finally onto the semifinals!! ✨🏀 Book Madness Semifinals #1 2026

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, welcome back to another video and welcome back to the first head-to-head competition pairing or whatever you call it of the semi-final round, round two of Book Madness. I'm going to start off because I forgot to do this at the end of the first round. I promised you I would tell you which dwarves I thought were which of the people who were participating and giving me books for this and I forgot to do that, but I had it written down so I haven't changed that since round one. I did it before I even started reading any of the books and I still like don't know, like people haven't told me who they are. So, my guess >> [laughter] >> So, my guesses and I am actually so excited to see whether I'm right on these guesses or not, almost as much as I'm excited to see who wins, to be honest.

[00:00:56]>> [gasps] >> So, I believe that Gloin is my like in real life friend. I believe that my husband is Dwalin.

[00:01:07]My mom is Gimli.

[00:01:09]My oldest sister is Bofur. My book internet friend is Balin. My middle sister is Fili. My niece is Dwalin and my brother-in-law is Thorin. So, those are official, they're on the record. So, when we're done, I'll let you know how many of them I got correct because for me [laughter] this is kind of like my competition side of it, right? The other The people are giving me books and they want to win by giving me the books that win, but I kind of want to win by guessing these correctly. I think that it's going to be so [laughter] fun to figure out which ones I get right and which ones I don't, but let's jump into which books are going to be read for this head-to-head competition. I am so excited for this. I feel like the semi-finals have such good books. I think that these are going to be really close competitions and it's going to be really hard for me to decide who wins. I'm hoping that all of these are going to be five stars and that I'm going to love them all. Like and I really can see me loving all of them. A couple of these are books that I've been looking forward to reading for a while.

[00:02:15]One of them is from an author that I've been wanting to read for a while and another one is one I haven't heard of but sounds so good. So, >> [gasps] >> let's [laughter] go ahead and jump in to this. I need to look up actually which dwarves picked which ones because sometimes I forget that. Okay, the first dwarf that has moved on is Dori and Dori's pick is A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross. Now, I'm quite impressed with Dori because this book is actually on my TBR for this month. So, the dwarf Dori, whoever >> [laughter] >> he represents, obviously watched my TBR video, heard me talk about how excited I am to read this book and was like, "I'm picking that one. That one is going to put me at an advantage to win." And I'm really impressed by that. I feel like these people should use their resources in picking and I love that. So, A River Enchanted is going to be the first book of the semi-finals and this one I've been looking forward to reading for quite a while. I feel like this is going to be such a vibes book and I'm really looking forward to it. I don't know anything about the plot exactly but I just think that the writing style is going to be something that I really can sink into and that the world is going to be something I enjoy.

[00:03:33]So, that is what I'm hoping for from this one but we shall see. And then the next dwarf who has moved on is Fili and Fili's choice is The Shadow Isle. Now, I don't know anything about this book and I am actually not looking anything up for any of these books. So, any ones that I don't know anything about, I won't be like looking up the plots at all in order to give you a summary because I don't want any kind of spoilers and I don't want any kind of influence. This one is self-published. I was able to get the audiobook from Audible though. It's kind of free with my subscription, I guess. I was able to just get it. I didn't have to buy it.

[00:04:08]But, I decided to purchase the physical book as well so that if I don't enjoy the audiobook, I have the physical one and also I really like doing immersion reading where I listen to the audiobook while physical reading. And I want to kind of like give both of the books the same experience, if you will. I want to give them both the same advantages and this one just looks so pretty. Um the only thing I read kind of is the top part in here and briefly, but I just see that there are gods and goddesses and that I'm really excited for. I didn't read thoroughly Just kind of scanned the top paragraph.

[00:04:54]I think that this could be such a fun book. I haven't heard anything about it so I don't have anything to kind of color my experience going into it.

[00:05:01]So, yeah.

[00:05:02]These are my first two. I'm really looking forward to them. I don't know if I'm going to finish both first chapters this evening. If I do, I'll film again.

[00:05:09]I probably won't so you'll probably see me tomorrow, but I'm hoping to read these fairly quickly, maybe within 2 days, depending on how like my work schedule goes. But, yeah.

