Haha, I did indeed. I knew it wasn’t that and was super embarrassed when I was editing, but I also thought, “Hey, people slip up-maybe someone else has done this and now won’t feel as bad.” 😂
@@ebnovels We all mix up people with similar first or last names when we’re in the moment. At least you’re not the one who laughed before you remembered everything you learned in school🫠
Donkeys are great! They're my dad's favourite animal, so I've heard a lot about them. On top of being great "guard dogs" for livestock and the humans they consider family, they're also naturally amazing therapy animals! They're really soothing to be around. One funny thing about them though is they're scared of water. If there's a puddle blocking the way out, they're not going through it!
I love when people have a video style of making it seem like friends talking to one another. And you are one of those people, even though you can’t hear me.
@@SaintBootI am so sorry that you feel you have no friends! There are lots of really friendly people in various Booktube discords; Booktube, and buddy reads in general, are how I’ve met most of my friends 🩷
Aussie here Definitely break out in American and UK accents randomly. Usually UK to sound posh. The American accent usually shows up when I'm quoting lines from a show or a movie so the accent changes depending on who said the quote originally.
*_hype for libraries!_* As a volunteer, I so wish people were more aware of all the services (& community) available there. It would be so much easier to get support from voters & politicians if folks realized how much all the wonderful professionals there make possible.
It’s a simple thing, but with how horribly hot it is in Arizona, just the fact that libraries offer cooling centers for people is an immense help. Thanks for all you do as a volunteer-that’s incredible!
I remember inhaling Shadowhunters and all of the attached series in high school and I think you nailed it as to why - it was like the constant ANGST for literally EVERYTHING. Characters can't be together *angst.* Father is a bad man *angst.* Friend is neglected *angst.* And I feel like those emotions drove the story and made me keep reading because I just wanted to feel resolution so badly. Another thing that really bothered me was how the book read like a reader insert for the author, but it was a little TOO self indulgent. As soon as that thought crossed my mind I felt really uncomfortable and couldn't unsee it
Ohh, that sounds so fun! I sadly don’t speak Spanish, but my mom’s side is Cuban, but living in AZ, I hear more Mexican people speak Spanish, and the difference is so interesting. Have you ever watched TH-cam videos of people trying to explain what different accents of Spanish sound like? It’s pretty cute :D
In my house we’re the opposite we’re in Spain and will sometimes break out into Mexican or Argentinian accents! Likewise we’re English so will go into terrible Irish, Aussie or American accents (we also imitate bad English accents though 😂)
If it helps we have donkeys. They are very smart. They have excellent memories. People think they’re stubborn but really they’re smart enough to play out scenarios and remember if there was something that happened that they didn’t enjoy. We also have horses and they’re constantly trying to unalive themselves but donkeys can absolutely care for themselves. My donkeys, if caught in the wild would make it, my horses not so much.
Donkeys are a wonderful spirit animal. I’ve worked with a lot of animals, and donkeys are the smartest, and cleverest. They have options…they’ll run from a predator, or they’ll fight. They’ll mooch your lunch. They’re not afraid to greet you enthusiastically. And they have a reputation for being stubborn because they have their own opinion about your dumb human agenda. 😆 Sure, the big cats are flashy, but donkeys are way more cool.
I sort of wanted more CW drama from Sword Catcher than I got 😅 but I also felt like it was a choice naming a character Kel who has a similar role to a Kel in another popular fantasy series. Like someone on her team had to have made that connection
Hahaha, I’m surprised no one at least encouraged renaming him? There were just so many parallels that the name seemed the easiest to tweak. CW drama seems like a good way to describe the vibe 😂
I love my local library! I do get some books physically from them since I love physical books, but I made a spreadsheet for my TBR and out of the 400-something books on there almost all of them are free on either Libby, Hoopla, or Cloud Library which are the ones my Library uses. I also have Kindle and Audible on my sheet to see which ones are on Kindle Unlimited or Aubible Plus for free, and then to help me look for things during sales or getting the best value out of my Audible credits.
Matthew Hanover writes contemporary heterosexual romance from the male perspective only. His first book is Not Famous. I really like his second book Not Dressed the best. Each book is in the same universe so there is cameos of previous characters in the later books, but you could out of order and it wouldn't ruin the story. Most romance that I have read from just the male perspective is male male romance.
I wish I had DNF'd Sword Catcher 😑 I struggled through to the end hoping it would pick up with some action or political intrigue but was sorely disappointed. I finished the audiobook and immediately looked up rant reviews hoping I wasn't alone in that experience 😅
I'm Irish and the accents that i break into a lot are British, Scottish, Australian, Southern American and Russian lmao I also have personal beef with Cassandra Clare over her weird siblings thing so I'll never be picking up a book of hers 😭
Re accents, absolutely yes. I'm Australian and I feel like English or Irish accents emerge more naturally than U.S. accents but they definitely do come up
I've found Hoopla surprisingly useful for books that I didn't expect to find audiobooks for. Both for backlist (Comicbook tie-in novels from the 90s) and more recent, but more niche stuff (Currently working through The Laundry Files, by Charles Stross) I do wish the search function wasn't so bad and I could check out more than 4 things a month.
Omg, when you did your southern twang I laughed so hard. Yes, I randomly speak in a British accent and a southern accent and a Minnesotan accent, and I am from Missouri. ;-) lol
I think the ending saved Swordcatcher for me (because the info dumping at the beginning was brutal and the middle was a mashup of stuff that's been done), but I am hopeful that there will be a big improvement in the second book. Mostly I want additional POV characters because I think that's what she does best. I think what helped me, though, was that I was avoiding other stuff when I picked it up, which is also how I started the Shadowhunters. Like 5 or 6 books were out and I had midterms my senior year of college, lol.
