Hey there! It's Olivia-Savannah here from
Olivia's Catastrophe and today I'm here
to give you a video where I recommend
books based on my mug collection. I've
chosen
10 of the mugs from my collection and
I've got 10 books to recommend you
based on the mugs. Some of the mugs are
very specific to fandoms
but I tried to be a bit creative with
how I recommended you books.
We're going to start with my favourite
mug which is my Raven Cycle mug. I
really love it because it just goes
through
every Raven Cycle book and it's got the
item from the cover on it. And it's put
it all together and it looks gorgeous. So instead of recommending you the Raven
Cycle as I would probably do if I was,
you know, really recommending based on
the mug. I'm gonna recommend you a book
that has to do with dreams because
in the Raven Cycle series dreaming is a
big running theme
because of a certain someone. And so
I decided I'm gonna recommend a book
based on dreams that I recently read and
enjoyed.
And that is Dreamology by Lucy Keating. So this one
is a young adult contemporary but it's
kind of got some magical realism,
fabulism elements to it because the main
character in this one
dreams about this boy every single night. She's called him Max.
And they go on adventures and they have
really cute romance
times. And she moves house to another
city.
And when she goes to school one day,
guess who's sitting there in her class?
Her dream boy, Max. And it's about what it
means that he's suddenly there in class.
If he's the same
boy from her dreams or not and how she's
going to navigate
everything that she learns in light of
meeting him. So
I really enjoyed this book. It kind of
took me by surprise because I didn't
expect to enjoy it as much as I
did. And it was a lot of fun and I would
recommend it if you like young adult
contemporaries and you're interested
in dreams and dreaming like I am. Next
mug is one I'm so excited to show you
and it's my
bard to the bone mug which features
Shakespeare on it. I really
really wanted a Shakespeare mug and this
one
just has Shakespeare on it. It says to be or
not to be on it. It's got like, the mask
from
theater and I think it does a fantastic
job of being a Shakespeare mug but not
for a particular play.
Rather than recommending you a
Shakespeare play because I want to do
future videos on Shakespeare I am going
to recommend you
a series by Ian Doescher. So let me just
put down the mug for a second because I
have to show you these. They're not in a particular order. We've
got The Jedi Doth Return. We've got The
Empire Striketh Back and we've also got
William Shakespeare's Star Wars which is
actually the first one. I think these are
backwards. I love Star Wars. I really love Star Wars.
I really love Shakespeare. These books
put them together.
So if you know a lot about Star Wars you
might know that the creator of Star Wars
also
used a lot of Shakespeare. There's so
many parallels you can draw between
Shakespeare and Star Wars
and this series draws them. They're
basically retellings of the Star Wars
films but they're written in
Shakespearean
language. And it's a playscript. And it's
also got
really really nice illustrations which
are done
by an artist I really like. There are no
bad illustrations on this book. They
are all
done so well. If you love Star Wars
and if you have any inkling of enjoying
Shakespeare or just comedy in general,
you're gonna like these. The next mug I have to show you I got
from my parents for my birthday and that
is my penguin classics mug. I chose A
Room
of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. I
really like this essay. I think it's a
really ahead of its time essay
in terms of feminism, in terms of
creative works and what is required.
It is not intersectional feminism but
for its time she was already like, way
ahead okay, so
I'm gonna forgive that element to it. But
I really do like that classic and I
really
love penguin classics. I like the
paperbacks. I like the cloth bounds and
I'm trying to collect them. But I haven't gotten very far just
because I haven't focused on collecting
them much. But I do collect them here and
there. So rather than recommending to you A
Room of One's Own which I'm kind of doing
sideways, like, read Room of One's Own. I'm
also going to recommend you
one of the books from my penguin
classics collection that I recently read
and really really enjoyed.
And that is Paradise Lost by John Milton. I did not expect to love Paradise Lost
this much but I think I have a thing
for early biblical retellings. Like, Adam
and Eve or the creation stories. I think
I really like seeing those retold in the
classics. It's written in verse so it's the
classical like, novel in verse. It's
christian epic essentially. It's a
christian epic that John Milton made
and it follows the fall
of Satan.
And it's about the Garden of Eden and
the story that goes on there.
