Ranking Historical Fiction From Masterpiece to Meh

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Mary Doria Russell is a really good book. Mary Doria Russell is a really good book.

[00:00:08]Hey. Hey. Hi. Welcome or welcome back.

[00:00:13]Today I'm going to do my first tier list tier ranking video. I'm ranking a bunch of historical fiction books, all of which I've read. And I think it'll be interesting to see how this goes. I've scrunched them up from different lists so that it was somewhat random rather than I don't know choosing a year in which I've read all of these historical fictions. These are more just random throughout my reading life. So, um I'm excited to talk about a bunch of historical fiction with you and I'm excited to test out a new video concept in in that I've never done a tear ranking. So, I hope you guys like it. I hope I like it. I have a feeling it's going to be chaotic, so bear with. If you're new, know that I'm Shelly and I love to read and I talk about my reading life here on this channel. Um, and I love spending time with you all and I hope you're enjoying the vibe. Um, and if you are perhaps subscribe without any further rambling on, let's go ahead and get into the meat of this video. Okay, so the tears the tears go as such. The top which would be my favorites is going to be heart eyes. And it's a phrase that I said especially when I was a middle school teacher and instead of saying like I love something I'd be like I have heart eyes for that and it's a reference to the emoji the emoji the heart eye emoji which I know we all know but I think it's like it's a funny way to say that you love something and it was silly and it kept things light and sometimes I would say it and the kids would kind of look at me and then they would get it and they would laugh or chuckle or just roll their eyes at me because that's how middle school teaching goes and I just really enjoyed it. Uh so I put that as my top. Um, and then we have so Close, which is going to be that it almost made my favorites, but didn't quite get there. Then it's I saw the vision, meaning that I saw I understood the premise and the way the pieces were supposed to work, but I don't know if it got there in the end. Then there's meh, which is self-explanatory. And then dead to me. So dead to me, meaning is truly like when I read an author that really just does not jive with me, uh, I almost like write it off. Like I almost just I'm like, "No, not for me." Um, and I also I just don't want to read more from that author. Sometimes to my own like my to my own demise though, uh, there's so much good literature out there, like I don't always sometimes I'm just very unwilling to try an author again, which you know, we're all in a journey. It's not set in stone. All all the things.

[00:02:26]Okay, the first book is going to be Doc by Mary Doria Russell, which is about Doc Holiday. It's set in the American West, like western times, and it's a much more characterdriven western novel than um than I guess what you would expect from a typical western.

[00:02:45]And I really enjoy Doria Russell's writing or Russell's writing, Mary Doria Russell's writing. I enjoy her writing.

[00:02:52]I think that her character de development is great, but I don't think it all coalesed in the end. I felt like there were pieces that really were great, but it just it just didn't quite get there. I've heard though that the follow-up to this that you don't have to have read you don't have to have read Doc to read I think the book called Holiday. I'll put it here on the screen so that I'm not misspeaking. I've heard that book is amazing. No, it's called Epitap and it is about the um the showdown at the OK Corral. I have heard from so many people that that book is amazing, but because I'm me, I wanted to read the first book in the series, even though it's not really a series. It's more of a pairing. Anyways, I wanted to read that before I got to Epitap and now I haven't gotten to Epitap, and I really should because I've heard it's amazing.

[00:03:42]Um, but yeah, that I saw I saw the vision that Mary Duria Russell was going with, but I didn't end up love loving it, even though I really really wanted to, which might have been my fault.

[00:03:54]Okay, the next book is going to be The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dun. So, this is set in Scotland in the 1500s and we are following a an amazing character named Lyman who is he's he's an outcast because he did some things that made made him an outcast, but really he's from like the upper echelons of society and like sort of rubs elbows with royalty. I mean, he's like he's up there, but he has ruined his good name.

[00:04:27]And at this point in Scottish history, the Scottish and and the English are really um at war with each other. And that people don't know who to trust. Do you trust Lyman? Do you not trust Lyman?

