I paid a book expert to recommend me books... and then I read them 📚 year of recs ep1

[@maggiemcgee123]

As a librarian I’m going to highly recommend you ask your library! They can have an in person conversation with you, for free!

[@kristagallitelli]

I love this idea!

[@mcflylover890]

Absolutely! Promoting your local library would be really cool.

[@moonbook12]

Or library where she lives now and then once she returns she can ask her local library

[@erinreadsalot]

Yes!! You can also see if your library has a database like Novelist Plus, that gives recommendations based on your favorite books, genres, or types of features in books!

[@xofashgalxo]

I think it could be fun to see if you could get a bunch of your Booktuber friends (ones who already know your taste well) to work together and try to make a little TBR for you. Not just that each one recommends one book, but they all have to discuss and narrow down the list together. They have to try to agree on it all. I think it would be a really fun and collaborative thing to see what they come up with.

[@jessicapratt1400]

Oooo this is a fun idea! She could ask all of the booktubers who have done well on her booktuber twin series!

[@chelsey8737]

Even though you didn't enjoy the books overall I think they nailed it. I think they did a really good job of finding the genres that you enjoy and where they overlap. I would love another epsiode where you can now dial in exactly what you should say to get the best chance of a perfect recommendation

[@kristagallitelli]

I could have written this comment myself - took the words right out of my mouth! I’d love to see her take it another step further here! I was so impressed by the uniqueness of the recommendations!

[@okaywhatev4]

I think book taste is an art, not a science and no matter how much you try to optimize there could always be reasons that surprise you for liking or not liking a book. That’s part of the fun! And a lot of it is down to vibes.

[@Hillary429]

Isn’t there a super swanky bookstore in London where you can make an appointment for personalized recommendations? Lucy Wood made a video going there a while back

[@rachelmatthews8489]

Mr B's Emporium in Bath run reading spas and they are amazing!

[@JasminKiechle]

That sounds heavenly ​@@rachelmatthews8489

[@cleverkrowbooks13]

When I used TBR, I got a 5 star, a DNF, and a 3 star. It was quite the spread. It was really fun to try reading books I had never heard of or considered reading before.

[@corriew4441]

Recs from the winner of your booktube twin test! Mara did such a good job last time that I think you should get more recs from her

[@fancifulimpression]

My local library does this service as well - would love to see you do this through your local library as well 💚

[@KatieColson]

“I’m giving this a 3 star. Can I say that? Is this a safe space?” 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@avsambart]

Maybe it's time to do another (4-)5 star book audit and dig really deep in your preferences so we can find you a real winner 😭

[@Kriseaf]

I'm not sure if your local libraries do it, but in the US it's pretty common for your library to do basically this exact thing but for free. I know mine has an online form you can submit and they'll respond back in a few weeks with a list of book recs. Maybe that could be one of your future rec sources. Also, not sure this is enough for a full month's recommendations, but I always swear by just googling "if you liked [favorite book] try" and then reading through Reddit and personal blogs.

[@marabookstagram]

I feel like the professional book recommender in all of my social circles. 😆

[@cynthialovesbooks]

If you're not already planning this, it would be fun to go into either an independent/lesser-known bookstore or a more well-known one and having the staff guide you to recommendations. It may also be fun to go into a library and let the librarian guide you to recommendations. Lala is doing a series seeing which platform knows the best books. A variation of that would be to run a contest among your followers and pick 1-3 who would then each recommend one book. Really enjoyed this one!

[@chooselovebooks]

As an indie bookseller - I’m a little biased 😂 … but I’d say definitely best recs you can get are from indie sellers and librarians who wanna work with you to find something you’re going to love!! Off the top of my head, I have 4 things I’d love to recommend based off of other things you’ve loved. 👌🏻👌🏻 I’d definitely suggest trying out an indie !

[@JoannaMurray]

You could do the Reading Spa at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath!

