This apartment and lighting is doing wonders for you. You look gorgeous!

okay but did you see lilycreads' rant review for anna and the french kiss?

i think what she meant by problematic is that the authors had written an abusive relationship as something to be idealized by young girls instead of showing them what not to do when in a relationship

I think what a lot of people seem to be missing from this video is yes, it's fine to write problematic relationships and friendships, because unfortunately that can be real life for many people, but the problem is when writer's romanticize problematic issues. I rarely see a novel with a problematic relationship where the main character realizes the relationship is unhealthy and tries to escape from it. Whether it be YA, adult, middle-grade, fantasy, science fiction--any genre or age group--it's important not romanticize these things because it could give impressionable people the wrong ideals and standards. Books are important. Stories carve us into who we are, therefore it's important we try to recognize these issues and leave the reader with the proper ideas. So yes, go ahead and write problematic relationships and friendships and ideas--I have myself--but do NOT romanticize those elements. Make sure by the end of the novel, the main character and / or the reader knows this is NOT how someone is meant to be treated.

Hi HI, Just thought I would pop in and say a few things! 1: I do not find every book in this video "problematic" some books I just realized I no longer liked anymore as I got older (and yes, some of them are probs the worst books i've read hence the hate title) 2: The discussion of problematic relationships is a big one in this video. I want to say again I do not think it's wrong for anyone to like these books. Again, for me Personally, when I realized how screwy some of the relationships were in these books I could not get it out of my head and totally ruined the enjoyment FOR ME. I'm just not into that, but that doesn't mean you can't be and authors can't write about it. Also, I do not believe (and I don't think I ever said) books should only have perfect fluffly romance (that would be super boring). 3: In regards to specifically the Bronze Horseman I haven't read that book in over 4 YEARS so every opinion and perspective I have had on that book was formed when I read it 4 years ago when I was 18. Recently, I reread some chapters of the book and areas I once found minimal became a larger issue for ME. World peace, Regan

Twilight 😥 I am definitely down for a reread and review!!!!

Have you seen LilyCReads video about Anna and the French Kiss? I used to like it until I watched her review, and then I felt so ridiculous that I hadn't picked up on so many of the obvious problematic aspects of the book. It changed my perspective completely.

You look so effortlessly beautiful!

I love these type of videos, because it shows that you are growing as a reader :)

I felt the same way after my reread of The Mortal Instruments series, so many problematic relationships and tropes. Which sucks because I love The Infernal Devices series and (so far) The Dark Artifices series

I would love an expanded video about The Bronze Horseman. I recently read it and absolutely loved it. Would be very interested to hear a more critical pov on it, or just a more in general discussing of the book.

Fifty shades of fucked up. And before you asked how I could possibly liked those books in the first place I was twelve !!!!! Yes I read the entire trilogy at 12 years old and now I realized that I could have written a whole other trilogy about all the things that are wrong with the books and it still wouldn't be near enough

I literally fist-pumped when you mentioned Anna and the French Kiss! I read it way back when because literally ALL OF BOOKTUBE recommended it and the whole cheating thing bothered me SO much? It was barely even addressed as being a bad thing and nobody seemed to be put off by it! I hope this doesn't sound condescending, but I'm so proud of you for making this video! I've followed you for ages and I've often disagreed with you on books like this and it's great to see you grow and learn. I know it can be hard to admit things like this, especially if a book was so important to you at one point, but I do think it's really important for Booktubers to address and acknowledge these things! Basically some EXCELLENT character development on your part, good job! ♥

I understand some issues with TBH and I do believe it would be edited differently today if it was being published today rather than 17 years ago but it's still one my favourite books of all time. I will never stop reading it and loving it.

tag yourself i'm matilda creeping around in the back at 0:58

I used to like the divergent series, especially the 3rd one but throughout the years the dislike for those books grew and grew because of Tris and Four. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I knew bronze horseman would be on this list when I saw the title. I am the exact same way with that series. :P I actually picked it up because of your videos way back when.