About the accent thing; I'm french-canadian from Quebec, and yeah we imitate accents ALL THE TIME. Parisian French, specific rural accents to sound "hick", and then the "elderly dialect", I guess? Basically there's a marked generational gap between my parents' vs grandparents' accents. The only English accent I can do successfully is the valley girl, make of that what you will lol
I live in the US. Yes, I do random accents all the time. Sometimes Southern, usually Georgia. I'll do Australia or English (no idea where), Scottish... it's really whatever comes out. I'm not sure if I always have control of it at this point.
Two of my favorite contemporary romances (YA) have male perspectives. I'd love to know what you think of them if you've read them! The first is, Frankly in Love by David Yoon, the second is The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. Both have the same male narrator. I usually stick to YA/soft fantasy books but I loved these so much. I hope you are able to find a romance book with a male perspective that you enjoy!
My Dad used to do a donkey bray and he sounded exactly like a donkey, he had the whistle down and everything. So everyone associated him with donkeys. He would collect donkeys as well. So I have a soft spot in my heart for them. As far as A Tempest of Tea, I definitely felt like you at first, but I became more invested I went on. There were undertones in interactions that definitely hinted to more going on that later led to some big reveals. It wasn't a perfect book, but I did enjoy it.
Ooh fab video. Also as a scottish person, I do randomly do Valley girl, New Yorker or Southern belles accents spontaneously throughout the day. Also cackled at the Anne Frank/Lisa Frank mixup haha
Hahaha, I’m glad that made you cackle! I’m tremendously embarrassed, but people are people, and we mess up sometimes, and in ways that are so dramatically incorrect that it’s funny 😂 Also, the random accents thing is so interesting to me. I now want to look more into this topic 👀
I really enjoy epistolary novels, but in A Letter to the Luminous Deep I kept getting confused on who was writing to who and if it was from before the people disappeared or after. I DNFed as well. (Not a spoiler, very start of the book you find out they disappear.)
I'll never recover from the story of you going to read to a miniature donkey for your birthday, that sounds like such a magical time. The library has been my sanctuary since I re-discovered it a couple years ago. If I want to write, draw, work on D&D, that's where I go. For male perspectives in romance, have you read Abby Jiminez' works? She writes wonderful male leads and the perspective shifts between the male and female protagonist regularly. I really enjoyed Yours Truly and Part of your World.
I didn't finish Sword Catcher either and it was literally for the exact same reason. I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking it. The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking "I've already read this before". It wasn't the most unique of concepts and she didn't do anything to make it stand out on it's own. I've seen the concept done better in other series. I also felt like the story dragged a bit and was taking to long to get to the point. Instead of world building, the first couple chapters just had the characters not really doing anything other then hanging around a brothel. So I ended up losing interest because it shouldn't take so many chapters to get the story started. I do have to say kudos to her though because it must have been hard to make a completely new world and story outside of her shadow hunter series and it's great to see authors branch out into something new.
I had really recently read the Shades of Magic series when I read Sword Catcher and I agree that the set up around Kel seemed VERY similar. I did end up finishing it, and it was fine, but I don’t know that I’ll continue.
As a person that breaks out random accents on the regular, yes. I am American, living in the south eastern region (less southern, more beachy). I have an accent to pull out at any given time mostly British (proper queens), Irish (peaky blinders mixed with whimsy), Eastern European (Jester from Critical role) and an assortment of American accents. If I hear it and it tickles my ears I have to say it. It’s a compulsive reaction that I am often called out for and aware of but yet it’s there and it happens every time. So I apologize in advance if I mimic your accent and you were offended. 😳💀
My husband and I are British and very much guilty of doing accents - usually in an inappropriately comedic fashion... My best friend from college moved to the US many years ago but the only word she ever says in a US accent is "Sure!" so that's the only time we use a US accent too. But we have a whole range of different British accents we use (Home Counties to be posh, and terrible Northern and South Western accents for comedy value) - we also sometimes dip into French and Spanish...
Brazilian here, descendant of Portuguese and Italian (among others), and yeah, will just go into Italian or European Portuguese accents jokingly for emphasis, or to make a point, or for certain characteristic words, or just because the accent is in my blood
Cassandra Clare most definitely has this thing where everyone is in love/has the hots for someone. In the latest series I read of hers - the last hours - it got really out of hand and reached a lever that was just too much 😅
My miniature donkey's name is Bows. And she would love to be read to! I have a pretty obvious southern accent that doesn't allow me to break into another accent even if I wanted to. However, the strength of it changes depending on who I'm talking to as do some of the words I use.
Southern accents are hard to get correct in written dialogue, even for authors who are native speakers of said accent. There has to be a happy medium between common vernacular and local dialect for it to really work. It's a lot like writing a bilingual character. Idk. I have mixed feelings on it. I think a lot of us in the south spent so long being told to "speak right" that when we go full banjo it can def be jarring. I get the author being proud of their accent, but I also agree with what you are saying.
I read The Bromance Book Club, an adult contemporary romance from a male perspective and really enjoyed it! I also heard the Talia Hibbert books have both male and female perspectives!
Hie Elliot! Thanks for doing these videos, I love to listen to your book content. Please could you consider giving a brief synopsis of each book like you do in your older videos so that we don't have to go and search for the descriptions on goodreads. It'd be really nice. Thanks again! Hope you keep putting more content cause we love to see it!