[@anaos1004]

So, heres an idea. Recently, ive started a spreadsheet on excel to see which booktuber I follow has the most similar taste to me in books, just to see which recommendations I can trust. So I went through my goodreads and put on each excel line the books Ive read with my star rating and on each column I put the booktuber and their star rating. If my 5 stars matched one of their 5 stars, that particular square (with the booktuber rating equal to mine) would become blue. Green if it was a 4 star match, yellow for 3 stars, orange for 2 stars and purple for 1 star match. If i gave the book 1 star and the booktuber gave it a 5, that square would become red (as in, its a red flag that we had such different tastes for that book). And on the flip side, it there was a book that was a super favorite to me and the booktuber gave it a 3 or less, than it would be grey (as in, my feelings are hurt that the person disliked something I loved so much). And then on the side, I tallied how many matches I had with each booktuber for each rating (with all the colors). Hopefully this will help gauge similarities and differences in tastes so that i dont get disappointed by a recommendation that I thought I would love. Long story long, you could do that and see if you can get a recommendation from the top 3 matches you have (taking into consideration the red and grey flags as well). Anyways, I might be crazy to have typed all of this because I know its a lot of work 😅

[@Rosalind_Jane]

I love this data-driven approach. Feel like theres a way you could set a formula to do the formatting for you, at least for how different your ratings are, with conditional formatting based on number difference. Not sure how to highlight the shared five stars as more relevant than other matches but someone who's good at excel could probably advise.

[@jessicapratt1400]

I wish I had the time to do this for myself!

[@AsclepiusPress]

If you’re looking for an experimental book that is TRULY doing something new, please read ‘Pharmakides’. It is a fantasy standalone written from the bird’s eye view. Happy reading!

[@courtneymoeller1332]

“WIGS” absolutely took me out. Very unexpected.

[@wa11ie]

i see a lot of people suggesting local libraries, i‘m going to suggest independent book stores. whenever anyone in our family needs a reccomendation, we go to our local book store, they are fantastic at making reccomendations and they sometimes suggest books i never even knew i wanted to read. plus you can just buy the book from the source and support your local, independent book store.

[@cleg78]

The Book Eaters is BRILLIANT I loved it 🤩

[@Panagiotireads]

Just finished this new, original collection of fairy tales, entitled 'Sillies, Fancies, and Trifles' - it was phenomenal and just perfect for the season. You guys would love it! What's everyone else reading, I want some more recommendations to add to the lovely ones here. Keep up the beautiful videos :)

[@samworley3960]

i’m sure you have this planned already but you should DEFINITELY do a reading suggestions from Mara!!! y’all have such similar tastes and she did so well in the booktube twin test i feel like it’d be a sure fire win

[@lol123GNA]

I'd love to see another go at the recommendation service!

[@angelaluz405]

You absolutely should have mentioned the dual timeline thing. I'd watch a video of you doing this again to see if they improve, if you change your parameters or tell them why you didn't love the things they chose this time.

[@myreadsbooks]

Omg Meg I dont know if this is on your radar yet, but im in the middle of The Tainted Cup which is by the author of foundryside and its a fantastical sherlock holmes retelling murder mystery - seems so up your alley

[@hardbackhoarder]

I want a meme folder tour so badly 😂

[@megwithbooks]

There is no organisation just pure chaos😂😂

[@marabookstagram]

You have to read Night Film by Marisha Pessl! It's so dark and unique.

[@kitcat6352]

I read this recently, and it didn't age well. The story and format was interesting, but the transphobia and racist characterisation of all non-white characters resulted in a DNF from me.

[@marabookstagram]

@@kitcat6352 ah crud. That's good to know. I don't remember the protagonist being a good person, so that tracks.

[@tungstensmum1491]

All I am going to say is if anyone is interested in The Book Eaters, definitely give the audiobook a try. The narrator really gave the story an extra star for me.