[00:04:39]Is he just making trouble? Or is he trying to repair his good name? And all of these questions are swirling.

[00:04:45]Meanwhile, there's a love story at the center. And Dorothy Dunnit's writing is incredible. Like truly incredible. So, this is going to go at the top of my heart eyes column. I also want to say that um some some tier ranking videos abide by this rule and some do not. But the closer that you get to the left means that it's rank ranking higher than the previous the previous books. So, the further out you go to the right, the le the less it ranks. Um, which I think is a really important note. I think it makes these videos more interesting because you really are kind of slicing and dicing these little favorites. Um, it might make it harder on me, but yeah. Anyways, okay. The next book is going to be The Underground Rail Underground Railroad by Coulson Whitehead.

[00:05:37]This, I believe, won the Pulitzer. There are a couple of Pulitzer Prizewinning novels on here. The Underground Railroad is a magical, realist, imaginative, alternate history to the American Underground Railroad where slaves would use a system in which like a secretive system to to escape the South um and their slavery. And this it it's a very very very good novel. And it there are there hard to critique because it's so good. And I've often said and I've come to the conclusion that Coulson Whitehead is too good at his craft in some ways for me because he the point of part of this novel is to create in the reader an anxiety a similar anxiety or at least an anxiety that somebody would have if they were actually traveling the Underground Railroad. The urgency, the brutality, the actual closeness to danger. And because of that, there are some really, really brutal scenes that have not left me. Like, I remember some of the scenes and I just was horrified by them, which was the point, but then again, I'm like, Coulson Whitehead, you're so good at your at your writing that you gave me nightmares for a week.

[00:06:53]So, I'm going to put it as so close.

[00:06:55]Okay, so close. Um, okay. The next one is a ancient myth retelling. Um, Pat Barker's Silence of the Girls. Okay, these books are also at random. I don't know if I said that. These books are random. Like I was looking through a bunch of lists and if I had read the book, I just like downloaded the title cover and put it in a folder until I got to 25. So, Silence of the Girls I read uh Pat Barker. This is this is interesting because it's a retelling of the Trojan Wars. We're following um the women within the wars. Achilles is a a character. It's a little bit magical.

[00:07:33]I mean kind of like you know made sense.

[00:07:36]Um there was some really like brutal scenes like exploding rats in it and that is what stands out more than the actual story line or the characters. So for that I'm I think I'm going to actually put it in meh. I don't know.

[00:07:50]There's not a lot about that book that I like reminisce on fondly. There's not a lot there wasn't a lot of stick tuitiveness to it. The next book is The Red Tent by Anita Diamont, which is going to be showing the female perspective of a biblical story, the biblical story of Rachel and Leah. And it's it's interesting. I I remember I've really connected with this because in those days the men had a lot of wives and I was like, how are you you going to make that work? Like, how is that going to work for a modern reader? and Diamont definitely pulled it off. And it was it was really good. I I think I I'm remembering that I liked it more than I think I had let like now that it's aged in my mind, I feel like I like it more than I have ever given it credit, I guess. So, I'm actually going to be putting it Oh, no. I'm gonna be putting it right behind Coulson Whiteheads The Underground Railroad because I just think Coulson Whitehead's writing is just superb and so like it is superb. So it's hard to like beat that with a book that I liked and it think fondly of. I don't know. I don't know my logic right now. Okay, next up, Where the Crowad Sings, set here, set near me actually, in the marshes of the Carolas about a young outcast girl in society who somehow her life her life is just magical. Okay. Um, I I I thought the nature writing was good. I thought the storyline was kind of cuckoo crazy, off the rails. I understand why people like it. So, I'm going to say I saw the vision, but I don't know if it worked for me, and I'm going to put it behind Doc. Okay. Ooh, Beloved. Beloved by Tony Morrison. So, in this, we have a slave named Setha who is now a former slave named Setha living in the north and she is um working through though Morrison does it in this magical realistic way, she's working through trauma that she's lived through. It's a really impactful book.