I definitely break out into random accents (American). I live in the south, but don't have a southern accent, but I will break out in a southern accent as well. The main drive behind that is there are certain phrases i like to use that are from other cultures and it just sounds weird to not use an accent.
I'm from the UK and from Somerset (in the South West) me and my friends don't slip into an American accent for jokes or things but we tend to put on an accent from a different part of the UK, usually Northern/Yorkshire or a Bristol accent as we're so close to there but I have a stronger Somerset accent so sometimes they jokingly put on a strong accent like mine
Pairing people up is absolutely a Cassandra Clare thing (fan fiction influence probably). I read The Infernal Devices after reading only the very first Shadowhunter book and I understood it fine. But I'm not an expert on the other series, I checked out of reading CC books after this (ok I read a a couple Magnus Bane stories because he's a great character). Her stuff just doesn't appeal to me. The character from Swordcatcher sounds soo similar to Shades of Magic, for an author known for being accused of plagiarism it's an odd choice. :D
I love my local libraries!!! Except it's really sad how many ppl with no manners there are these days, who are just loud and making unnecessary noises... and some hobo-y people. Also, it's so hard to DNF books after you're like 50-100 pages in (at least for me). Props for doing it properly!
If it's not too hard, when you discuss multiple books, could you please put the names of the books into the video description? I'm usually listening to your videos while doing something else and sometimes simply miss the names and have to look at the transcript to find them. Thanks ❤️
I wanted to loved Sword Catcher so bad. I LOVE her Shadowhunter series. I’ve read all of them multiple times but Sword Catcher was just flat. I felt like the book should have just been called “A Day in The Life of the Citizens of Castilane(so)”. I felt like nothing by actually happened in the book. I’m going to try the second one because I did feel like I could see the story she was trying to set up but meh
Are you a snow leopard? Do you randomly bite your husbands arm? Do you like to hold your tail (chew your hair I guess)? Do you snuggle at every opportunity?
I understand I completely agree with you with Loyalty Luke I felt the same way 📖📖📚📚📖📙📙📙📖📙📙📖📖📖📙📖📚📚📖📖📙📖📚📙📙📖📖📖🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
YES!! All Cassandra Clare does is set up love triangles and every single person just HAS to be INLOVE within 3 chapters. Like nobody is ever single. It’s soooooooo boring and predictable
If ur looking for books that have six of crows vibe i recommend reading there will come a darkness series trilogy. Idk if u have read it yet but not a lot of people seems to talk about it
@@ebnovels it’s mostly back from her fanfiction days as far as I remember, but I think someone did also accuse her of stealing ideas for Shadowhunters.
Californian here. Never once stepped foot in the South, let alone lived there, yet occasionally will break out in a Southern accent. Turns out the area i live in has a very unique dialect descended from the Okies migrating to California due to the Dust Bowl 😂 The More You Know
Oh no! 😂 I mentioned to another commenter that I left that in, because I knew I couldn’t have been the only one who accidentally did that. Good to know that’s accurate!
I read Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky and really liked it. Was a shorter book and was the first thing I read from him. I think he is like Kingfisher in the respect that you may not like one book but a different one you might enjoy. All that to say, I hope you try something else of his and like it 😊
Ah, yes, I did dnf that one. I found the concept and characters really charming, but the writing style felt a little detached for my taste. Definitely wasn’t a situation where I dnf’d it because I was hating it, though!
I haven’t read a Cassandra Clare book for a long time, just after the Shadowhunters tv show she just seemed, like not a nice person, but isn’t she also known for plagiarism?
The original immortal instruments are the worse books of shadow hunters but a good indroduction in some ways world building as when clary mets the world., the edwardian London and before age books are good , as is the dark artifices set after the immortal Instruments , so bascly any as clary not as the main character.
DId I miss why you DNF'd Botanical Daughter? You said you'd explain but I dont think you did? It's one I was interested in reading so now I'm curious lol.
I read A Letter to the Luminous Deep (NetGalley e-ARC) and it disappointed me. There are other epistolary books that I truly enjoyed, but either they mixed letters and traditional narrative or they were a lot shorter (novella-length, basically). I agree that the different characters were difficult to distinguish because their writing styles were the same. Also, in trying to avoid traditional narration, the author wrote letters that felt forced (e.g. 2 characters meet, but we only hear the details in letters they wrote to each other afterwards). Ultimately, I gave it 3 stars, but I actually think it's more like a 2.5/5. Too bad. I was excited to read speculative fiction taking place in an underwater world.
I’m American but break into an Australian accent from time to time lol. I just really like how they sound, and there’s so many British accents that I don’t even bother 🤣
Donkeys everywhere? Sounds like my dating life! I remember thinking that City of Stardust felt too YA, and that it made no sense for the MC to have no information when everyone else her age does. And the other world didn’t seem worth saving. Letter to the Luminous Deep is a “cozy fantasy” that I think just had pacing problems. And the way the author tried to cram every single identity into four characters felt offensive after a while, especially because it made it hard to track how anyone was getting together and having kids, without that information/world building given. (This is becoming a trope in other genres that’s hard to talk about, but right now there are a lot of books with queer characters and then a lot of 11th hour tap dancing to explain why so many queer women still had babies with hetero men. I love diversity in my reading, but not when authors cynically check boxes this way, especially in these low-edit paperback-only releases.)