[@elxnita]

Interesting you say this because I thought the audiobook made it worse for me 😅

[@tungstensmum1491]

@@elxnita I really do love how books impact people so differently. I guess I’ll clarify that I especially appreciated that the narrator that was hired for the book was from the area where the book takes place and her accent was very specific to the area (apparently) and that helped me get immersed in the story. I don’t typically find that a narrator ruins an audiobook for me but every so often one really really sells it and she did.

[@racheltfisher]

@@elxnitaI didn’t mind the audiobook but I enjoyed the e book equally 😊

[@smidgley86]

​@@tungstensmum1491ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp pp pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp.pppppp.ppppp

[@_bookber]

excited to see the rest of this series! i do think it would be interesting to try another round of TBR with even more specific recs

[@jodieneary9960]

Gosh I felt so bad when I saw you pull The Book Eaters - I had to DNF it I couldn’t get past the pacing issues.

[@fiveafterseven]

I think whichever recommendation processes are the most and least successful you should repeat at the end to see if they do better/same/worse the second time

[@gabbyreads]

This is so exciting, I love that you plan to make this a series this year!! I was just planning to make another video soon with reading recs from TBR and this is only making me more excited to do it soon haha 😍👏

[@serafinajane951]

I think it would be so fun to try tbr again and see if you can get a better result! That sounds so fun!!! 💕

[@meaganwelch7241]

I would love to see you try this again, and see how your book recommender adjusts to what you did and didn’t like!

[@guess2300]

I have access to all of these books so I'm going to pause and go and read them... and then watch the rest of the video.

[@queenkim8631]

Im so excited to see the other videos for this series!!!

[@AnotherTurning]

A lot of libraries have recommendation services! Even if they don't list something with a form officially on their website, you can often go in person and talk to a librarian to get recs.

[@a.b.2405]

So funny you had to look at your past video for your favorite books 😂. Classic! I wouldn’t know how to answer either.

[@muddywatersbookshelf7758]

You might enjoy The Tainted Cup. It is a mystery fantasy. Aardvark Book Club listed this book for Feb 2924 and I immediately thought you would like it, Meg.

[@imaginepageant]

I had a terrible experience with this company. They recommended a book centred around the ONE thing I stated on my profile was triggering and I didn’t want to read: child abduction and murder. Thankfully, it is only my worst fear and not something that’s actually happened to me… but imagine it was, and they got me to read a book that opened with the grisly details of how a mother discovered her child missing from her bed, and how her body was later found violently mutilated? I was appalled and disgusted. I will NEVER again give my money to a company that is so careless and blatantly disrespectful and I strongly urge everyone else to steer clear of them, too.

[@Rosalind_Jane]

that's awful. Did they offer you a refund or anything? You're paying for them to closely read and follow your specifications so they didn't do that job at all.

[@imaginepageant]

@@Rosalind_Jane Nope. Nothing but a clearly copy-and-pasted stock response. I cancelled my subscription, obviously, and then kept getting chipper marketing emails asking me to come back, despite how many time I unsubscribed to their mailing list. I sent them a contact form about it, but kept getting the emails. They literally do NOT care a bit about their customers.

[@rebeccamarsden2128]

Interesting to hear your thoughts on The Book Eaters!! Really looking forward to reading that one💗

[@aob6033]

I think that it would be a fun use of the service to try to find a book in a genre that you generally don't like. Like for example, I don't like historical fiction generally, but if it was a really good , fast paced thriller, that was also historical, maybe I'd like it! That cold be a fun challenge

[@Lili_Maybe]

I've always been so curious about this service!! But never felt like I could justify doing it when I have all these other books still on my TBR, and I think I'm quite picky as a reader, lol. One of my main goals this year is getting my TBR down to zero, maybe I could try using this TBR service as a gift for when/if I reach the goal 🤔 I would still love to watch another episode of this if you would be down to do another! I think they listened quite well to what you wrote down, so if you put down the tropes and other things you like/dislike like you mentioned, I think it could turn out quite well if you do decide to try again! ❤ nice video

[@yarection]

So glad I found your channel. Great videos !

