Hi guys! It's Olivia here from Olivia's
Catastrophe and today I'm here to talk
to you about the books that I never get
to talk about on my channel. There is
just, you know, wrap-ups, books and I've
read ages ago before I was a booktuber
and also with tags, you know, I feel like
the questions lend to sometimes
featuring the same type of books. So I
just wanted to make a video where I got
to talk to you about some of the books
that I love or really enjoyed. And I
just never really talked about them on
my channel. So I've got a top ten here to
show you. I could do more videos like
this because I actually was looking through
my shelves and I was like: oh, there's so
many to feature! So if you enjoy this
video let me know in the comment section
down below if you want more videos on
books that I love but just never really
get the chance to feature on my channel.
So let's get started with some childhood
favourites. And for this I want to mention
Roald Dahl. He is a doll. Like, I absolutely
love his books. I think him and Dr. Seuss
are some of my favourite children's
authors. I think he was a genius. When I
was younger I basically went through and
read all of his books. The one that I'm
showing you here -- the lighting is
really bad but it's the BFG which I
absolutely adored. And actually Roald
Dahl is really special to me because
when I was younger I wasn't that keen on
reading Dutch. I was a child who was a
big reader and I was very quick when I
was reading in English. So when I tried
to switch to Dutch it really slowed me
down and I tried not to read books in
Dutch. But I have De GVR which is the
BFG in Dutch and I also have De Griezels
and some other Dutch Roald Dahl books. So
I feel like this is one book that shows
that I am quite Dutch sometimes because
I read Roald Dahl in Dutch. That's how
much I loved his work. So it was good
enough for me to try it in another
language even though I read the English
versions first. He is so creative. He is
so funny and if you don't let your
children read Roald Dahl I don't know
what y'all doing cuz he's brilliant. And
then I also need to mention Judy Blume
who was basically the author of my
pre-teen age. The one I want to show you
the most is Deenie but I also read Are You
There God It's Me Margaret and also
Blubber. So all of these books were quite
important to me for different reasons.
First of all Deenie
is a character who has scoliosis, I
believe. And it was the first time I was
learning
anything about scoliosis. I absolutely
fell for that book when I was younger
and I joined a writing website where I
was a member for several years. So people
there know me as Deenie with a different
spelling. So if you're watching this and
you used to be with me on YWS, you know
who I am. And then Are You There God It's
Me Margaret is basically this
groundbreaking novel that has been
banned in so many places because it came
out like a long time ago. And it's about,
you know, this girl who's going through
puberty and it talks about masturbation
and some other things that people
weren't too happy that Judy Blume was
writing about. I remember sitting down
with my sister and we were just chanting:
we must we must increase our bust
because of this book. And I thought it
would work. Last but not least Blubber
which was my first fat girl character.
And I just found the dynamic in this
book and what it said about bullying to
be so interesting as a child. And just
all of these kind of just blew my mind
when I was younger and I was learning
about girl things, growing up things for
the first time. Then I want to talk about
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. What is up with
the lighting? Okay I'll put the books on
this side. It's a little bit better. So
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a book
that I absolutely adore and it's being
made into a movie as of when I'm filming
this.
I just cannot. So this one follows Theo. He is this young child who is in a
terrorist attack in a museum and it
blows up the museum. And while he's there
he's kind of really drawn to this
painting which is the painting of the
Goldfinch. So he kind of escapes out of
the building and he just takes the
painting with him. And then when it's
reported stolen he's just like: man! Now I
can't return the painting. So he just
doesn't. He just keeps it. So he's got
this small painting which is a stolen
masterpiece and it's just him growing up
in the wake of what's happened to him
and just the choices he makes in life.
It's so character driven that I think if
you're not a character driven reader
you're gonna find this one so boring. But
Theo... Theo... he just makes so many bad
decisions the one after the other. And I
just loved learning about him, seeing his
story, the characters he came across
intrigued me from beginning to end. I
chose to write a huge essay on this in IB
and it was just fun for me. I just loved
this book so
much. Then I need to mention Just Listen
by Sarah Dessen which is a young adult
contemporary. And what was surprising to
me about this book was the fact that I
read two other Sarah Dessen books before
this one. I believe they were Lock and Key
and Along for the Ride and I hated them.
I really hated them but I have a policy
of giving authors at least three chances
so this was her third strike or she
would be out. And I rated it five stars.
She completely blew me away and I
understand why everyone loves Sarah
Dessen. I think she's the middle child in
a group of sisters. One of them has an
eating disorder. She is a model and she's
not sure of she enjoys modeling. And she
just meets Oscar who is this guy who has
anger issues. And with him she starts to
learn and discover about listening to
people. And as Jade from Jaded Reader puts
it: active listening. This book kind of
took me on a journey. There's so many
reveals and I hardcore was relating to
the main character all the way through
this one because of the fact that she is
the middle child. And I just... a lot of the
feelings she was feeling about being a
middle child but ones that I could
relate to. I'm not the only middle child
as I'm the third in four. There's another
middle child with me. But yeah, I
definitely related to this one and it
kind of just blew my mind. And it's one of the few books I cried in.