The lighting in this video is amazing!

all of the windows in the apartment gives you some amazing lighting!! Also for that wall, maybe you can hang up some prints there?

I personally don't/can't find too much fault with The Bronze Horseman because 1- It's an Adult Romance Novel, so it's not for impressionable young minds to begin with - not the book/author's fault if younger folks read it. 2- It's set in the 40's, things were very different and the book portrays them as such e.g a girl's virginity was viewed differently than it is today! 3- The book is set in very turbulent times, thus the turbulent relationship. I personally think the author managed to give the readers reason for everything happening which I appreciate. I also, personally don't think books should be censored too much, or stories "coddled" too much, especially adult romance novels - I highly doubt adults would want to read perfect little stories about perfect little couples. I mean, one of the reasons historical romance does so well even today is because of the "taboo" elements of the relationships. It's shocking and exciting. Unless there's very clear emotional and/ physical abuse involved in the relationship where the abuse is openly glorified somehow, I can be pretty forgiving as a reader. Also, I don't think the portrayal of a difficult relationship is necessarily glorifying it. Sorry about the really long comment.. always love your videos! 😊

I had the same experience with Maximum Ride. Originally, I started reading the books because my friend said they were amazing; keep in mind that when I got into them, they weren't all out yet. I loved the first three, and felt that they really did well telling a story. But then... things got weird around the second Max plot arch, and got REALLY weird when they introduced that random dude who was like made for Max or whatever. I stopped reading there. I could put up with the random drama in the other books, but that really did it for me. I have fond memories of the first three books, and choose to pretend the other ones were never written. (Still love the series, and the characters. But, honestly, I'll never finish the series).

Ah.. Twilight, the glory days of my teen years. Loved it when I was 14, now turning 23 I didn't feel the same way anymore. Watched the movie recently and I cringed so hard. Made the book seemed even more ridiculous (to me).

I love the lighting here - it looks great!

Edward treated Bella with so much respect! He was the perfect, moody gentleman. Bella on the other hand... an absolute obsessed crazy fangirl. Well, he was obsessed with her too.

I thought for sure that the last book would be Queen of Shadows...but I am not surprised by all the other books mentioned. For obvious reasons.

Theres also a moment in Anna and the French Kiss i didnt like where Anna could havr and should have said something to an adult about how a student was bullying her friend but she chose to stay silent instead. That irked me even more than the cheating.

Great video! I think it's good that you spread this kind of insight on romance and relationships!

OMG this popped up and I watched it thinking it was from 2021 but no, you’re just a baby! Totally adorable and still cranking out quality content three years later!

I LOVE your new set up! The lighting and white background is so gorgeous!

I totally agree with you for all of these! Especially the bronze horseman. I used to love it and then saw the screenshots Whitney posted and I have no idea how I didn't realize how messed up it is!

I love the concept of this video! It is so important to realize that we grow and change all the time and that sometimes we end up realizing that what we at the time thought was great, isn't so great after all, and that that is totally okay!

Love your new setup! Its so asthetically pleasing 😂

I really enjoyed this video! 💕 It's fun and interesting to see how you view things differently sometimes with a complete different POV from back then til now you know 😊

Reasons why Reagan is one of my favorite booktubers: videos like this. It's so rare to see critical views on relationships in booktube, especially with ya, so THANK YOU for this video.

Your natural light in this new place is the bomb! I also loved Maximum Ride, I'm starting to wonder though if I would like it as much now.

OMG THE LIGHTING 😍😍😍 my list of love to hate is a little long too lol

Hi Regan! I appreciate it that you acknowledge that people grow and now pick up on some aspects that aren't as good an example. The fact is that some people won't see that what they are reading at a certain age is not a good example of a healthy relationship, while others the same age will immediately see that this isn't what you should look for in a relationship, but read it regardless because it is enjoyable and it's fiction. I think it's good to have a discussion about it, but sometimes I feel like out of this discussion a certain "hate" can grow, because sometimes people take it too far and everyone who reads a story with problematic elements is problematic. That's the downside of the whole thing for me. I would defenitely want to see you do a reread and review of Twilight! I think it's interesting to see what you see now, while the book can still be enjoyable.