[@bridgetvollmer6337]

I love this vlog. Very fun to watch and would love another like it. I may do it myself.

[@Itsjess13]

I haven't read it myself yet but I've heard great things about the novella "The scourge between stars" by Ness Brown. It's sci-fi and a thriller I believe. Anyways, I'm excited to read it and it you want to try it it's not long! For a Fantasy-Horror book I loved "The house of Hunger" by Alexis Henderson.

[@literatelyalees]

This sounds amazing! I ran to the link and signed up for my own recs ☺️

[@Sarasstorytime22]

I feel like they should be paying YOU for your time with the amount of questions they asked. 🧐😁

[@Minkinglady]

Oh Lordy, I was so excited about the line up for you 😅

[@brennag6138]

OMG I love these types of videos! Yay :)

[@scarletstitches4652]

Im sure Mr. B's must be on your list. They do 5 free book recommendations online very similar to this, but I had my recommendations back within an hour ❤

[@trinforeman54]

I loved The Book Eaters!!

[@bethkenny5620]

35 min long videos are such a TREAT., the book gods love us

[@kaytlinhenderson9206]

Begging, hoping, screaming for Wrapped Up Recs in December 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

[@moonbook12]

29:41 yes please or put a special promoter like in TBR cluedo (like the rose)

[@racheltfisher]

I’ve just finished reading The Book Eaters and enjoyed it 😊

[@staceysbooknook]

I think Follower recommendations! I feel like the people who watch your videos a lot will know what kind of things you could potentially rate 5 stars :)

[@louisedoeslife]

That fake window >>>

[@earthtoelya]

Would never have guessed Con Air as one of your fav movies 😂 but YAY TWINS Nic Cage 4eva

[@halslibrary]

GO TO THE LIBRARY!!!

[@katherineeaster5799]

Random, but Moulin Rouge is my favorite musical! The way your describing River Woman, River Demon is how I felt about Mothered by Zoje Stage. I'm fine with morally grey characters, but I need a little something to relate to.

[@JayGTheAwkwardBookworm]

I’ve had the book eaters on my TBR since it came out 👀

[@rebelbelle1388]

My brother used this same TBR service a few years ago, and he had similar results to you. The highest rated book was about 3 stars. He was pretty disappointed. He actually did better on his own just browsing amazon and wattpad, sadly.

[@funfuz]

I'll give you some graphic novel/comic recs to expand your horizons :) - A Frog in Fall (And Later On) by Linnea Sterte (PEOW, available at Gosh) - Heat by Jean Wei (PEOW, hopefully available soon at Gosh) - Don't Go Without Me by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell (Shortbox, buy before Shortbox stops end of February) - I See A Knight by Xulia Vicente (Shortbox, buy before Shortbox stops end of February)

[@ChemicalPenguinn]

Not the curse of the 3 stars 😭

[@elxnita]

omg excited to hear what you think of the book eaters because i did NOT like that book

[@Silverraine1]

Same!

[@BRhymesss]

I loved my mystery box from the novel neighbor. You get a form and can say books and themes you love and hate and what kind of books you’re looking for and then they’ll send you books based on it. It’s how I found The Once and Future Witches. I wonder if there’s any bookstores closer to you that do this

[@concertjunkie973]

I’ve done this service a few times I still need to read the last ones they gave me 🤦‍♀️ I’m behind lol. River woman was actually one of them lol. Definitely give them another try , you can rate the books on the place they recommended them so you can say there your thoughts so they can improve more

[@bookbinder_way]

I think you might need to read some books totally outside your usual genres but that still sound interesting to you. Or like, a historical fiction set in a time period you don't know anything about. Something that is totally unfamiliar to you, even outside your comfort zone. I think you have read so many books that are fairly similar that they are all just boring. Something similar happened to me, and once I started reading way outside my usual kinds of books it really shook me out of my reading funk and I was able to go back and enjoy books from my more comfortable genres while also continuing to explore tons of new books in genres I had never read from before.