Re the accents, I'm in New Zealand and can confirm among peers there is a lot of breaking out in foreign accents, mostly British or USA Southern. A lot of ALLO GUVNA or YALL COME BACK NOW
As a born and raised Southerner, when people imitate a Southern accent, it normally turns into mocking real fast. It's put on when they want to sound incompetent or backwards. I'm not a fan of that, despite not having the accent myself as my parents spent most of their lives in southern California. I tend to shy away from any lit about the South unless it's written by a Southerner who won't look down us and our country ways. lol
A letter to the luminous deep love this book and the cover is gorgeous sorry it didn’t work out for you 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞📚📙📙📚📚📙📚📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📚📙📙📙📙📙📖📖📖
I'm in Tucson and while it's too hot right now, I'm so curious which library yall went to cause I absolutely want to read to a donkey the next chance I get!
I’d still say give it a try! I just felt a tiny bit disconnected from the characters, but the writing is quite charming, so there’s a good chance you’d still like it :)
I also diskiked sword catcher. The entire book was kinda blah until the very end where a specific scene just mad me so freaking angry that I refuse to read anymore of the series
as somemone coming from the harry potter fandom of 00s hearing somebody not, not accuse cassandra clare of plagiarism is the funniest thing I've heard in the year 2024
@ebnovels she was an extremely popular fanfic writer back in the day and when the bomb dropped and everything started to unravel I cannot overstate how huge the whole plagiarism drama was and the shockwaves it left in the harry potter fandom consciousness at the time. I was barely in the anglosphere side of the fandom back then bc of the language barrier and I still felt the aftershocks.
yep u sayin u just did not care i knew instantly which book it was.. bc i felt same way when i was reading the last hours trilogy. i have sword catcher special edition from indigo but a few days ago i needed the money so i put it up for sale but it still hasnt sold..bc i bet even tho its adult and not a shadowhunter book i bet that im just not gonna care much about the characters etc and i bet its similarly written to her other YA shadowhunter books which im over with. plus this is a big book and i bet its gonna be a trilogy of big books so dont even wanna bother readin the first.. and yes she does that like u said it seems like she sets up multiple characters to have the hots for multiple characters, like that the 2 guys are both her potential love interest.. yep she does that on the shadowhunter books ughh
LISA FRANK SHE MEANS LISA FRANK 😅
Haha, I did indeed. I knew it wasn’t that and was super embarrassed when I was editing, but I also thought, “Hey, people slip up-maybe someone else has done this and now won’t feel as bad.” 😂
Yeah, Anne Frank was definitely not the one with fuzzy unicorns. I laughed, and now I feel bad🫣🙃
Baha, I know, I felt like an idiot when I said it
@@ebnovels We all mix up people with similar first or last names when we’re in the moment. At least you’re not the one who laughed before you remembered everything you learned in school🫠
@@Kissinglife-Tinahaha, aw, don’t feel bad! I think you’re more laughing at me than anything else, which is deserved
@@Kissinglife-TinaI like your username ❤❤❤❤❤
@@ebnovelsI would love to meet you in person you’re so kind and sweet
Donkeys are very hardworking and love to laugh. Sounds like a pretty good spirit animal.
And the babies are so cuuute
And gentle! I wish for enough land someday to adopt one.
And very protective of their 'herd'! Some ppl get them as guard dogs for their livestock
Donkeys are great! They're my dad's favourite animal, so I've heard a lot about them. On top of being great "guard dogs" for livestock and the humans they consider family, they're also naturally amazing therapy animals! They're really soothing to be around.
One funny thing about them though is they're scared of water. If there's a puddle blocking the way out, they're not going through it!
I love when people have a video style of making it seem like friends talking to one another. And you are one of those people, even though you can’t hear me.
@@SaintBootI am so sorry that you feel you have no friends! There are lots of really friendly people in various Booktube discords; Booktube, and buddy reads in general, are how I’ve met most of my friends 🩷
@@SaintBoot That’s kinda why I said it. I had been disabled in the past and all my friends pretty much abandoned me.
@@SaintBoot what disability
@@beach_lion A stranger does not owe you their medical history. If they wanted people to know they would have shared that.
Cassie Clare does love having the old CW/WB style show vibe where everyone is hot and into each other lmao
Aussie here
Definitely break out in American and UK accents randomly. Usually UK to sound posh. The American accent usually shows up when I'm quoting lines from a show or a movie so the accent changes depending on who said the quote originally.
Hahaha, I thought you were going to say American when sounding stupid 😂 Quoting shows makes sense!
*_hype for libraries!_* As a volunteer, I so wish people were more aware of all the services (& community) available there. It would be so much easier to get support from voters & politicians if folks realized how much all the wonderful professionals there make possible.
It’s a simple thing, but with how horribly hot it is in Arizona, just the fact that libraries offer cooling centers for people is an immense help.
Thanks for all you do as a volunteer-that’s incredible!
I love libraries! I use my local library every week. ❤
I remember inhaling Shadowhunters and all of the attached series in high school and I think you nailed it as to why - it was like the constant ANGST for literally EVERYTHING. Characters can't be together *angst.* Father is a bad man *angst.* Friend is neglected *angst.* And I feel like those emotions drove the story and made me keep reading because I just wanted to feel resolution so badly. Another thing that really bothered me was how the book read like a reader insert for the author, but it was a little TOO self indulgent. As soon as that thought crossed my mind I felt really uncomfortable and couldn't unsee it
The fuzzy unicorn stickers are Lisa Frank! It took me a second to think of the name too. Blast from the past.