[00:10:01]Actually, I really do I really do think it is one of my favorites. It's one of those books that I think about like if I think too hard about it, I will cry because it is so beautiful and it's in it's one of those things where the magical realism is there to enhance a very sort of a specific idea about well in this it doesn't matter. It's it's there to enhance an idea and it works well and I think that that's why I'm ranking it as high as I am. Okay. On a more like lower key note, we have a gentleman in Moscow by Amore Tols. Okay, this is about Counter Rotov who uh during the revolution um during one of the revolutions in Russia. I can't remember the Russian Revolution. Why am I why am I forgetting that during the Russian Revolution um he gets confined to a very fancy schmancy hotel like he's under house arrest but in this hotel and lives many decades there and it's like his I don't know it's his um yeah his I like coming and go it's a very sweet story it was much sweeter than I had anticipated it to be um and it's a very light story I I quite liked it okay now I don't know if it's like I saw I did see the vision, but it's also I is it so I think it's like I saw the vision and I liked it, but I wish it was less sweet than what it actually was. And I'm going to put it I'm going to put it right behind Doc because I think there was something about Doc that I really am excited to get back to more Mary Doria Russell. Um whereas Amar Tols I own another book by him and I'm kind of like dragging my feet to get to it partly because of my experience with a gentleman in Moscow. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verugis. This is a true coming of age story uh about twins who were born in Ethiopia and are raised within the medical scene but are within the medical scene of a third world country which I think was the most exciting part of this book for me. I just really enjoy the sort of nitty-gritty details of like surgery. I don't know. I really like that part of a book. Okay. like it like the exploding rats in the silence of the girls. This is turning out to be a very weird video.

[00:12:24]Like the exploding rats in Pat Barker's book, I also enjoy the sort of gritty, grimy, surgical aspects of cutting for stone. Though, I just remember thinking it was just okay. And I I think that's more of a me thing. I can't quite put my finger on it at this point having read it a couple of years ago, but I just remember being like, it was okay.

[00:12:46]Actually, I'm gonna put it I know it's gonna rank low, but I think it's just one of those things where I was like, it kind of turned me off to the author, so it's going to be a meh for me. All right. Next up, Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. Uh, I really like the cover that is that I chose. Okay. Um, okay. So, am I am I stalling on talking about the book? Alias Grace is beautifully written. It is um set, it's a Canadian story uh based on a true trial that happened of a young girl named Grace who they're not quite sure how involved she was in the murder of the people for whom she worked. And it really is really rides that line of knowing and not knowing the ambiguity. Um, and it's also there's a conversation about how women were perceived and how they were treated and it goes through like her imprisonment and there was a lot of questions as to whether she was insane or not. And I I was so disappointed by it. Um, I I say it was the ending, but I also think that about halfway through I got tired of the book and of the writing and I kept going to because I wanted answers and the ending was ambiguous.

[00:13:59]And I really think that I just should have cut myself off at the helm, like at the halfway point, and just DNFed it because I got to the end and I was like, "Oh, no, no, thank you." Oh my goodness. And I No, I'm not going to put it to dead dead to me, okay? Because I I did like aspects of it, but it is going to rank past like behind Silence of the Girls, okay? Y'all know how I feel about Woolhaul. Woolall kicked off my absolute utter obsession for reading about the tutors. I have a whole video where I talk about tutor books that I've read.