I am SO SO happy to hear you talk about the Bronze Horseman this way. When I saw those screenshots on twitter I was shocked! I'm completely with you on reading something when you were younger and years later realizing "oh sh*t that was NOT ok!", but like you said: we grow, we learn :) Btw, off topic but I'm just so happy for you, I watched the moving vlog and seeing someone else my age having finished college and moving with their boyfriend towards a new part of their lives is so motivating! It scares me to soon be done with college and become a "real adult" but now it also kind of excites me? Anyways, I wish you all the best with your job and settling into your new apartment :)

The lighting looks great in your new apartment!

Thank you for sharing your honest opinions! I also love how you said "Let's spill some tea" in the description XD

The lighting in this video is awesome!!!

I'm glad you said that you respect Twilight. I had to read it again at university. My biggest takeaway: It inspired a lot of women to band together over reading. Some created bands, poems, or their own stories as a result. Many of these women were ridiculed for their fan-based passion, so we examined other instances in pop. culture when female trends had also been taken lightly or mocked.

I totally agree with you about portraying these things to young readers it is not ok and as a writer I believe we should be promoting healthy and kind relationships in our stories!

Like the background and angle! Your new apartment looks nice!

I'm in love with the new background!

I just love you! I think you have such good points when talking about books and honest reasons for disliking, instead of just "it's poop" lmao! Anyways, love watching your videos ❤️

I definitely agree with Maximum Ride. For me, it's just a story that was also filled with teen angst and loose ends. Although, I used to love it when I was younger.

Twilight was literally the first thing I thought of when I clicked on this video 😅 I'm not sure I ever "loved" the series, but I read all the books and definitely enjoyed them more than I ever could now! I also 100% agree with your thoughts on Anna and the French Kiss.

i looove the new setup

I really love this setup/background :)

Regan I love your hair so much 😭😭😭

You should do this video again but the oposite way around as books you used to hate/disliked but now love/like. Like books that you read when younger but as you've gotten older and you've re read them you've found that you actually like them

I used to love romance novels but now it's too cheesy and full of cliches So can u recommend me some good romance books plz

Really loved your video Reagan! I find it so odd that people nowadays are looking outside themselves for what a relationship should be like. I would never have read any of these, or any book ever, and thought that was how a relationship should be, no matter how glorified it was made. A lot of young people look at social media and base relationships (or life in general) off that. Its so sad to see. There's just so much variety of relationshiops all over the spectrum that I actually dont mind authors write whatever they feel like, even if it may seemingly glorify something not so great.

I'm with you for Matched. I loved it when I first read it when I was 11 but have definitely fallen out of love with it since then. Also, I haven't actually read Anna and the French Kiss but I completely agree that cheating shouldn't be romanticized or excused. I've heard such good things about that book, it's too bad that it had to be built around such a problematic relationship setup.

Honestly I kinda thought "Throne of Glass" series was gonna be on here... 😬

Twilight and Matched are still two of my favorite books 📚 Love the new set up btw!

I started reading again recently. I breezed through to all the boys ive loved before (i have to finish the trilogy!!!) And the beast within which is adams version of beauty and the beast. I got through half the book in one night and ive been enjoying it for a really easy read.

I do agree with that relationship element with Anna and the French Kiss. Hate to admit it but I've been gushing over this book since high school and I think I still do love its wittiness and the whole set up. But even as a 16-year-old teen, I already felt the wrongness of romanticizing cheating. (At that time I don't even know what "romanticizing" meant ahahha) It's so good to finally see someone pointing this out!

Maximum ride had me hooked at 16!!! Even then I notice the push on the storyline for more books.

i'm always ready for some good tea

I can totally relate to the what you said about--Maximum Ride. I actually use to read the comics instead of the regular chapter books.

I agree with you on the twilight book could only read a couple of chapters couldn't go on.