I don't really cry when I read. I think I
can count on one hand how many books I
have cried in. But at some point this one
just drew tears from my eyes and they
weren't even at the sad bits guys. It was
at the happy bit. Then I want to mention
The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. Which is a
book that I read because of the hype and
I got a second hand. It's a alien
invasion novel where these aliens kind
of take over the world and they do so in
waves. And there is one girl who is with
her younger brother and her younger brother
gets taken from her. And she is going to
rescue her younger brother. That's
basically the premise of this one and I
saw this one around book blogs when I
got it and I decided to read it. And I
really did enjoy it,
but the way it ends lends up to there
being another two books. However, reviews
for those two books were really bad and
people say the first one is the only
good one. So I decided that I was only
going to read the first one. And this is
why this is on the list. Because it's
quite a novelty to me at
that time in the past to say I wasn't
going to continue a series if I still
liked the beginning just based on other
people's reviews. I tend to be very
completionist. I tend to want to complete
every series that I start even if I
start to dislike it. So it was quite
revelational that I did
that. And that's why this one is like a
symbol for me in some way. Then we have
Smash And Grab by Amy Christine Parker.
This was one of the first arcs that was
sent to me in physical copy for my book
blog when I was living in the
Netherlands. And I actually really did
enjoy this one. So it follows these two
characters and it's a heist story by the way.
We've got Lexi and Christian. Lexi is a
girl who loves a good adrenaline rush so
she does things that will just give her
a huge rush. Her father is arrested for a
crime that he did not commit.
Lexi has no problem with wanting to
break into the bank to steal the
evidence needed to clear his name. And
then there's Christian who is from the
other side of town.
I believe he's Latinx. He's kind of in
with some gang members and
things like that. And he kind of ends up
getting paired with Lexi in some ways
for this heist situation. It was so fun. I
really enjoyed the characters. It's not
like, a heavy read or anything she's
serious but it was light-hearted,it was
quick, it was fun and it just took me on
a nice ride. So I really did enjoy a
Smash and Grab. Then I want to talk about
some more adult books. So we're gonna
talk about The Alchemists by Paulo Coelho. It's about this guy who's kind of just
goes on this quest to find alchemy which
is something that shouldn't really exist
or be possible. And along this journey -- so
you're basically just going on a journey
with him through a desert and through
different areas. Along this journey he
kind of just learns a lot of life
lessons.
S.ome people love this book and think
it's really deep and emotional and makes
you think about life. I've also
heard the other side of the story where
they just kind of call this cheap
philosophy and nothing else. But when I
read it I loved it. I just feel like it
told me so many stories and I learned so
much wisdom from it so I loved it. My
friend
kind of has the cheap philosophy idea, so
we just laugh about this book all the
time. Then I want to mention The Help by
Kathryn Stockett which is one of my
favourite books of all time. I've been
told it's quite problematic as its
called the white saviour trope. I can't
remember enough to
think or remember if I feel like it was
the white Savior trope when I read it.
But when I read it I enjoyed it so I'm
just gonna go with that judgment. So
we're following different people. There's
Aibileen who is kind of raising a white
child in the house because she's the help.
We've got Minnie who is serving under
someone who's really mean to her. And
we've also got Miss Skeeter who comes home
from college and she wants to know why
her beloved maid has suddenly
disappeared. It basically just follows
these characters in a time of
segregation, in the time of racism. And
the movie adaption to this one which I'm
sure quite a few of you have seen, with
Emma Stone in it, is absolutely amazing.
It's actually one of the best! I would
say it's my top book to film adaption
because they did this book so much
justice. This book is emotional. This book
is very deep and it makes you really
think about history and also the current
racist problems that we face. Then I want
to talk about Animal Farm by George
Orwell which I read back in class. It's
one of the school reads that I really
really loved and I feel like I learned a
lot from it. This is a satirical allegory
story and it follows these animals who
live on a farm and they decide that they
don't want to obey the farmers anymore. And they kind of host a rebellion. At the
same time it's quite a satire of what
was happening in the Russian
Revolution
and you can definitely see the parallels
when you read and study this one. I think
it was written in such a genius way. It
gets its message across, it gets his
themes across. You could read it as like,
a children's story but you could read it
with all the political background to it
as well. Basically, to write like this you
have to be a genius and as we already
know, George Orwell was a genius. So I
just have to applaud this book so much.
And last but not least I want to mention
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon and as
you can see from all those post-it notes
this is one I read for uni. I read this
in my first year of uni. It was actually
one of the first books that I read. And
it's just following these Londoners.
They're actually from the West Indies,
not all of them are Jamaicans who came
across, to move to the UK in the like,
past. But you just get West Indian
characters who have moved to London in
history to kind of... be in the motherland. To make a life for themselves. When they
arrive they're lonely. They miss
home country but at the same time
they're just trying to adjust to London.
Get jobs, be happy, fall in love, things
like tha. Iit's basically just following
these characters lives and this one
really vibed with me. It's written in
patois so it's kind of written in the
Jamaican language which is just English
with an accent but like, it's patois, okay
guys. And yeah, it vibed with me because
this is kind of the story that a lot of
my ancestors have faced. Like my
grandparents generation as both
sets of my grandparents moved to England
from Jamaica. And yeah, I just really felt
personal ties this one as it was a story
that relates to my history, but also just
to see these people struggling in this
immigration and the backlash they get
from Londoners who are like: get out of
the country... Hmm, that sounds like brexit
in the modern day! And it's also
something that lots of immigrants are
facing around the world. So it really striked with me and I felt
like this was such a good classic to
read for all of the cultural reasons.
Studying it was such a blast. And there you have it those are ten
books that are on my shelves that I
don't get to talk about much. I tried to
include some middle grades, some
young adult and some adult. I hope you
enjoyed this video. Please let me know in
the comments section what is one of your
favourite books you just don't talk about
on your channel much or with friends
much? And yeah, I would love to hear from
you guys. Give this video a thumbs up if
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see you in the next one. Goodbye!