[00:05:20]This is so exciting. I'm looking forward to these books so much. I will say though that the books in this round are fairly long and that's going to be a consistent trait throughout this.

[00:05:31]We're getting longer and I think that makes sense. I think in general I tend to enjoy long books more. Like statistically they probably would come out on top so I think that people are keeping that in mind when picking.

[00:05:45]But, here we go.

[00:05:48]>> [sighs and gasps] >> I'm so excited. I don't know if you can tell. Have I told you that I'm really excited?

[00:05:52]>> No.

[00:05:53]>> Okay, I have now read the first chapter of both these books. Uh definitely took me longer than I anticipated it was going to. This is a few days after the original clip, actually. But, here we are. I didn't even need to tell you that. You never would have known.

[00:06:08]Okay, The Shadow Isle by A.E. Ryan. This book we are set on an island kingdom. I believe it it might be an archipelago because it seems like these different characters are coming to different islands. So, I believe that each of them may be like royalty from different islands of an archipelago. But, we have a queen. We actually have two queens and a king and what is called a dreamer that we were following and those are the POVs that I can think of right now.

[00:06:49]It seems that our very main main character has recently been in some kind of battle and she was victorious. And, her brother is the king of another isle and him and his wife are POVs, if I remember incorrectly. And, his wife is struggling with being unable to carry a pregnancy to term. She's currently pregnant and struggling with that. And, then the other character we're following, I think is their grandmother.

[00:07:15]And, she is what they call a dreamer and I don't really know what that is, but it seems to be some kind of a diviner. And, at the very end of the first chapter, there are people who attack the home of the dreamers and that main character Oh, wait, wait, we have another one. Another dreamer is a main character and or at least a POV at this point. And, so we have the main dreamer woman who has fled and this other dreamer who is stuck in this cabin when these people are attacking and it sounds like they are planning to kill all of the dreamers.

[00:07:52]That is a little bit confusing and that is because the first chapter was a little bit confusing if I'm honest with you. There were a lot of characters introduced to us. I mean, we were pretty much just dumped on with the names of so many characters and so many of them are interrelated and I'm trying to kind of piece together how they are connected to each other cuz this one's like, oh well, this one's married to my brother but also my cousin and this one's like my grandmother but also that I'm like, whoa. Whoa.

[00:08:18]Little bit confusing if I'm honest with you. Also, we jumped between POVs so much. We just finished one chapter and like I said, I think we've had five POVs at this point and we had multiple instances of some of these characters POVs. So, there's just a lot of that going on in the first chapter of this book and I'm quite used to complex fantasy, learning a lot of characters, learning a lot of connections and politics and those things, but I just don't think it was done super well in this one. When you're going to do a lot of POVs, I think that you oftentimes need to get your readers a little bit of a connection to the character so that they remember them and then they remember the connections to that character. So far, I don't have much of a connection with any of the characters, but I actually am quite intrigued as to what is going to be going on in this book. Our main character had a dream or a premonition. I think she's going to be our main main character. I know I'm saying this, but I think she is.

[00:09:20]About kind of the destruction and death of her entire family and she's had this before and she thinks that this is something that may happen and be her fault. So, I'm interested to see where we go with that. The dreamers are intriguing to me. I kind of want to see what's going to happen with the like more elderly dreamer that we have because she did have an interaction with a goddess, which I find very interesting. I always love that in books. And I just think that the overall setup of this is actually really intriguing. The story itself, I'm interested in.

[00:09:52]And I just don't think it was presented to us super well.

[00:09:57]So, that is that one. And then we have A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross. This one we are following our main character Jack, who is from the island of Cadence and has been sent to the mainland to learn to become a bard. He loves music and has been trained in that, but is called back to his home island by his lord or laird as they are called. His island has a history of a feud between the two clans that live there, and they all believe in and respect and reverence the spirits that were on this land before them. I will say this book is almost like the the opposite of how that one started out. This one is very beautifully written in my opinion. I think it's really easy to follow. We're kind of being just like gently laid into the story, and we have a lot of good development of the backstory, our character kind of putting little intriguing hints here and there as to what may have happened in our character's past, and different things that may become important on the island.

