Laura Tien - Invidious

Of the books I've read from this list, I'm happy to report that I do think the majority of them are worth the read! 🥳

And the majority of the ones on my maybe list were 3.5 or 4 star reads. They just weren't a resounding yes for me personally.

Everything in no was a DNF. 😬

YES
The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey
Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio
The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne
The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Howling Dark by Christopher Ruocchio
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
Red City by Marie Lu
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
The Strength of the Few by James Islington

NO
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

MAYBE
Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson
Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman
The Will of the Many by James Islington

#booktube #sffbooks #scifibooks #fantasybooks #bookrecs

5 days ago |[YT] | 22

View 0 replies

Laura Tien

📚 Everything I read in September

I had quite a strange reading month compared to normal. I started it off with reading books outside of my comfort zone and ended up finding two new favourites.

However, when returning to fantasy and sci-fi, and to series that I've loved in the past, I didn't have as much luck.

I'm not 100% sure how I want my October reading to go. I'm thinking about trying out some horror as spooky season approaches. 👻

❓How did your reading month go?

BOOKS MENTIONED:
🎧 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
📖 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
📖 Fruit Fly by Josh Silver
🎧 Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo
📖 Demon in White by Christopher Ruocchio

#booktube #litfic #scifibooks #septemberwrapup #readingwrapup

2 weeks ago (edited) |[YT] | 76

View 7 replies

Laura Tien

First video of mine to hit 10k views?! 🥺

This is genuinely crazy to me and I'm so grateful to be slowly building my little corner of the internet.

Love you all and appreciate the support endlessly! 🫶

4 weeks ago |[YT] | 24

View 2 replies

Laura Tien

Is romantasy actually good, or are we all just easily hypnotised by morally gray fae men? 🤔

I'm not a romance HATER but I am a skeptic who usually sticks to epic fantasy and sci-fi. Recently, I decided to put my hesitations aside and run an experiment to see if romantasy could win me over.

Here’s what happened when I let a bookseller, my subscribers, and internet hype pick my reading list.

📖 Book 1: Hollow by Carolyn Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Super fast-paced and easy to read, but the toxic alpha male energy made me want to send the male lead straight to jail. (2.5/5 ⭐️)

📖 Book 2: The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
You guys recommended this one and WOW. Tender MCs, incredible prose, nuanced commentary… faith fully restored! (5/5 ⭐️)

📖 Book 3: When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker
Straight into the action, but sometimes meant that it felt rushed. I’m realizing enemies-to-lovers might just not be my jam. (3.5/5 ⭐️)

My big takeaway? Romantasy IS for me. I just need to avoid alpha males and overly angsty enemies-to-lovers dynamics. 😅

❓Do you have any other romantasy recommendations that need to be on my TBR? Have you read any of these? What's your experience with romance/romantasy been like?

#booktube #fantasybooks #romancebooks #romantasybooks #bookrecs

1 month ago |[YT] | 46

View 9 replies

Laura Tien

📚 Every book I read in the best reading month I've had all year! (Swipe for ratings and thoughts. ➡️)

My reading pace has been quite slow all of 2026 but I was flying through books at record pace in August.

I've been switching things up a lot with my genres as well, introducing some romantasy and contemporary, which I think has helped a lot. Not only are they much shorter than the typical fantasy that I read, it's also just been nice to have some change.

❓How did your reading month go?

FINISHED:
📖 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
📖 When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker
📖 Scion by James Islington
📖 Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang
🎧 The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean
📖 Heart the Lover by Lily King

CURRENTLY READING/LISTENING:
🎧 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
📖 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

#booktube #fantasybooks #scifibooks #augustwrapup #readingwrapup

1 month ago (edited) |[YT] | 71

View 6 replies

Laura Tien

What happens when an interconnected network can model all of human nature… except you? 👁️

If you’re a fan of high-stakes systems fiction like Dune or deep biological sci-fi like Children of Time, this premise is about to be right up your alley.

MAYA: Seed Takes Root (@maya_lore_) drops today, and it tackles some huge questions around big data, digital afterlives, and total algorithmic control. It’s massive in scale, insanely detailed, and easily one of the most ambitious speculative debuts on my radar.

📅 Releasing worldwide · August 25, 2026 (TODAY!)