[@abbywonder3825]

I used mytbr for 2 years. I DNFd a good amount and wasn’t impressed with most others. I still have several to read but dread them lol

[@brookestrother7504]

I’m calling an emergency! 🚨 You should quickly try to finish Love Theoretically before the month ends bc it’s simple, quick and might be a good palate cleanser!

[@Karenlalsip]

You might be able to get some good recommendations from booksellers, perhaps nearby indie bookstores

[@QueenCNow]

omg, this sound like a fun idea. You could try recommendation from your follow, but a fun idea could be to go to booktuber, , that you have a lot in commen with, and read a recommendation from years ago, it could be 2020, 2021, 2022 or older, but you choose a year and read recommendation from that year that you never got to read, like if a book show up more than 3-5 time and you still own it and havent read it. .

[@story.struck]

If you don't have a librarian on your list yet I think you should add it!

[@user-yi4wr8zj5v]

I'd love the book eaters ❤📚

[@jenny_readss]

I got Red Scholars Wake by Alliette de Bodard in a book box last year, I think it's the same world, but haven't yet picked it up because the ships confused me!

[@Silverraine1]

I read Tea Master and Seven of Infinities novellas before so I already knew about mindships, so it felt less weird and confusing to read a romance with such a love interest than I imagine coming into the book without any knowledge would be.

[@kate-ne]

I think this would be worth re-doing at least once! It seems like the person giving the recommendation did give a lot of thought and understood the assignment, they just happened to be duds. 😅

[@elena-mariaboni]

You might like Station Eternity for a sci-fi mystery

[@TheLitReviewForBooks]

For what it's worth, I think the service improves with time, especially if you keep the same bibliologist. So if you wanted to try it again I think the feedback you give them would be helpful. But I also don't think you need to re-do this in your series, so maybe when you're feeling brave down the line?

[@Bonnets_and_books]

I think it would be cool to get recs from bookstubers with less than 1000 subscribers? A way to boost newer or smaller channels!

[@jodydiou]

24:35 I hear ya!!! I have Aphantasia, no minds eye. I can't see things in my head, it's blank/black when I close my eyes. I hate it!!!!

[@bea9631]

Norwich City t shirt ?? ok queen

[@lesap8889]

Hi Meg, would you please let me know how you paid for this subscription the reccomends all at once?

[@amandakate4951]

My copy of the book eaters arrived last yr & honestly the font put me off....it is TINY! Who approved that?

[@wes_ley177]

hey megan! just so you know chicano and chicana is mexican/american! you were super close :)

[@miss.neurotika]

i think "they never learn" could be a dual timeline that could work for you

[@meljstephan]

Any book with a parent not being a good parent is getting a 1- or 2- star from me. That's why I hated Don't Let Her Stay.

[@sleuthytv1228]

I have a feeling this paid person is actually AI lol

[@chazvillarreal3883]

Whats the tv show she references

[@Neverrgreen]

The tea maater and detective book was a bit boring to me, as soon as i was finally gettin into the world and the characters it ended.

[@megandcochrane]

Oh….River book….I grew up in the area this book is set in but even the nostalgia could not overcome the terrible storytelling. 😅

[@JasminKiechle]

I only read Bookeaters out of these three and it really wasn't for me - esoecially the writing style kept me from enjoying it

[@meghanwalsh8952]

Omg pull a patreon member out a jar and get them to pick???

[@annabanana7381]

You should try reading a book in your least favorite genre.

[@endezeichengrimm]

This is a waste of money. Just read a few pages and decide if it's something you want to read or not.....

[@naomiblenkinsop4259]

no offense but paying a book expert is such a waste of money...yikes

[@hey-jd7fh]

just ask chatgpt