[00:11:04]I really liked the setup of it. I think it was very easy to just sink into. And I do feel that I may be right in that this is going to be a vibe book. This is going to be very atmospheric and very beautifully written. So, so far so good.

[00:11:17]I will say I'm not quite as intrigued by the plot of this one. Our main character has been called back because the girls on the island are disappearing. And for some reason the leader of his clan believes he can help and so asked him to come back.

[00:11:33]I think it's interesting. I do want to see what comes from it, but it's not quite as intriguing as the other one if I'm being honest, but it was a more enjoyable reading experience to read this first chapter.

[00:11:47]So, which one of these do I think is ahead after this first chapter? I don't know, actually.

[00:11:55]They both have their strengths and their less strong areas. I think I'm going to go for a tie again. I haven't done this since I think the very first No. When did I think there's only been one so far that I've said was a tie at this point, but I think I'm going to say they are tied right now. I'm intrigued by this one and I think that the story sounds really interesting, but it is a little bit overwhelming and I don't think it's as well written. And this one is beautifully written and I love the atmosphere of it, but I just am not quite as drawn into the story. So, I'm giving these a tie. I think that I'm going to go with that. No one has scored yet. Or maybe they've both scored once.

[00:12:35]No, no one has scored yet. We're [laughter] still We're still waiting to see who's going to score first. So, I'm going to read until the halfway point of both these books and get back to you, but at this point I can't really tell.

[00:12:48]Okay, I am now halfway done with both The Shadow Isle and A River Enchanted.

[00:12:53]So, let's talk about my feelings and my thoughts so far. So, A River Enchanted has been much more of a slow build in my opinion. This one is a lot more atmosphere and character and kind of like the land, the location focused. And it does have an interesting plot that I am intrigued by and enjoying reading from, but it's just a lot more slow-moving. In this one we're following our main character who is from this small island and I I think the I think it's a fake island, but it's kind of based off of Ireland, I believe.

[00:13:41]Could be so wrong on this.

[00:13:43]But he has left his island to train to become a bard, and then he was summoned back to the island by the leader of his clan, and he is now trying to figure out why he is there. He finds out that young girls are going missing, and they aren't really sure why, and then he kind of figures out that he was summoned back to try to use music to reach out to the spirits to see if they can help them to find these girls and bring them back.

[00:14:17]We have multiple POVs in here, but our bard is our main character. He is the number one person that we're following.

[00:14:24]And also kind of follow like a captain of the guard. We follow the like heiress to the clan, and also a healer who is married to the captain of the guard.

[00:14:38]I am really enjoying this. I like the writing a lot. I think the writing is very smooth, and it's easy to just flow in this story. I am enjoying the characters a lot as well. I think it's doing a good job of kind of building up these characters, letting us get to know them, understanding their motivations.

[00:14:55]And I think she's doing a good job of writing characters that are very flawed, and there is a lot of things going on, while also showing us kind of the deeper feelings behind it in a way that makes you still invested in these characters, caring about them, trying to kind of understand why they're making the choices that they are. So, overall, I'm really enjoying the story. I think it's very beautiful, and I'm invested in it.

[00:15:21]I think that the romance is moving a little quicker than I was expecting. I thought this was going to be more of a slow burn, but overall, this has been a very enjoyable read so far. I am I think my audiobook says 52% of the way through, so just barely over halfway through. I'm really enjoying it, really loving it. And then we have The Shadow Isle. This one is very different. This book feels extremely plot-focused. And I think one of my biggest complaints about this one is that we have so many POVs in this book. So, we're set in a world that has a lot of islands, a lot of different countries, lands, I guess, that are ruled by different people. This seems to be a world where people fight a lot.