And it was just everything I wanted. I
really like
the language and this kind of writing. I
really like
reading a different take on the Garden
of Eden story.
In this one because you get Satan's
perspective you get to see what Satan's
thinking and feeling
and planning. And maybe the angels are
not as perfect as you think they are. And it was just perfect. It was long but
it was worth every single
bit of my time. It's split into books kind
of like how plays are split into acts. I think some of the later books were
unnecessary and I was just like, okay, I'm
just reading this.
But it inspired me so much. The next mug
currently reading.
This is the first bookish mug that was
ever in my collection.
And I am not going to recommend you what
I'm currently reading just because I
don't feel comfortable recommending what
I'm currently reading because I don't
know if I love it yet or not. It takes time. But I'm going to recommend a
book where reading is
a main part of it. And that is going to
be Underneath it All
by Patricia Vanasse. This is a indie
author book
so extra extra reason to read it.
Underneath it All follows London who is
this boy
who gets accepted into a very
prestigious school because he wins a
competition. And he's not used to being amongst such
rich children. And and he gets sucked into the main
clique in the school who are very
broken even though they're a tight
friends group. And then a mystery happens
and they're trying to solve the mystery.
And it just escalates. This book was
way deeper than I expected when I went
in. I fell for all of the characters. I
was so intrigued in what was happening. I
wanted to know
the answer to the main mystery that's
put forward. I wanted to see
if this friends group was gonna survive
everything that they were going through. It was intense. It was a lot and I just
did not expect to love this one as much
as I did.
There are some major content warnings. I'm going to try and warn them as best
as possible down below. However, it has
been
a few years since I've read this book. Okay, the next mug I have for you is the
only mug that I have with the lid. And that's my TARDIS mug. I'm a huge
Whovian. However, my Whovian-ness is
limited. It is only for doctors 9 10
and 11. 10 is my favourite doctor.
11 I really really like. 9 is just my
OG.
So for this we're gonna time travel a
little bit and I'm gonna recommend you a
historical fiction book. And the book I'm actually recommending
you is Blood's Game
by Angus Donald. However, I don't have
this book in physical form
so I'll hold up the sequel which is
Blood's Revolution by Angus Donald. But
just know I'm recommending you the first
book because that's the one I liked the
most out of this series.
So this one is set in historical England
underneath
Charles II reign. And it
follows what's happening in the royal
palace under Charles II. And there's
quite a conspiracy going around
but it also follows hang of criminals
who
are trying to cheat their way into
getting money and getting power.
And it also follows the son of one of
those criminals
who is autistic. It's not explicitly
stated that he is
autistic but if you read the author's
note the author does say he's autistic
but didn't want to
give it the autistic label because back
in that time and that time period
he would not have gotten that official
label. So
we're following all those three in
different scenarios. And they all tie in
together perfectly with this conspiracy
that's going on in the royal family. But I did not expect to care about our
autistic main character
as much as I did. I thought he was
fantastic. I really loved his character. I really loved the ending of the series.
The climax was
full of suspense and it was so high and
twisty and turny for me. And I also ended up really loving this
gang of criminals and really caring
about them.
And I did not expect to love those grey
area characters so much.
Because they were not good people but I
was here and rooting for them.
And I think this is an underrated
historical fiction series.
The second one's not as good but it was
still pretty good. I just didn't like
what it did with a certain person's
character.
But it was still worth the time and I do
recommend this series to you.
Next up I have a mug that says no
mourners no funerals. And this is a Six
of Crows mug. I got this as soon as I
finished Six of Crows. I actually was
looking
for a Jesper mug. However, I couldn't find
any designs of a Jesper mug that I liked. I did see a lot of designs where Jesper
was white and I was like: why are they
whitewashing Jesper's character??
No thank you. So I couldn't get any of
those ones and then as well as that the
other ones I just didn't really like
them so I went for a one that said
no mourners no funerals. And instead of
thinking of it as a Six of Crow's mug,
I always just think
this is a mug that signifies my love of
Jesper. The recommendation I'm going to
give for you
is to do with the quote though because
no mourners no funerals is a way of
saying
I hope you survive. I hope you don't die.
