New 5-Star Reads That Changed Everything 📚✨

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]We are coming up on my one year YouTube anniversary, which is absolutely bonkers. And the very first video that I ever recorded was five-star books that changed everything for me. So, as kind of an homage to that, coming up on that, I think in a couple of weeks, I wanted to kind of do a follow-up to that video and do five more five-star reads. And these are all books that I've read in the last year that just kind of encapsulate everything that I love about reading and what makes a good book to me. Hello, Poppy. Are you supervising?

[00:00:26]You're doing a good How am I doing?

[00:00:27]You're doing a good job. How am I doing?

[00:00:29]Am I doing okay? Okay. We're going to do the first book now. Okay, thanks. And the first book that I want to talk about is, and this might be a little bit of recency bias, but that's okay, Fairy Tale by Stephen King. Now, I just finished this book last week, maybe, so it's still incredibly fresh in my mind.

[00:00:42]But Fairy Tale by Stephen King kind of takes all of the things that I love about Stephen King books and puts them together into one single cohesive book that other people would argue is not a cohesive book, but I found it to be a cohesive book. And this is my video, and I really liked it. The first third of the book is like slice-of-life character work, the kind of thing that Stephen King is really great at. And a lot of people preferred that one third, didn't so much like the rest of the book. But I loved both and really loved how they came together. We're following our main character, Charlie. He's 17. He's been through a lot of [ __ ] in his life. He feels like he has to kind of like make up for things that he's done in the past and promises that he's made. And one day he's walking home, he comes across the owner of this dilapidated spooky house in the neighborhood that all the neighborhood kids kind of like stray away from and make fun of. And he sees that the owner has been injured and rushes in to help him. Through this, he becomes his caretaker, which eventually leads to him finding the secret stairwell in the shed. Once he goes down this stairwell, the story really transitions to this fun, lighthearted, exciting fantasy adventure about a boy and his dog trying to save this fantasy world and all of its inhabitants. I genuinely feel like if I went up to Stephen King and said, "Hey, I want you to write a story specifically for me," it would be a story that has really good character work, a fantasy setting, a lovable dog, and an equally lovable cast of characters. And this gave me all of that and more. I pretty much knew before we even went down that set of stairs that this was going to be a favorite read of mine as long as it stuck the landing. And for me, it absolutely did stick that landing, which is why this easily became one of my favorite Stephen King books of all time, one of my favorite personal books of all time, and absolutely a five-star read deserving of being on this list. The next book on my list you may remember from our February buddy read if you read along with us, and that is Razorblade Tears by S.A.

[00:02:18]Cosby. This book was just absolutely incredible and what I needed in the moment. this one both on audio and the physical copy, kind of flipping back and forth. You're essentially following two dads who lost their gay sons, who were a couple, to a violent crime, and they were never really there for them during their lives, and now kind of realize what they lost and are trying to make it up for them by figuring out who killed them and why. It's a fast-paced read, it's heart-wrenching, it's inspiring, it's a book that you will absolutely learn things from, and it's made me want to hunt down and devour everything that S.A. Cosby has ever written if any of it is even half as good as this was.

[00:02:51]Despite their flaws, which are a glaring part of the story and their personalities, the characters were still lovable. You know that they they mean well even though they're not saying the right things, they're trying, and they just wish that they had of had that revelation while their kids were still alive. And I think that's generally like an important message to anyone. Love your family, hug them, keep them close, and just let them be who they are and love them for who they are, which is a classic, obvious piece of advice, but this book delivers it in a really unique, special way, and I think that everybody should read it. Next up, we've got a book that I've probably talked about too many times since I initially read it, and that is Harbinger of Justice by Andrew Watson. This whole series is incredible. I still need to read book two, but there are also two novellas that kind of go along with it that I highly, highly recommend reading as well. Each one is kind of better than the last, and that's really saying something. I don't want to say too much, I don't want to give too much of it away because I really do think you should go into this book and just kind of like read it for what it is, but this is an epic fantasy series that takes place in ancient Egypt, and I'm someone who, since I was a kid, has always been obsessed with ancient Egypt, so that alone was like enough to sell me on this book and make me want to pick it up.

[00:03:54]Now, I will say the themes are like more subtle than that. It is very much like an epic fantasy story first with like Egyptian references and like a setting as the background to the story. The plot and the character work is first and foremost like the main part of this book that makes it as good as it is. And then that ancient Egyptian kind of like setting and references, those are just kind of like the cherries and the sprinkles on top. I think one of the biggest strengths of this book, aside from the lovable characters, is the world building. The world building, especially like a debut fantasy novel, is genuinely like next level. You can tell how much Andrew loves fantasy, loves fantasy settings, loves losing himself in other fantasy worlds, and the little bits of inspiration that he takes from those to put into his own work. But everything that's in here is also incredibly unique to this story, making the whole book, the whole universe, the whole world that this book takes place in truly feel unique and alive. If you're in the market for a new epic fantasy book, highly highly highly recommend picking this one up.

[00:04:49]Absolutely deserves the five stars.

[00:04:51]Absolutely deserves to be on this list.