I’m quite embarrassed that I said it, but I figured, hey…humans make the absolute dumbest mistakes sometimes, so I left it in. Still very stupid of me
"The story was great" yeah, probably because she lifted the plot from somewhere else 😂
I am Mexican living in Mexico and we do make Spain Spanish accent and Colombian and Chilean randomly at my house 😂
Ohh, that sounds so fun! I sadly don’t speak Spanish, but my mom’s side is Cuban, but living in AZ, I hear more Mexican people speak Spanish, and the difference is so interesting. Have you ever watched TH-cam videos of people trying to explain what different accents of Spanish sound like? It’s pretty cute :D
In my house we’re the opposite we’re in Spain and will sometimes break out into Mexican or Argentinian accents! Likewise we’re English so will go into terrible Irish, Aussie or American accents (we also imitate bad English accents though 😂)
yo leyendo Chilean y emocionándome que alguien sepa que Chile existe JAJSJAJJ
@@antoniaflores9570 weon! 31 minutos y La colonia me criaron 🤠no hay día en el que no mencionemos esos ICONOS de la cultura en esta casa 💀
@@bookschocaholic Eso sí que es un dato curioso!
If it helps we have donkeys. They are very smart. They have excellent memories. People think they’re stubborn but really they’re smart enough to play out scenarios and remember if there was something that happened that they didn’t enjoy. We also have horses and they’re constantly trying to unalive themselves but donkeys can absolutely care for themselves. My donkeys, if caught in the wild would make it, my horses not so much.
Donkeys are a wonderful spirit animal. I’ve worked with a lot of animals, and donkeys are the smartest, and cleverest. They have options…they’ll run from a predator, or they’ll fight. They’ll mooch your lunch. They’re not afraid to greet you enthusiastically. And they have a reputation for being stubborn because they have their own opinion about your dumb human agenda. 😆 Sure, the big cats are flashy, but donkeys are way more cool.
I sort of wanted more CW drama from Sword Catcher than I got 😅 but I also felt like it was a choice naming a character Kel who has a similar role to a Kel in another popular fantasy series. Like someone on her team had to have made that connection
Hahaha, I’m surprised no one at least encouraged renaming him? There were just so many parallels that the name seemed the easiest to tweak.
CW drama seems like a good way to describe the vibe 😂
I love my local library! I do get some books physically from them since I love physical books, but I made a spreadsheet for my TBR and out of the 400-something books on there almost all of them are free on either Libby, Hoopla, or Cloud Library which are the ones my Library uses. I also have Kindle and Audible on my sheet to see which ones are on Kindle Unlimited or Aubible Plus for free, and then to help me look for things during sales or getting the best value out of my Audible credits.
Matthew Hanover writes contemporary heterosexual romance from the male perspective only. His first book is Not Famous. I really like his second book Not Dressed the best. Each book is in the same universe so there is cameos of previous characters in the later books, but you could out of order and it wouldn't ruin the story. Most romance that I have read from just the male perspective is male male romance.
I wish I had DNF'd Sword Catcher 😑 I struggled through to the end hoping it would pick up with some action or political intrigue but was sorely disappointed. I finished the audiobook and immediately looked up rant reviews hoping I wasn't alone in that experience 😅
Haha, well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but it’s also kinda nice knowing I didn’t miss something really amazing at the end 😅
This is how I felt about When the Moon Hatched ! Goodreads has the best rant about that one.
I'm Irish and the accents that i break into a lot are British, Scottish, Australian, Southern American and Russian lmao
I also have personal beef with Cassandra Clare over her weird siblings thing so I'll never be picking up a book of hers 😭
Re accents, absolutely yes. I'm Australian and I feel like English or Irish accents emerge more naturally than U.S. accents but they definitely do come up
I've found Hoopla surprisingly useful for books that I didn't expect to find audiobooks for.
Both for backlist (Comicbook tie-in novels from the 90s) and more recent, but more niche stuff (Currently working through The Laundry Files, by Charles Stross)
I do wish the search function wasn't so bad and I could check out more than 4 things a month.
Omg, when you did your southern twang I laughed so hard. Yes, I randomly speak in a British accent and a southern accent and a Minnesotan accent, and I am from Missouri. ;-) lol
I think the ending saved Swordcatcher for me (because the info dumping at the beginning was brutal and the middle was a mashup of stuff that's been done), but I am hopeful that there will be a big improvement in the second book. Mostly I want additional POV characters because I think that's what she does best.
I think what helped me, though, was that I was avoiding other stuff when I picked it up, which is also how I started the Shadowhunters. Like 5 or 6 books were out and I had midterms my senior year of college, lol.
Your description of The Sword Catcher made me think of Throne of Glass, everyone is just hot for everyone all the time 🤣
YES HAHA
About the accent thing; I'm french-canadian from Quebec, and yeah we imitate accents ALL THE TIME. Parisian French, specific rural accents to sound "hick", and then the "elderly dialect", I guess? Basically there's a marked generational gap between my parents' vs grandparents' accents. The only English accent I can do successfully is the valley girl, make of that what you will lol
I live in the US. Yes, I do random accents all the time. Sometimes Southern, usually Georgia. I'll do Australia or English (no idea where), Scottish... it's really whatever comes out. I'm not sure if I always have control of it at this point.
I love The Echoes Saga. Great classic fantasy series. They are all available on Kindle Unlimited. Just FYI. I too prefer physical copies.