Thank you for pointing out about Anna and the French Kiss!!!!!!! I always thought that

I read the Bonze Horsemand this year as a 24-year-old and the whole time I was like WHY DOES THIS HAVE SUCH A HIGH RATING??!!!????

I agree with your statement about Anna and the French Kiss. We shouldn't glorify unhealthy relationships. But I still loved the book/story and will probably reread it again one day.

love the commentary on Anna and the French Kiss, thank u

OH MY GOODNESS YES ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS!! When I read it last year, I was just so confused as to how it was so popular.

Yes! Thank you for mentioning Anna and the French Kiss! I just read it recently and I was confused to see all the positive opinions on St Clair, and his feelings and relationship with Anna when clearly he was in another relationship at first

I think it would be super cool if you did a "books I hated but now I love" video! I don't know if that has happened to anyone, but definitely a few classics I hated in high school I enjoy now, haha.

Loving the new background/camera set up! When will you do an apartment tour? Im dying to see one! :)

Bella!!!! I remember watching the movie and being the only one cheering when Bella first came on screen.

Ha ha ha...when my oldest was about 12 she got really into the Maximum Ride series. I read the first 2 books and only made it halfway through the 3rd...awful is an understatement. She loved them though. Recently she (at 18) stumbled upon a new book in the series that she didn't know about and picked it up looking forward to diving back into a favorite story. She only made it 1/4 of the way in before she gave up, lol. She put the book back into the library back and sighed, "Ok, you were right...this is really terrible."

I never finished Anna & the French kiss. I just couldn't.

But The Bronze Horseman is a historical novel? Is that what you said? Wouldn't that mean the relationship should reflect what relationships would have been then? Not an Ideal relationship that one bases their own on? Just wondering..

A Twilight reread and review now that you're older should be interest. If you decide on doing it, I'll be looking forward to it. I've read The Bronze Horseman two years ago and loved it, yes I knew that for a love story it was messed up, but I was okay with it. I saw it as a normal 1940's "romantic" representation. Then I watched Sam from Thoughts on tomes gripe on the book, and my perspective change. Don't get me wrong, I still love it because I had a lot of emotions while reading it. Nonetheless, now I know that this book should not be romanticized and, as critical readers, we must now that the "romantic" relationship is in fact an abusive one. I would like to reread it again and see if I still love it or if I would hate it.

I love that you acknowledged that your tastes have changed and you've matured and become a more critical reader. I used to read a lot of Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson and Martin Amis and Haruki Murakami and then I realised a lot of those authors either don't like women or have been extremely disrespectful to women both in fiction and real life and so I started reading more women and more women of colour. I still love those authors and their books and what they have contributed to my reading life but I love that I'm reading a wider variety of authors and genres now too.

You know what I love about this video? Is that we all have those things we LOVED and then we look back and cringe like, how could we not have SEEN that for what it was!? BUT- how great is it that we've matured and grown and gotten wiser and recognize the jacked up book relationships (for example) for being jacked up instead of emulating them?

Yes yes yes about Twilight! I read it as a preteen/teen and I hated the first book so much that I never pursued the series, but I'm glad that people can recognize the toxic relationship even they once loved the series. I have so much respect for people who can say I like this but I understand that it has problems and can accept that.

I agree so much about Anna and the French Kiss!! I still enjoyed the book but I HAAAAAAATE when books have cheating, especially when it's excused.

I know we all like to think we can differentiate between fiction and reality but sometimes it can be difficult when much of information you get on things like love, sex, and relationships is from fiction. While I wasn't an Edward fangirl, I definitely didn't think anything was wrong with Bella and Edward's relationship when I read Twilight in middle school. A lot of my impressions of relationships were from books and movies where the guy does this grand romantic gestures or something straight out of a fairytale. When I got in my first relationship in high school, I wasn't satisfied with my relationship because it lacked the stuff I read about in books and saw in movies. Afterwards, I began to realize how problematic and/or unrealistic these relationships were.

Yes! I feel the same way about Anna and the French Kiss. Although I really like the book, the cheating part feels wrong. It cheapens St Claire and Anna's relationship .