[00:16:05]Like there's a lot of conflict between these groups, and our main characters are mainly from the Furyk family, which is called Fate of the Furyk, so I think that makes sense. And this family is kind of a mixed bag of people, but also a mixed bag in the way that they are received and viewed by the people of this world. We have like the grandmother we're following who's a dreamer. She can kind of see things before they happen, but also work magic. We're following her granddaughter who feels like the pretty much main character of this Jail, who also is a dreamer, but she's also the queen, and she's very much a voyeur of her land. We have POVs from her brother, from her sister-in-law, from her illegitimate half-brother, from his wife. Like we just have so many POVs going in here and so many different storylines that we're following. They are going to interconnect, and you can already tell that they are connected, and they are going to affect each other. So, the main plot of this is there are people who have come and are attacking the dreamers, and they're particularly after the grandmother and our main character Jail, and we don't really know why. So, we are on the run with the grandmother, on the hunt with Jail. We are trying to maneuver politically in a bunch of different areas, and it's kind of hard to give a description of what is happening in this book because there is just so much going on. And like I mentioned before, and I think actually in the last clip, it's been a while since my last clip. But, this moves so quickly between POVs. Sometimes it's only a few sentences, and then we're jumping to the next POV. And that, I think, is the main drawback of this book, in my opinion.

[00:17:56]We don't get to really sit with characters enough to get super invested in their storyline before we're jumping to another one, jumping to another one.

[00:18:03]We're just moving so quickly between them that I'm lacking a bit of investment in individual storylines.

[00:18:09]However, I am quite intrigued by the story. I think that this is a very plot-driven book, like I said, but the plot is moving along. We are really having things happening in this book. I am just a little under halfway through. I stopped here because it was a pretty normal spot to start It felt like a natural break with going into a new part. So, this is where I am at, and there's just been so much that has happened. And it's actually quite intriguing. I'm enjoying this book a lot. I'm liking the plot, and I feel like I'm invested enough that I just am kind of going along with it, and I don't feel like I want to put it down, and I'm intrigued to see what happens, but I'm not really feeling super invested in almost any of the characters. There's There's one, I think, that I'm fairly intrigued by, but we haven't had that POV in a while. So, I would like to get back to it. We'll see if we do. But, that's one I'm fairly intrigued by, and other than that, I don't really care about the characters. I care about their story. So, it's very different in that sense from A River Enchanted, but it is very compulsively readable. You're just kind of going with the story, wanting to know what happens next. So, that is, I think, the strong point of this one is wanting to know what happens in the plot. So, we have these two, and honestly, they are so different that it's interesting to try to decide which one I'm liking most. But, I think I'm going to go with this one as of right now. This is still a really close race, because if we get a little bit more investment in this one, especially emotionally, I could see it leaning this direction. And I could see if this one the plot picks up in the second half, I could be extremely invested, cuz I'm already really invested in the characters, the atmosphere, the world. And I do like the writing better in this one. This one has fairly simplistic writing, which is completely fine, and I think it fits this book's style well, because it is so plot-focused, and you're really just trying to fly through it. But, I do think I'm giving the lead to this one at this point. Which I think might be a switch, right? I think in the first one, this one was winning. And now it's this one. Ooh, I do not know where we're going to end up with this. This is such a close race. I am really excited to finish these books. They're both fairly long, though, but I am hoping hoping to finish them within the next two days.

[00:20:41]Because if any of you have seen my April TBR, I need to get going with that. And if you have seen my April TBR, you also know I did not put either of these books on here. I actually didn't put any of my Book Madness books onto my TBR.

[00:20:55]Now, if people pick from my TBR for the next round of Book Madness, that is like their prerogative, they're allowed to, but they are not going on.

[00:21:04]Like, they're not ones I'm picking to put on.

[00:21:06]>> [gasps] >> Which is a little bit stressful.

[00:21:09]Okay, this is not [laughter] This is not a TBR video. So, we're not going to talk about that. But, yeah, as of right now, this one is winning, and I will see you back at the end to announce who officially won this round and is moving on to the finals.

[00:21:25]Okay, we are now here with the final clip for this first competition in the semi-finals of Book Madness, and we have Doren versus Feelie. So, we are going to start with A River Enchanted. This was Doren's pick. This one was a very enjoyable read for me. I really liked the atmosphere and the writing style in this book. I felt like it was so easy to get lost in this world and to become just kind of immersed in the book, which is something I really love when books can do.