Also, fun fact for audiobook listeners: Hugo Weaving is narrating the audio edition! 🎧

❓If you could talk to an interactive digital replica of someone you lost, would you do it?

#booktube #scifibooks #scifireader #EnterMaya #MayaSeedTakesRoot

1 month ago (edited) |[YT] | 44

View 4 replies

Laura Tien

If you’ve ever felt like epic fantasy moves too slow or classic mystery lacks high-stakes immersion, this is the subgenre mashup you didn't know you needed. 📚

The Shadow of the Leviathan by Robert Jackson Bennett gives you gripping detective work set inside a beautifully crafted, magical world where every clue actually matters.

The Tainted Cup, A Drop of Corruption and the recently released A Trade of Blood have all been favourites for me!

❓Have you read this series yet, or is it sitting on your TBR?

#booktube #fantasybooks #mysterybooks #bookseries #bookrecs

2 months ago |[YT] | 66

View 10 replies

Laura Tien

Every book I read this month! 📚

Okay, I genuinely can't get over the fact that July is already over? Didn't we just do our mid-year check-ins? 😭 But overall, I had a pretty fantastic reading month!

I read some incredible 2026 new release sequels. I also started my romantasy journey which to be honest, didn't go so well... However, I do plan on reading a couple more in August that I have high hopes for. 🤞

❓How did your month go in reading and life in general?

FINISHED:
📖 The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey (The Captive's War, #2)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📖 A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett (Shadow of the Leviathan, #3)
(Thank you to Del Rey for sharing the ARC with me through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📖 Hollow by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti (Crown of Hearts and Chaos, #1)
⭐⭐💫

DNF:
📖 The Rainshadow Orphans by Naomi Ishiguro

CURRENTLY READING/LISTENING:
📖 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

🎧 The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean

#booktube #fantasybooks #scifibooks #julywrapup #readingwrapup

2 months ago |[YT] | 75

View 8 replies

Laura Tien

The Captive's War by James S.A. Corey needs to be the next sci-fi series in your TBR pile!

I had already thought that The Mercy of Gods was top-tier sci-fi and somehow, The Faith of Beasts was even better? Not to mention, the novella that goes between the books, Livesuit, was incredible as well.

It's currently a planned trilogy so there's still one more book to get excited about but no need to worry about investing your time in a super long series!

I couldn't fit everything into the carousel without making it too lengthy but I really wanted to emphasise just how incredible their writing is. James S.A. Corey are the authors of The Expanse series (which I still need to read!) and you can really tell that they're experts at their craft.

They've found such a consistent tone for this series that instantly transports me into the world every time I pick it up. Their expert-level storytelling balances heavy dark themes with lighthearted moments beautifully. And their genius foreshadowing and dramatic irony made the entire series (but The Faith of Beasts in particular) so addictive.

Plus, I genuinely feel like I know the characters so well at this point. Every decision makes perfect sense, even the morally grey ones. The way they handle the moral dilemmas is so though-provoking and just chefs kisses.

❓Have you read this or anything else by the authors? Let me know all your thoughts!

#booktube #scifibooks #themercyofgods #thefaithofbeasts #jamessacorey

2 months ago |[YT] | 45

View 0 replies

Laura Tien

Is it a crime to say that the "blueprint of fantasy" didn’t entirely hold up for me? 🫣

❓Have you read J.R.R Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings? Or is it on your TBR?

Because I like data, I tracked and averaged my actual chapter ratings as I read. The math did not lie, my enjoyment took a steady downward dive with every single book.

📖 The Fellowship of the Ring
📈 4.52 average | Rounded down to 4.5⭐

📖 The Two Towers
📈 4.25 average | Rounded down to 4⭐

📖 The Return of the King
📈 3.75 average | Rounded down to 3⭐

One thing I wanted to mention: I couldn't ignore the fact that there wasn't a single complex female character in the entire trilogy. There was a tiny bit of awareness around women and their place in the world but I hated the way this wrapped up. I have heard that complex female characters appear in some of Tolkein's other works but I can only speak to the LOTR.

TLDR: I don’t regret reading the trilogy at all, and I completely respect its legacy. But if you’re a reader who needs deep, heart-wrenching character connections and emotional payoff to love a series, you might end up feeling just as flat as I did by the end.

#booktube #fantasybooks #lotr #lordoftherings #jrrtolkein

3 months ago |[YT] | 28

View 6 replies