[00:04:53]And book three is slated to come out later this year, so you have lots of time to get caught up, read book one and two, read a couple novellas. I'm planning on doing book two as a buddy read hopefully in the near future. So, if you do want to read it, get caught up and read along with us. Feel free to do so. Join our Discord link. There will be a QR code that you can scan at the end of the video. Next up, we have another book that I did predominantly through audio, and that was When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy. This book really just showed me how fun horror can still be, how many new things there are still to do within the genre, and the fact that he was able to do it in like less than 300 pages, I think, just absolutely incredible. Really fun quick read that you should absolutely pick up. The audiobook is really well done, and there's even a little cameo in the audiobook from the author himself. But even if you're not an audiobook person, the physical book hits just as hard.

[00:05:38]We're following our main character Jess, who's a struggling actress. Some weird [ __ ] goes on in her neighborhood. She ends up having to take care of this 5-year-old boy, and weird things keep happening. They're being chased by some sort of monster. She doesn't understand what's going on, how the kid is connected to it. All she knows is that she has to try and keep herself and this kid safe and she does everything in her power to do it. Without any spoilers, I will say one of Jess's passions is improv and that plays a lot into the story and the way that it's done is just so fun and unique and interesting and something completely unexpected that I did not see going into this book. It just worked so well, way better than it had any right to it. And that reason alone is what made this a five-star read for me and why it deserves to be on this list. If you like horror, if you like thriller, if you're looking for a short read, something fun, something unique and interesting and just a little bit weird, pick up When the Wolf Comes Home by Net Cassidy. You will not be disappointed. Last but not least, we have another super recent read for me and honestly, I just kind of want to talk about it and that's Death to the Dread Goddess by Morgan Stang. This is a standalone fantasy book by Morgan Stang.

[00:06:40]He's the independent author of the Lamplight Murder Mysteries if you've read those. If not, highly recommend them. So far, I've only read book one, but I've heard they only continue to get better. And this was really my first foray into Morgan Stang's work. I've since read two more books and I've bought another two on top of that. I'm fully in the Stangaverse or the Hitchmere as I like to call it and you'll need to read this book to figure out what the hell I'm talking about.

[00:07:00]What makes this book so incredibly unique is not just the cast of characters which are diverse and unique in and among themselves. The plot is also super unique, but the sense of humor in this book, it just gets me.

[00:07:13]It's just my sense of humor. It feels a little bit weird. It's dry. It feels a little British. It's just that exact sort of humor that I look for. It just penetrates my soul. There were so many different times reading I mean, if I even have one, but there were so many different times reading this book where I legitimately laughed out loud and it's very rare for that to happen to me when I'm reading a book. More often than not, you know, I'll do a little internal giggle or you know, haha, that was clever and I'll kind of move on, but this book was genuinely so funny that sometimes I had to stop, take pictures, message people. Like I just wanted to talk about this book and how [ __ ] funny it was. And it does it without compromising the story or without compromising the characters and without feeling forced. It's not like every single character is super funny. It's not like a constant back and forth banter. It just fits the characters, it fits the story. I don't know how else to explain it. More often than not when you read something that's trying to be funny, it feels like the whole personality of the book and it gets a little bit grating and a little bit tiring. But this book just didn't do that. It just worked. It still has a lot of heart. It's just the characters in them I I could read 50 books and not get tired of these characters. That's how good they were and how much fun they were and I cannot shut up about it and I will not shut up about it. If you haven't read Death to the Dreg Goddess, you should read it cuz it's really good and I really like it and it made me read more of Morgan saying and that's only a good thing because Lamp Light is just as good as this is. The humor isn't the same. It's not as funny as Death to the Dreg Goddess is, but it's just as clever, it's just as well written, it's just as fun. And so is The Bookshop and the Barbarian which is like a shorter 200-page novella by the same author. Has the same sense of humor as Death to the Dreg Goddess does and I think that's with good reason. All of these books are kind of interconnected in a really interesting way and I love the way that they were kind of set up because there are references in The Bookshop and the Barbarian which was the earliest book of the ones that I've read so far that tie back into Death to the Dreg Goddess which is the most recent book that just came out in August and there's references as well and scenes as well that directly connect to Death to the Dreg Goddess in the first Lamp Light Murder Mystery book as well. So you can tell how far out he thought of this and that none of it was by mistake. It's all by design and I just can't wait to see what he does with it next. So there you have it, kind of an updated version of my first ever YouTube video as we're kind of coming up on that first anniversary. Thank you to everybody who's been watching me for the last year. Thank you to everybody who subscribed to me recently. I've got a goal to try and hit 5,000 subscribers by the end of this year and I think that we can do it. We're doing a pretty good job. We're getting closer every single day and I have you to thank for that. If you enjoyed this video, please like, comment, and subscribe. It really helps us get towards that goal. And if you'd like to come and hang out with us, read some books with us, you are more than welcome to do so. You can scan the QR code on screen to come join our Discord.

[00:09:49]Just chat, hang out, have a nice time.

[00:09:51]We're a lovely group of people and we would love to have you there with us. As always, thank you so much for watching.

[00:09:55]Reading is a treat and so am I. Go and watch that first video. Or maybe don't.

[00:09:59]It's not very It's not very good. But the juxtaposition, really interesting.

[00:10:02]Reading is a treat and so am I. Goodbye.

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