[00:21:58]I was invested in the plot. I thought it was interesting. I felt like the mystery of kind of what was going on, how it was happening, why it was happening was intriguing. And I felt like there were some really good twists in there along with some things that maybe we could kind of figure out. So, I think it had a good mix of twists that we may not have seen coming along with twists that we might have been able to piece out and figure out. I liked our main character. I think having him be a bard and having music be a big part of this was really interesting. And the way that it was used with the magic and intertwined with that, I found really fun. I liked most [clears throat] of our POVs. And honestly, I think that this author did a good job of kind of showing us some really flawed characters and helping us to understand them. I will say that I do think that one of the characters kind of got off really easy for some pretty bad things that he did and I was not as much a fan of that. I also think that we kind of jumped quite quickly to what the only solution could be to this.

[00:23:15]I was not 100% a fan of how it ended, but I will say it did set us up for the second book. Like I'm interested to see what happens in the second book, to see where the story goes, and I think that it was an interesting choice for an ending and I may see why the character could have made that decision because of like their own internal feelings about it, but I think kind of the external justifications they gave may have been less than what I would have thought.

[00:23:45]Overall though, this was a really enjoyable book. I had a great time with it. I loved the writing, I loved the atmosphere, I loved the world, and I'm excited to continue on with the second one. So, this was definitely a win.

[00:23:55]And then I have The Shadow Isle by A.E.

[00:23:58]Ryan. This is Feely's pick. And this book was interesting plot-wise. So, the plot of this book was definitely what carried it. The intrigue, trying to figure out what was going on, why these things were happening, how the different characters were going to end up connecting and pulling their stories together, and just kind of following what we learned about things going on politically within this world, I did find really interesting. I will say that the magic in this is really interesting and I did enjoy it, but it's a little less defined in how it works, and I do think that sometimes that led to a bit of maybe plot convenient-esque things happening. However, I would like to say, and I don't know if I mentioned this in any of my other clips, so if I did, sorry. It's been a little while, but this is actually a trilogy that is a sequel trilogy. So, this is the first book in this trilogy, but there were other series following this family and in this world before this one.

[00:25:07]So, I may have gotten more explanations and understood things a little bit better if I'd read those first. However, this is the first book in this series and I do feel like you can start here.

[00:25:15]It's fine. It didn't really mess up the story for me, but it might have made it a little bit smoother of a like transition into this book because like I said it in the first clip, it was a lot of connections just kind of pummeled at you at the beginning.

[00:25:29]I think one of my biggest complaints about this one is how quickly we jump between POVs. I've talked about this, so I don't need to harp on it too much, but that really seemed to kind of remove me a bit from the characters and I wasn't able to get at quite as invested in any particular characters or storylines.

[00:25:43]Although, I did think that this book's plot was really good. I was interested.

[00:25:48]I was invested and I think that the ending was quite interesting. Although, I again question a decision that was made and why that was the choice we went with. I think that was kind of dumb and was a little bit just to kind of give us something more that they wanted for this story to go. Like they wanted the story to go that in direction to go in that direction for sequel books and so that was the choice that was made even though I don't think that was what would have happened in my opinion.

[00:26:18]But overall, I really enjoyed this book.

[00:26:20]I enjoyed the story. I was invested in it and once I kind of got more used to the characters names, world it was a pretty easy story to kind of just read along with. Uh but yeah, I just think that the jumping between POVs was too fast for me and I just didn't get as invested as I think I could have.

[00:26:40]So, we are between these two books and I do have things about both of them that weren't perfect, but I think overall this one was my favorite. I do love atmospheric books. I like to have some connection with the characters and I think the plot was well done in this one as well. Even though I think that the other one's plot was maybe a little bit more you get a little bit more invested in it because there's so much going on plot-wise and this one's a little bit slower plot. However, this one is the winner which means that Dorian has moved on to the finals to the championship.

[00:27:11]Dorian is the first dwarf to make it to the championship and I'm so excited to see what they choose. This is crazy. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's the finals. I'm really hoping that the final round just kills it and they pick such good books and you never know, right?

[00:27:25]You never know which ones I'm going to like because you can pick one that you think is perfect and it just doesn't hit. But I'm really hoping that they both hit in the finals. But before that we need to do the second competition for the semi-finals and I will be back in probably this exact same spot to talk about the beginnings of those books, introduce you to those choices and I'm really excited for them. I think they're going to be so good. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next video. Bye.