[00:14:32]Um I recommend them to specific moods. I just I I love reading about the tutors and it started with Wolf Hall, which is in many ways an unusual tutor book because it takes someone who was really on the sidelines. Now that I've read more and more and more tutor books, Thomas Cromwell, who was the lawyer for Henry VIII, does not play a big role in this story. I mean, he kind of does. In history, he kind of does, but Mantel makes it so that he is so that he is like the center character and somebody who is often written about as the scapegoat, the bad guy, um, somebody that is not likable. Mantel transforms him to somebody that you love. I mean, you love this guy. He is incredible. And I there's just there's something about her writing and this book and everything about it that has just it has taken my heart and ran with it and I don't think I'm ever getting it back. So, it's going to even it's going to rank even higher than what what am I doing? Did I grab it? No. Okay. It's what is happening?

[00:15:40]It's going to rank the highest if I can get it to go properly. There we go. And it's at the very top. It ranks the highest of the highs. Okay. All right.

[00:15:48]All right, the highest of the highs. All right, next up is James by Pival Everett. It's the you know the Pulitzer Prizewinning retelling of Huck Finn. I like I really like this book though I don't love it. I really really like it.

[00:16:04]I can see why other people love it but I don't love it. But it's going to rank above I don't know what is happening with this app now. It's going to rank above um No, not there. It's going to rank above the Underground Railroad. I'm having trouble here. I'm not used to this. Elena Fonte is My Brilliant Friend. Oh my gosh, do I have an update for you on this writer. Okay, but that's a different video for a different time.

[00:16:27]My Brilliant Friend is the beginning of a four-book series in which we're following two friends who truly are entangled in each other's lives from when they were children growing up in a tiny little poor town in Italy all the way through their early 60s. And I I really like this. I really love this book, but I hated how the quartet ended, but I don't think I should blame it on this book in particular. So, I'm going to put it I'm going to put it am I going to put it behind Beloved?

[00:16:58]Uh, yeah, I think I'm going Oh, I think that feels right. I'm going to put it right behind Beloved. Okay, so next up I'm like these are this is painful. Um, next up is Philippa Gregory's The Other Balloon Girl, which is uh yet another tutor book. It is telling the story of um Anne Balin who gosh so much happens partly because because of Anne Bolin you know Henry VII had six wives and she's wife number two and getting from wife number one to wife number two is was a difficult process okay and it's told through her sister um Mary Bolan who is not as high in in this book she's not painted as high reaching as her sister Like clearly her sister became queen of England for a time and Mary Bolin she she wants peace. She really really wants peace and there was something very sweet about it. Um I I like the car the car carry character of Mary Balin. I'm actually going to put it above Beloved.

[00:18:01]I I really just there's something special about this book that I love.

[00:18:06]Okay, next up Patinko by Minly.

[00:18:10]Um, oh gosh. Okay, this is a multi-generational family saga set in like there's it's got the conflict. I don't even want to talk about it. Can I pass? Um, it's the conflict between I think Koreans and Japanese. Um, I don't I don't even want to talk about it.

[00:18:28]We're going to put dead to me because that's how I feel. I found this I found the writing flat. It was predictable. It was kind of annoying.

[00:18:39]I just like I just did not like this book. Okay, so next up. Okay, f back to better waters. The book thief by Marcus Zusac. So this is telling this is a World War II story telling following a young girl who has lost so many people around her and she falls in love with books and she figures out ways to get books. Um, but it and and she's a young German girl, which I think is um an interesting perspective to land on. Uh, and and also the narrator is fascinating. It's it's got a very particular voice. Uh, you I mean I just I feel bad saying who the narrator is if you haven't read the book. So, I'm just going to leave it at that. I think this is a favorite. I mean, yes. I think I'm going to put it. It's going to be right behind My Brilliant Friend. That kind of doesn't feel right. Okay, I'm just going to leave it there. I'm going to leave it there. Okay, next up, The Kiterunner by Khalad Hassan Hass Khalad Hassini. This is about two young boys in Afghanistan who are best friends, but also there is a class difference. One is the servant to another, and a traumatic event really shapes the course of their lives. I I I don't I don't like when a certain kind of trauma is the like is in the exposition in order for you to love the characters.

