I haven't read the Maltese falcon and I think I would love it. Aloha

Loved this video! I've somehow never heard of The Maltese Falcon but I might add it to my tbr now! Also I'm glad you liked Jude the Obscure. When I read it I had no idea what to expect and it did destroy me - which tends to happen with Hardy and I. I keep meaning to reread both Tess and Jude but I find them equally soul crushing. I don't cry at books much but both of them got me tbh

Ah! I've been binge-watching a lot of your past videos so I got really excited seeing a new video from you! The White Tiger sounds super fascinating. So does Jude the Obscure, but I've got Tess of the d'Urbevilles to read first :D

your favorite shakespeare not being one of our buddy reads is devastating to me

I feel like Tess of the d’Urbervilles was more consistently sad, whereas Jude has a single event that was more tragic than perhaps anything in Tess, but it wasn’t as constant for me. Loved hearing your list!

One I am adding White Tiger to my tbr immediately. And second, wow I really need a bread tattoo from Les Mis. That's just epic 😂

Ok, I'm going to do it...... I'm going to get myself a copy of "The Maltese Falcon" to see what it's all about... I love that you welcome opposite opinions on reading the same book, it makes for an interesting discussion. Life would be boring if everyone felt the same way about everything. Happy New Year.

It was great to hear about your favorite books of the year! What a compelling review of White Tiger, I will have to check check it out! I definitely relate to the habit of setting aside books and jumping right back on when the time is right 😅

I love “best” videos! I hadn’t heard of The White Tiger. I will check it out. Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season.

One day I might read a book for the plot but for now give me themes and characters Love Thomas Hardy ❤️ I haven't read Jude yet, but I've been fascinated by Madding Crowd, Tess and Mayor of Casterbridge. I also haven't found his books that heart crushing but I do love depressing books so . . .

It's good you enjoyed A&C, tho I've always thought of it as a 'groundling' play, if you know what I mean. . .

I define a 5-star read in a similar way. Whether or not it's the best-written book doesn't matter as much as the impact it has on me and how much I enjoy it. I finally read Julius Caesar this month! I enjoyed it, the speeches are awesome, and I didn't even know how many everyday sayings come from that play. I also read Jude the Obscure this year. I........hated it. 😂 I definitely think Tess is more soul-crushing, because nothing that happened to her was her fault, yet she took it without complaint until all the mistreatment and having nowhere to turn basically drove her mad. IMO, Jude made stupid decision after stupid decision and blamed anyone but himself for the consequences. I found it really hard to feel bad for him, and even though I should have been able to relate to his thwarted dreams, I couldn't relate at all to his attitude about it. And I got tired of Hardy's opinions on marriage being preached again and again, like, telling me a dozen times that "being forced by law to love someone makes you hate them" doesn't make it true. That's called oppositional defiant disorder, and people like that drive me nuts. 😅 Jude allowing a woman he barely knows to manipulate him into marriage and coming to hate her because of her manipulations and lies doesn't make the whole institution of marriage invalid. To me, Hardy was clearly in a bitter mindset about his wife not allowing him to divorce her when he wrote Jude, and it clouded his ability to write a cohesive storyline. He went out of his way to make the spouses super un-live-with-able and yet super "reasonable" in allowing Jude and Sue their divorces (a blatant dig at his wife, who was being UNreasonable), so why all the agony and anti-marriage views from Jude and Sue?? It felt out of place to me, too much of the author was coming through. Sorry, I hate trashing on books people love, but apparently I have Feelings about this one. 😂

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