Two of my favorite contemporary romances (YA) have male perspectives. I'd love to know what you think of them if you've read them! The first is, Frankly in Love by David Yoon, the second is The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. Both have the same male narrator. I usually stick to YA/soft fantasy books but I loved these so much. I hope you are able to find a romance book with a male perspective that you enjoy!
My Dad used to do a donkey bray and he sounded exactly like a donkey, he had the whistle down and everything. So everyone associated him with donkeys. He would collect donkeys as well. So I have a soft spot in my heart for them. As far as A Tempest of Tea, I definitely felt like you at first, but I became more invested I went on. There were undertones in interactions that definitely hinted to more going on that later led to some big reveals. It wasn't a perfect book, but I did enjoy it.
Ooh fab video. Also as a scottish person, I do randomly do Valley girl, New Yorker or Southern belles accents spontaneously throughout the day. Also cackled at the Anne Frank/Lisa Frank mixup haha
Hahaha, I’m glad that made you cackle! I’m tremendously embarrassed, but people are people, and we mess up sometimes, and in ways that are so dramatically incorrect that it’s funny 😂
Also, the random accents thing is so interesting to me. I now want to look more into this topic 👀
I really enjoy epistolary novels, but in A Letter to the Luminous Deep I kept getting confused on who was writing to who and if it was from before the people disappeared or after. I DNFed as well. (Not a spoiler, very start of the book you find out they disappear.)
I'll never recover from the story of you going to read to a miniature donkey for your birthday, that sounds like such a magical time. The library has been my sanctuary since I re-discovered it a couple years ago. If I want to write, draw, work on D&D, that's where I go. For male perspectives in romance, have you read Abby Jiminez' works? She writes wonderful male leads and the perspective shifts between the male and female protagonist regularly. I really enjoyed Yours Truly and Part of your World.
I haven’t read those, but I have them, and have heard really cute things! I’ll bump those up on the TBR 😊
@@ebnovels I look forward to your thoughts whenever you get around to them!
@ebnovels Please read them in order; the stories intertwine!
Part of Your World
Yours Truly
Just For the Summer
I really enjoyed A Botanical Daughter and I was made aware of it through your channel in a new books video, so thanks! 😊
Yay, I’m glad you ended up liking it!!! 😄
I felt the same way about a tempest of tea, however I did enjoy we hunt the flame and will read we free the stars...
I didn't finish Sword Catcher either and it was literally for the exact same reason. I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking it. The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking "I've already read this before". It wasn't the most unique of concepts and she didn't do anything to make it stand out on it's own. I've seen the concept done better in other series. I also felt like the story dragged a bit and was taking to long to get to the point. Instead of world building, the first couple chapters just had the characters not really doing anything other then hanging around a brothel. So I ended up losing interest because it shouldn't take so many chapters to get the story started. I do have to say kudos to her though because it must have been hard to make a completely new world and story outside of her shadow hunter series and it's great to see authors branch out into something new.
I had really recently read the Shades of Magic series when I read Sword Catcher and I agree that the set up around Kel seemed VERY similar. I did end up finishing it, and it was fine, but I don’t know that I’ll continue.
As a person that breaks out random accents on the regular, yes. I am American, living in the south eastern region (less southern, more beachy). I have an accent to pull out at any given time mostly British (proper queens), Irish (peaky blinders mixed with whimsy), Eastern European (Jester from Critical role) and an assortment of American accents. If I hear it and it tickles my ears I have to say it. It’s a compulsive reaction that I am often called out for and aware of but yet it’s there and it happens every time. So I apologize in advance if I mimic your accent and you were offended. 😳💀
My husband and I are British and very much guilty of doing accents - usually in an inappropriately comedic fashion... My best friend from college moved to the US many years ago but the only word she ever says in a US accent is "Sure!" so that's the only time we use a US accent too. But we have a whole range of different British accents we use (Home Counties to be posh, and terrible Northern and South Western accents for comedy value) - we also sometimes dip into French and Spanish...
Brazilian here, descendant of Portuguese and Italian (among others), and yeah, will just go into Italian or European Portuguese accents jokingly for emphasis, or to make a point, or for certain characteristic words, or just because the accent is in my blood
I think those musicals where they sing everything with no spoken dialogue are called opera. 😆
Cassandra Clare most definitely has this thing where everyone is in love/has the hots for someone. In the latest series I read of hers - the last hours - it got really out of hand and reached a lever that was just too much 😅
My miniature donkey's name is Bows. And she would love to be read to! I have a pretty obvious southern accent that doesn't allow me to break into another accent even if I wanted to. However, the strength of it changes depending on who I'm talking to as do some of the words I use.
Southern accents are hard to get correct in written dialogue, even for authors who are native speakers of said accent. There has to be a happy medium between common vernacular and local dialect for it to really work. It's a lot like writing a bilingual character. Idk. I have mixed feelings on it. I think a lot of us in the south spent so long being told to "speak right" that when we go full banjo it can def be jarring. I get the author being proud of their accent, but I also agree with what you are saying.
I read The Bromance Book Club, an adult contemporary romance from a male perspective and really enjoyed it! I also heard the Talia Hibbert books have both male and female perspectives!
Hie Elliot! Thanks for doing these videos, I love to listen to your book content. Please could you consider giving a brief synopsis of each book like you do in your older videos so that we don't have to go and search for the descriptions on goodreads. It'd be really nice. Thanks again! Hope you keep putting more content cause we love to see it!
I definitely break out into random accents (American). I live in the south, but don't have a southern accent, but I will break out in a southern accent as well. The main drive behind that is there are certain phrases i like to use that are from other cultures and it just sounds weird to not use an accent.