[00:20:08]There are certain things I don't love about certain writings and I think that Kad Husini makes he's dramatic and very emotional and does that on purpose and I just cannot abide. I just cannot abide.

[00:20:22]So, um, he's actually dead to me. And yes, he like I would No, I'm going to I would more likely pick up a Kad Hini book than I would something by Min Jin Lee, but both are dead to me. Okay, next up, The Nickel Boys by Coulson Whitehead. This is about two young boys uh who get sent to a res a residency school, I think, down in Florida. And it's traumatic. It's awful. It is an awful I mean it's it's a great story because it kept me hooked and again Coulson Whitehead is doing exactly what Coulson Whitehead is doing and it's really well done but I and you and like you love the characters but some of those scenes are so vivid and sharp in my memory that I just cannot I cannot.

[00:21:12]So I'm going to put this um it's I'm actually going to but I liked it I think more than the Underground Railroad. I'm putting it right behind James. But again, the writing is superb. Oh, it looks like I have I got to figure out a different book. Okay, I'm going to delete I had an extra book of dog. I need to put an extra book in here. We'll figure something out in a minute. All right, next up is The Witch at Next up is The Witch at Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Spear. So, this is a young person's novel. I think it's aimed towards like I don't know fifth graders, sixth graders. It's an older novel, too.

[00:21:48]Um, won an award back in the day. And it is, um, set in 17th century Puritan Connecticut. And of course, the Puritans had a very particular idea of what a witch is and what to do with them. And it really has this beautiful theme of being an outcast, like what it's like to be outcasts from society. And when somebody has perceptions when a a group of people have perceptions of somebody that is that may or may not be true. And I really like this. I really like this.

[00:22:18]Um and but I I didn't love love it. Um so I am going to and there's nothing wrong with it. I think it's a really good book. So I'm actually going to weirdly put it behind James. Feels like a weird spot for it. Maybe because it's a young adult novel. Maybe I shouldn't have put it on this list. We're not going to get too deep into it. Okay. The infamous Gone with the Wind. This is a complicated book for me. I can see why it's so well loved. I can But it has a the way that it has aged. I feel like it has not aged incredibly well. Um, so I'm going to weird. I don't know. I mean, she only wrote one book. Would I read another book by her? Probably not.

[00:23:04]I feel like it's better put as meh um rather than dead to me, but I just it's you know I don't know. It's not I don't I don't like it. I'm going to actually I'm going to put it at I'm going to put it as Dead to Me. I mean, am I I just I think I think I'm going to just put it at the very I'm just going to put it I shouldn't have ranked this. I'm going to put at the very end of Dead to Me. That's just how I feel right now.

[00:23:31]There are aspects of the book that I like. There are aspects of the book that nauseate me. It's a weird book. It's a weird part of our American society and culture.

[00:23:45]And I despise talking about it. I don't know why. I was like, "Oh, I've read that. I'm going to put that on the list." I should not have I should not have because I don't I don't enjoy talking about it. Okay. Um we're Next up, Lincoln and the Bardau. Okay. Oh gosh. This is about Abraham Lincoln whose son has passed away. His son um dies at a young age and we know that going into the book and it's like narrated by ghosts and it felt so cheesy. I saw the vision but I saw it and I did not like it. Like I was just like this. It felt scattered and odd and I knew that I know it's on purpose but it did not fit my enjoyment of it at all. Okay, next is going to be Lonesome Dove by Larry McMerry.