I chose a book
about surviving but also about not
surviving in a certain way. And I'll leave content warnings down
below. But that is
Aftermath by Clara Kenzie. I was taken
by surprise with this book because the
cover makes it look
like a very young adult contemporary,
happy kind of book.
But it's not that at all. It's emotional
and it's hard-hitting. Along the likes of
Room by Emma Donoghue. We follow our main
character
who is kidnapped as a child. And she's
kidnapped and
kept and continuously
sexually assaulted by her kidnapper for
years. For literal years. But we meet her at the
beginning of her journey when her
kidnapper
falls down the stairs and dies. And once a kidnapper has died the police
come to find him
and also find her. So she gets returned
home
to the family that she has not been a
part of for several years because she
was kidnapped.
And she comes back to a much more broken
and a much more changed family than
she ever expected and fantasized about
all the time that she was in kidnapping.
So essentially she survived a huge
traumatic and horrific experience
and she's also dealing with the
repercussions of this experience the
mental
strain and the mental effect that it has
had on her but not only on her, but on
her whole family.
This book just tore me apart emotionally. I am not a crier when it comes to reading.
I can count on one hand the number of
books I've cried at when I finished
reading them or while I was reading them
and Aftermath is one of them.
That's how hard it was for me to read
this book. But I do think
it's a very good book and
it's emotionally draining but it's worth
the time and effort that it
that it takes to read it. The next mug I
have for you is the Wrought and Ruin mug that
I got in my illumicrate unboxing. So
essentially it's the mug that inspired
this video
completely. This one is based on a book
by V.E Schwab that I have not read
myself. However, I have read two VE Schawb
books and
those were This Savage Song and A Darker
Shade of Magic. And both of those... the
thing that I liked the most about the
book
was the world building and also how you
meet a particular character and you meet
them
in a certain light. So for example
they're a pirate or
they're a monster and so you have a
stereotypical idea of what their
character should be like.
And then she proves to you that that
idea you first had is wrong.
They might be a monster in form but
that's not their personality.
So I like that you meet a person and
then there's
something deeper to them and you feel
bad for having judged them. And I like
her world building skills. So I'm gonna recommend a book that does
both of those things very well as well. That is The V Girl by Mya Robarts.
I love this book so much. I read it once
for review and I reviewed it and I
really talked to the author a lot about
it. And I recently reread it
and it was still so good. It was still
perfect. So I was like: wow, this is
perfect. I'm going to recommend it to you. So in
this one it's set in a dystopian world,
so it is a dystopia.
And in this one sex slavery is legal. At a certain age girls can become sex
slaves especially for the troops or
soldiers who are supposed to be
protecting them. So it's a very scary
time to be a woman in this dystopian
world. And Lila has
been -- is going to be of age when the
troops reach her city
so what she wants to do is she wants to
lose her virginity on her own accord
and of love rather than it being
forcefully taken for her
from her when she's in sexual slavery.
So that's basically the premise of this
book. But there's so much more because
Lila has a lot of ties with her family. She also ends up talking and discussing
a lot about sex
that I don't see discussed a lot in
other books. Even though she's quite
young as a main character,
this is definitely a new adult. I thought
the romance in this one or
if you call it romance, or what romance
you do get, was very steamy
and very well done. I really liked how it
unpacked character
and the world building was a plus. So I
really recommend this book.
I have a habit of collecting mugs and
not really drinking from them,
but this is one that's in drinking use. And that is my penguin winter mug.
This one was gifted to me by one of my
best friends, Yana.
And she is absolutely amazing. And I
switch and use this mug during the
winter autumn months. So that's when I
use this mug. And I drink all my tea from
this mug. It can fit a lot of tea
because it's really big. And for that one
I'm going to be recommending
a book that's set during the winter time.
I really wanted to recommend The Mercies
but I decided I would settle on
recommending
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende.