Like you said, I think it's totally fine to write about abusive and bad relationships because obvioulsy in reality not everything is perfect. But I think that in the future, maybe there could be warning signs or a note from the author in the beginning of the book saying that their book has these elements. Especially in novels that younger people tend to read more.

I completely agree with you about Poison Princess, I used to love it and I recently re-read it and I found Jackson's character to be sexist and rude for most of the book.

I agree with you on Anna and the French kiss! Somebody mentioned that Stephanie Perkins novels were happy pills and Anna and the French kiss just stressed me out! I enjoy her others though especially Lola and the boy next door

I agree with what you're saying about 'Anna and the French Kiss' I used to LOVE that book when I read when I was also 18, but the aspect of cheating has really bothered me now that I'm older and have experienced more things, and I think it's even worse because Anna's friend also liked Etienne. I think both characters were kind of selfish. There are also other parts of the books that kind of bother me like the trope of 'being with another guy to make the one I really like jealous' is not the best message.

A good read isn't necessarily about always doing the right thing, and not because you support what happens in the story. Good video tho :)

I have a funny history with the Twilight book. I've never read it given the fact I'm a guy and was in my mid-twenties when it came out but I did buy the book for a female friend of mine who was a little older than I was because she wanted to read it but didn't have the money. We talked all the time but on occasion she would start reading it to me because she really liked it. Thankfully she stopped before I strangled myself with my pillow. I ended up buying three of the books for her on the condition that she never tried reading them to me. It is funny now because she still mentions that on occasion to me when we talk and I see those books everywhere for sale at thrift stores and used book stores. They seem like books that many people, particularly teenage girls, read and love but dislike the older they get. My friend no longer likes them but she did when they first came out. Anyway, loved the video.

I noticed a bit of backlash on your Goodreads for changing your review, and I just wanted to say it's NOT flaky for you to change your opinion! I've read so many books as a young person and noticed as I'm older that they may have had problematic views in them. I see it as you becoming mature and responsible in your reviews. Love your channel!

Twilight first came out when I was like 16, and I read it but I wasn't blown away. I was shook when it became so huge

I just bought The Bronze Horseman a little while ago because of how much you recommended it! I hope I still like it though :S

Something I have just realized very recently is that books should not be taken as gospel. I used to think, they have been edited and published, read many and many times before they have reached my eyes, so there really shouldn't have any problems. And I just realized after discovering rant reviews, books can be problematic, they can be wrong, and they could impact me in a negative way. As an impressionable teen ( I'm fourteen), my views on the world are greatly impacted by books. I dunno where I'm really going with this comment, but I just hope I help someone realize that books can be wrong before they shape their views into something bad.

I know that the relationship in the bronze horseman has some problematic elements in it, but I still absolutely love that series and romance. I can objectively look at it and go "ok, that was pretty messed up and manipulative" but i still think it was a great story that was really well written. And I definitely think their are relationships like that out there, especially in that time period, so the author is showing a truthful side to relationships, albeit not one girls should look up and aspire to have.

Just stumbled across your channel and glad I did, I subscribed! :)

It's amazing what growing up does to our perspective on the things we loved.

Regan please make the book talk about the Bronze Horseman! I loved that book after reading it upon your recommendation, but I agree with your points. It would be great to see it fleshed out

Yes, I agree with this list so much. I first read Maximum Ride as an adult, so from the first book I noticed so many plot problems, that while I thought it was cute, I didn't bother reading any more of the series. The first twenty-something Animorphs are a better option with a similar feel.

i love the way you explained how you chose the title for this video XD

Loved this! Thanks for speaking your mind about romanticizing unhealthy and abusive relationship traits. 👌👌 Preach!

Up to now I still do like a lot Matched. It wasn't because of the world the author built or the relationships in there. I just remember the main protagonist had a very specific way of thinking compared to other main protagonists I've read. The way she thought of things, the way she described things... it seemed alomst poetic. Girl, I don't know if me reading it Spanish had something to do with and if it's a translation thing, but I really liked it for that reason.