[00:24:33]Um, okay. Uh, this one I also have a tr trouble talking about. Not for the complicated relationship that I have with it like I do with Gone with the Wind, but because I know it's so well- loveved and I liked it, but I didn't love it. Like I re I liked the adventure the adventuresome nature of it. And I think that like it's a big chunky book. It's worth giving a shot. It's set in the um it's set in America during again those time when the country is still getting started. It's pretty um wild wild west out there, you know, that kind of thing. And you were following a group of men who actually surprisingly cry a lot during during throughout the book. Um but I was talking with a friend and and she had asked me if I liked it and I said I liked it, but I didn't love it the way other people loved it. And she pointed out that there's not a lot of character development. Like there's not of the interiority of certain characters. It's character forward in that it's a plot it's plot driven and because of that like you have to know some about the characters but there was less of like the complicated nature of the interiority of our own inner lives that are that are at play like that was less at play in this book that was not front and center it's a very plotheavy plotforward book and for that like I I liked it but I didn't love it um that feels really okay I am going to say it was So close. And I think Okay, I think I'm going to put it I need to do some rearranging. I'm going to put it right right above the witch at Blackbird Pond. There were so many things that were good about it, though.

[00:26:16]And then I'm going to actually move up the red tent.

[00:26:19]I'm going to move up the red tent. This feels better um to write in front of the witch of black pond. And then I'm Yeah, I'm going to leave that the rest there.

[00:26:27]Okay, the next up is My Antineia um by Will Catherther. This is so beautiful.

[00:26:35]Again, we're in the Americas when things are more or less getting started and you get this family from another country coming in. They're very bohemian and the neighbor boy who for whom this um perspective we're following his perspective he just loves the neighbor girl but like in a way that is very realistic time the way that time and nostalgia is written about in this book is so beautiful. It is so beautiful. I'm actually shockingly I'm putting it even higher than beloved. I Yes. I think that that's I mean it feels wrong that it's behind the other bullying girl, but this is just how I feel. Okay. Like this is just my feelings. All right. Okay. I mean, is that wrong? I love there like Oh, talk about like I was saying like I didn't like the ending of something and I don't know how I should rank it. Oh, it was like my brilliant friend. Like I didn't like the way the quartet ended.

[00:27:32]So, but should I base all of it on that, you know, all of my feelings on that? My Antthonyia it was like the way it ended was I could cry thinking about it. So good. It's so good. Next up is Katherine by Ana Seatin. So we're in England again and we are in the 1300s and she has a love affair with John of Gaunt and Catherine, we meet her when she's quite young and she doesn't really know what she wants out of her life, but we see her grow and gracious, it is so good. Um, her character growth is very beautiful and very like I don't know.

[00:28:12]It's it's very relatable. It's very enticing, but there is a lot of action within it. It's such a good historical fiction book. Okay, I Where do I put this? It's in the top somewhere. And I think I think I'm going to put it behind behind my Antineia.

[00:28:31]It is it silly that like one, two, three, three three of my favorites at the very top that are ranking very high are like British British books and two of which are two of which are um about the u not the bullins about King Henry VIII. The tutor court. My gosh. Uh you can see where I love things. Okay. Uh the final book is The Paying Guest. The setup of the paying guests is that there is this woman Francis. Her father has died. She lives with her mother in this massive house and they don't know how to stay financially afloat. So they sublet their house. It's set in 1922. So they sublet the house to a couple. And it would be wrong to tell you exactly what happened, but I will say that A Friendship Blooms, maybe something more, and halfway through the pace of the novel completely changes, and it is riveting. Like, it's so it was hard to put down. It was so good. Um, it's the only Sarah Waters book I've read so far. I want to get to all of her books because I love this one so much. And for me, at least right now, I I think I'm just going to put it I'm going to put it behind Katherine. Okay.

[00:29:48]So, that is the ranking. Hm. Are there some things I need to change? I think I am going to put My Brilliant Friend uh behind The Book Thief just as a final a final ranking.

[00:30:00]Everything else I'm looking looking Everything else is I think where it should be. Yeah, everything else feels right. I think like I don't know. Did I get it right? I guess there are no wrong answers. Okay, that is it. Thank you so much for being with me on this chaotic journey of tier ranking. My first tier ranking video. I hope that you enjoyed and just thanks for spending time with me. I really appreciate you and I hope to see you all in my next one. Bye.