So in this one
is three characters who have a big
backstory. They all come together
over death that happens and the fact
that
these three characters have stumbled
together and there's a dead body between
them. And it's about
what happened. How did they get that dead
body and what are they going to do with this
dead body. But also the back stories that have led
them all to being in the same place
at the same time. And in the same
situation. We follow
three main characters. One of them is a
refugee who has no documentation and
she's just trying to
survive in the US. One of them is from
Chile and she has got a very extensive
past in Chile
which has to do with her family and also
the
missing peoples in Chile. And then the
other one comes from Guatemala
and also has some backstory there. So it
was
a very interesting book for me because I
learned a lot about some countries in
Latin America and some of the situations
that they have there,
and some of the historical events that
have happened that I didn't know about. And I learned about them through reading this
book. I also really really loved how
integrated the cold and wintery setting
was in this book. I think
the setting was integrated well and it
was beautifully described.
And I also liked the look on character
and how their characters developed
not only over the course of this novel
and the time period of the events that
happen in this novel,
but because you get to hear about how
their backstories have made them are
who they are today. You get to also see
that longer character development
from their backstories to where they end
up at the end of the novel, as well as
where you meet them in the novel to the
end of the novel. And I found that
duality
absolutely and spectacularly wonderfully
done. The
second to last mug is the Algarve mug
that I have.
This I got when I was in Portugal with
my family. I'm gonna recommend a book
which is set in a country and like, the
country is a very big
part of the book. That's going to be A
Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. And this
is actually non-fiction. It's a pretty short essay but it's like,
it's not a pretty short essay -- it's a
pretty short
book but it's a long essay. And it's
about
post colonisation and the effect that it
has had on Antigua. But Jamaica Kincaid
talks about her history
with Antigua and like, her memories. But
as well as it being a personal book
about her memories and what she
remembers
of the thriving country, it's also about
how colonialism has
deconstructed it and essentially ruined
the country. And left it in a much worse state after
they got their independence than when
they began. And
yeah, it was just beautifully balanced
between her personal memories and her
personal experiences,
and then the facts the hard truth of what's
left behind, 
what this means. And I thought it was
fantastically done. And then last but not
least we have the most basic mug.
But it is the mug that started off my
mug collection.
We have a lot of mugs in our house and I
decided I wanted one that was mine.
And I got this mug which says Shopaholic
on it. And it has this like,
this lady shopping on the mug. And it's
so basic
but this is the one that I use. I have it in
use summer and spring.
The book I'm going to choose is a book
that I shouldn't have bought but I did
because this is a shopaholic mug. So
you've known that I've been on a
year-long
buying ban. But to practice for my
year-long buying ban...
I did have a month break after my
six-month buying ban and then I went on
my year-long lying ban.
But I had a false start with my
six-month buying ban. I saw that a book I
really wanted was on a discount and I
decided to buy it.
And then I restarted my six-month buying
ban. So that's the shopaholic element. I
bought a book
that I shouldn't have bought and that
book was Dracul
by Dacre Stoker and JD Barker. But I am so
so so glad I bought it because I loved
this book
so much. So I'm a huge fan of Dracula
and vampires. I really like vampires if
you can't tell from my Twilight Read it 
backwards series.
But just know that my love of vampires
extends beyond the Twilight saga. It goes
to more books
and Dracula is one of them. I really love
Dracula and this one
is a prequel to Dracula written by
somebody who is
related to Dracula. That's Dacre Stoker... Bram
Stoker
relation and co-written by JD Barker.
So Dracul is set before Dracula and
in this one Bram is actually a main
character because Bram Stoker claims
that the reason he wrote
Dracula was because of true events that
did happen to him. So this is
the idea of what those true events could
have been based on
notes and research and ideas that Bram
Stoker left behind in documentation.
The vampire story that leads on to the
creation of Dracula and Dracula being
the way that Dracula is. The authors did a very good job of
writing in the writing style of Bram
Stoker. They captured the atmosphere so
well and it was just such a good vampire
story with
just the right amount of slow gothic
creepiness that I absolutely loved in
Dracula. And it was just everything I
needed and more.
In this one it is slow paced and steady
but it's kind of
how classics are. Classics tend to be
slow paced and steady and it just
captured that
perfectly. So there you have it. Those are
10 of my mugs and
10 books that I'm recommending based on
those mugs. Please let me know in the
comment section down below:
have you read any of these books? Are you
interested in reading any of these books?
And do you collect mugs as well? Give
this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it,
hit that subscribe button if you want to
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video. And you know what they say:
onwards and upwards. Excelsior!
you