I'm from the UK and from Somerset (in the South West) me and my friends don't slip into an American accent for jokes or things but we tend to put on an accent from a different part of the UK, usually Northern/Yorkshire or a Bristol accent as we're so close to there but I have a stronger Somerset accent so sometimes they jokingly put on a strong accent like mine
Pairing people up is absolutely a Cassandra Clare thing (fan fiction influence probably). I read The Infernal Devices after reading only the very first Shadowhunter book and I understood it fine. But I'm not an expert on the other series, I checked out of reading CC books after this (ok I read a a couple Magnus Bane stories because he's a great character). Her stuff just doesn't appeal to me. The character from Swordcatcher sounds soo similar to Shades of Magic, for an author known for being accused of plagiarism it's an odd choice. :D
Brit from South of England here! Me & my bf break out into Scottish accents all the time, with my friends it’s mostly an Australian accent 😂
Absolutely adored the donkey story❤❤ You are just wonderful ❤
As a Brit, I definitely do an american accent randomly. Especially whenever I say "It's hot" or oh mah gawd. And sometimes I say water as wahderrr lol
Paris Hilton did irrevocable damage to the American dialect. hahahah
Do you ever randomly say vitamins really aggressively? You might need some water to help you take them-then you’ll have the whole package
@@johnnyritenbaugh1214 yeah it definitely tends to veer towards Valley Girl for me 😂
@@ebnovels no, but for some reason I always say “antibiotics” with a Welsh accent 😂
@@Lilylaina Totally heard that in my head as I read it lol
I love my local libraries!!! Except it's really sad how many ppl with no manners there are these days, who are just loud and making unnecessary noises... and some hobo-y people. Also, it's so hard to DNF books after you're like 50-100 pages in (at least for me). Props for doing it properly!
If it's not too hard, when you discuss multiple books, could you please put the names of the books into the video description? I'm usually listening to your videos while doing something else and sometimes simply miss the names and have to look at the transcript to find them. Thanks ❤️
I wanted to loved Sword Catcher so bad. I LOVE her Shadowhunter series. I’ve read all of them multiple times but Sword Catcher was just flat. I felt like the book should have just been called “A Day in The Life of the Citizens of Castilane(so)”. I felt like nothing by actually happened in the book. I’m going to try the second one because I did feel like I could see the story she was trying to set up but meh
Are you a snow leopard? Do you randomly bite your husbands arm? Do you like to hold your tail (chew your hair I guess)? Do you snuggle at every opportunity?
Did you talk more about The Botanical Daughter DNF? 💜 Or just the library saves part
I love her this hair style 🎉🎉❤ hope she knows it to keep putting it on .
Haha, thanks. I do like mixing it up, though 😄
I understand I completely agree with you with Loyalty Luke I felt the same way 📖📖📚📚📖📙📙📙📖📙📙📖📖📖📙📖📚📚📖📖📙📖📚📙📙📖📖📖🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
My cousin Ashlyn used to randomly speak in a British accent lol 😂
I'm also in AZ, in Phoenix! 😌
YES!! All Cassandra Clare does is set up love triangles and every single person just HAS to be INLOVE within 3 chapters. Like nobody is ever single. It’s soooooooo boring and predictable
If ur looking for books that have six of crows vibe i recommend reading there will come a darkness series trilogy. Idk if u have read it yet but not a lot of people seems to talk about it
Good to know, thanks for the rec! 😄
Cassandra Clare does have an infamous history of plagiarism, so you might not be that far off there!
That’s something I’ll have to look into!
@@ebnovels it’s mostly back from her fanfiction days as far as I remember, but I think someone did also accuse her of stealing ideas for Shadowhunters.
Californian here. Never once stepped foot in the South, let alone lived there, yet occasionally will break out in a Southern accent. Turns out the area i live in has a very unique dialect descended from the Okies migrating to California due to the Dust Bowl 😂 The More You Know
I do randomly break out into a London accent, and a really good one to boot, lol
It's ok i once i asked my friend if i can borrow her 'Lisa frank diary'
Oh no! 😂 I mentioned to another commenter that I left that in, because I knew I couldn’t have been the only one who accidentally did that. Good to know that’s accurate!
I read Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky and really liked it. Was a shorter book and was the first thing I read from him. I think he is like Kingfisher in the respect that you may not like one book but a different one you might enjoy. All that to say, I hope you try something else of his and like it 😊
Out of curiosity, why did you end up DNFing A Botanical Daughter? I might have missed it but I didn't see it in the video.
Ah, yes, I did dnf that one. I found the concept and characters really charming, but the writing style felt a little detached for my taste. Definitely wasn’t a situation where I dnf’d it because I was hating it, though!
Sucks so much for a botanical daughter, it’s such a pretty cover
I haven’t read a Cassandra Clare book for a long time, just after the Shadowhunters tv show she just seemed, like not a nice person, but isn’t she also known for plagiarism?
As a Canadian, I do ALL the accents lol. Regularly 😂
Saudi here, I do break out in American and British and sometimes French accents. Would do more if I knew how
The original immortal instruments are the worse books of shadow hunters but a good indroduction in some ways world building as when clary mets the world., the edwardian London and before age books are good , as is the dark artifices set after the immortal Instruments , so bascly any as clary not as the main character.
Something tells me Anne Frank wasnt painting sparkly unicorns 😂
DId I miss why you DNF'd Botanical Daughter? You said you'd explain but I dont think you did?
It's one I was interested in reading so now I'm curious lol.
