want to dunk on books I gave 3.5 stars. Like there is some negative things to say about those books, but for the most part I enjoyed them. So I'm putting them as worst. Just didn't sit right with me. Especially, I'd have to put a four star on there. Are you kidding me? I'm not putting a four star on my worst books. Um, but anyways, thank you guys so much for watching. Please let me know how your first quarter of 2026 went in terms of reading down below. I would love to know, did you love your reading? Did you not get any five stars? Let me know some of your standouts, hits or misses from the quarter. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.