Prep books and Anki are both overrated. The most important thing is to practice, even when you are not feeling ready. You learn from your mistakes and develop test skills simultaneously. Books, videos, and Anki are security blankets people feel they need before they practice. There are so many practice questions available now, many for free, making review by the traditional methods archaic and obsolete. You can literally learn by doing five thousand practice questions per section.
There are over twenty thousand questions available for each of the four sections from many different resources. There has been a flood of resources since the test changed in 2015, so no one ever runs out of practice questions. If you get multiple questions wrong, then take time to fill in that missing content. Employ videos and reading as needed, once you learn from your practice questions where you are weak. Discover what you have to review, and don't assume you need to review everything. If you missed something you knew, then work on the test strategy needed to not miss that question.
There was a post here recently that made a great point about how relying on review books wastes time. Many review books are written in one of two ways: (1) they are a scaled down version of a textbook that covers material in a traditional sequence or (2) they are workbooks designed to work alongside a class, in conjunction with lectures.
Our books (BR) are a good example of materials that were designed by the second method. The most highly regarded BR books (chemistry and physics) were written by the founder. He never stopped teaching until the day BR courses shut down for good. In all honesty, without the class to go with them, they are far less effective (and for some people ineffective by themselves). Many of the complaints about their depth and detail are completely valid for people using them without the accompanying class. When there is a teacher to guide you through the techniques and information, you can navigate them and draw out what you need. What made BR so successful for so many years is that the authors were the teachers. With BR having no classes, one could argue that the books have lost their utility. It would certainly explain the drop in popularity and comments that only their passages are useful.
The problem with Anki decks is that many people use preexisting decks that cover what someone else needed for their MCAT, not necessarily what you need for yours. If you use them for quizzing yourself on material you need, then it can be a great tool. If you blindly memorize and quiz yourself on card you didn;t make, you are not getting the most out of the process.
To answer your question, it might be a good idea to forgo prep books. From all indicators, fewer and fewer people use prep books, and they are getting some great scores. Good luck with whatever you end up doing.