I read A Letter to the Luminous Deep (NetGalley e-ARC) and it disappointed me. There are other epistolary books that I truly enjoyed, but either they mixed letters and traditional narrative or they were a lot shorter (novella-length, basically). I agree that the different characters were difficult to distinguish because their writing styles were the same. Also, in trying to avoid traditional narration, the author wrote letters that felt forced (e.g. 2 characters meet, but we only hear the details in letters they wrote to each other afterwards). Ultimately, I gave it 3 stars, but I actually think it's more like a 2.5/5. Too bad. I was excited to read speculative fiction taking place in an underwater world.
Loyally Luke is the third in a companion series so you may have benefited from reading the others first and seeing more of his personality.
Good to know!
I’m American but break into an Australian accent from time to time lol. I just really like how they sound, and there’s so many British accents that I don’t even bother 🤣
Donkeys everywhere? Sounds like my dating life! I remember thinking that City of Stardust felt too YA, and that it made no sense for the MC to have no information when everyone else her age does. And the other world didn’t seem worth saving. Letter to the Luminous Deep is a “cozy fantasy” that I think just had pacing problems. And the way the author tried to cram every single identity into four characters felt offensive after a while, especially because it made it hard to track how anyone was getting together and having kids, without that information/world building given. (This is becoming a trope in other genres that’s hard to talk about, but right now there are a lot of books with queer characters and then a lot of 11th hour tap dancing to explain why so many queer women still had babies with hetero men. I love diversity in my reading, but not when authors cynically check boxes this way, especially in these low-edit paperback-only releases.)
Re the accents, I'm in New Zealand and can confirm among peers there is a lot of breaking out in foreign accents, mostly British or USA Southern. A lot of ALLO GUVNA or YALL COME BACK NOW
Wow you live in AZ as well. Hope to see you book hunting someday.
As a born and raised Southerner, when people imitate a Southern accent, it normally turns into mocking real fast. It's put on when they want to sound incompetent or backwards. I'm not a fan of that, despite not having the accent myself as my parents spent most of their lives in southern California.
I tend to shy away from any lit about the South unless it's written by a Southerner who won't look down us and our country ways. lol
A letter to the luminous deep love this book and the cover is gorgeous sorry it didn’t work out for you 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞📚📙📙📚📚📙📚📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📚📙📙📙📙📙📖📖📖
I felt very similarly with sword catcher
As far as contemporary romances go I think an author who writes the male perspective well is Abby Jimenez, my favorite being Yours Truly.
Someone else gave that author as a rec as well! Definitely going to keep that in mind ☺️
I absolutely love my Libby app!
I hate musicals where everything is sang too 😂 I need a breather between songs, otherwise I feel overwhelmed.
I'm in Tucson and while it's too hot right now, I'm so curious which library yall went to cause I absolutely want to read to a donkey the next chance I get!
The Juniper Library! Though they might go other ones too :D
@@ebnovels Thanks! This made my day and now I know to be on the lookout for them
If there is only singing and no spoken dialogue in a musical, I have some bad news for you: it's not a musical, you're at the opera! lol
I’m from Norway and sometimes we break out in Swedish accents for no reason 😅
Wow, that’s so interesting! I want to now look more into this; I find it oddly fascinating 😆
I will say Loyally Luke is best read after books 1 & 2 :) I live in the South so I am a sucker for the narrators LOL But I totally understand
Please for great fantasy and world building …, read Robin Hobb or Ursala Le Guin.
I was saving A Botanical Daughter for spooky season but I'm bummed to hear you DNF'd
I’d still say give it a try! I just felt a tiny bit disconnected from the characters, but the writing is quite charming, so there’s a good chance you’d still like it :)
I also diskiked sword catcher. The entire book was kinda blah until the very end where a specific scene just mad me so freaking angry that I refuse to read anymore of the series
YES! Subscribed just for the library shout out!
Well thank you! After the library love is with a very embarrassing mix up of names 😅 But anyway, libraries-and donkeys-are amazing 🩷 🫏
as somemone coming from the harry potter fandom of 00s hearing somebody not, not accuse cassandra clare of plagiarism is the funniest thing I've heard in the year 2024
I wasn’t ever really in either of those fandoms. That’s interesting to see though, and you’re not the first person to bring that up in the comments
@ebnovels she was an extremely popular fanfic writer back in the day and when the bomb dropped and everything started to unravel I cannot overstate how huge the whole plagiarism drama was and the shockwaves it left in the harry potter fandom consciousness at the time. I was barely in the anglosphere side of the fandom back then bc of the language barrier and I still felt the aftershocks.
Burro means Donkey in spanish, so a baby donkey or mini donkey can be a burrito.
yep u sayin u just did not care i knew instantly which book it was.. bc i felt same way when i was reading the last hours trilogy. i have sword catcher special edition from indigo but a few days ago i needed the money so i put it up for sale but it still hasnt sold..bc i bet even tho its adult and not a shadowhunter book i bet that im just not gonna care much about the characters etc and i bet its similarly written to her other YA shadowhunter books which im over with. plus this is a big book and i bet its gonna be a trilogy of big books so dont even wanna bother readin the first.. and yes she does that like u said it seems like she sets up multiple characters to have the hots for multiple characters, like that the 2 guys are both her potential love interest.. yep she does that on the shadowhunter books ughh
I’m British and definitely don’t break out 8k to an American accent lol 😂
Lisa Frank? :-)
i'm not american i;m from the Balkans and i do randomly do southern and briitsh accents lol