Hey guys, it's Trina and this is my May reading wrap-up. As you saw in that intro
there, I only read four books this month. If there were any books that you saw in
the introduction that you just want to jump straight to that review then you
can always use the time stamps that I list in the description. I also put Goodreads
links to all the books that I talk about in my videos down in the description just
so it makes things easier for you to find. Let's check in with this month's
TBR now. So if you guys remember, I had four different reading goals that I had
set for myself that I wanted to accomplish in May. Out of these four goals
I only completed one of them. I did read the two new releases. Like I said, I only
read four books this month. When I say "only" four books, I'm just saying that in
relation to like my past monthly wrap-ups this year. I had been averaging
like around 10 books a month, so yes I did read less than average for me. There
were days where I just did not read at all, which is unusual for me but I'm not
going to force myself. I'm fine with that but that also meant that I did not hit
all those TBR goals. So, my lowest rated book this month was The Circle by
Dave Eggers. This is an adult sci-fi novel about a woman who goes to work for
this big social media company and throughout her job there she starts to
learn like this company is wanting to take over more and more aspects of
technology, of the internet, and they even start like overlapping into the
government a little bit and it just is really dictating the way that people
live their lives. So the premise of this book was just one that was right up my
alley. I really wanted to read this. And it really made me think about the things
that I enjoy with a concept like this, so the book delivered almost exactly what I
was wanting but I still only rated this book 2 stars and the reason for that
overall comes down to there was absolutely zero plot, there was no story
arc, and the characterization was completely absent. Our main character is
like the most dull, puppet type character I have ever read about. She would like go
along with whatever people were saying and then internally
say, 'I have no idea what I really think about that and I don't know why I agreed
to that.' She has just no sense of self. I did not understand her or her
motivations. And the biggest thing that I had in terms of being problematic in
this book was that there was just a ton of fat shaming in it. There is one
character in this book that is described as being 40 pounds overweight. He's in
the book for about two or three scenes but the main character thinks about him
pretty often and she always thinks about him using words like "disgusting," "gross,"
"sweaty." He's frequently called "Sasquatch." There's another statement about how if
anyone were to sleep with him they literally must be possessed by demons to
have found him attractive. It's not presented as, well these characters are
bad characters doing bad things and you should recognize that. it's treated as
we're supposed to hate that character because he's fat. That fat phobia is
something worth pointing out although that is not the reason why I gave this book
such a low rating. It was because I really enjoyed this concept, but the
execution just like was not there at all. I don't think that Dave Eggers is a
skilled writer. I feel like this story I made in my own mind when I heard the
synopsis of this book was a better story that what actually happened in this
book, so I was left completely unfulfilled. And by the way, I did start
to listen to this one on audiobook. I hated it. The narrator was terrible in my
opinion. I have reviewed it with examples of the narration in my last audio book
review video, so if you are still wanting to give this book a try and you're
thinking about trying the audiobook instead just to get through it quicker, I
really really do not recommend this. The book is going to be just a better
headcanon I think. You're going to be able to develop your own tone. The
narrator's tone did not fit the story at all. It was absolutely ridiculous. So I
did not have a fun time with either format of this book that I tried and I
just don't think it was well-written at all. Moving on, the next book that I read
was Fireworks by Katie Cotugno. This one is a YA contemporary novel set in the
90s in Orlando. It is about two best friends who are from a small southern
town and they go and audition to be in this next girl pop group, and one of the
friends really wants it, the other one she's just kind of going along with her
friend, and they both get picked to be in this new girl
group, and so there's kind of like some feelings of animosity but also
excitement for being there together, and then there are boy bands that they meet,
there's crushes, there's first loves, and you know it's definitely a summery YA
story. I did enjoy that this was set in the 90s, although there weren't like a lot of
nineties pop-culture references. Most of the pop culture stuff in here is very
fictionalized. The reason I gave this one three stars is because I ended up just
not being a fan of the way that this book explored friendships. I did not
think that this was a very healthy friendship. At times it was very healthy
and I was very like, 'oh I love this friendship,' but then there were other
times where I'm like, 'I don't know how I feel about that.' And I don't really like
the ending. It just kind of felt like some things were a bit unresolved. So I
don't have a ton more to say about this book. I did enjoy it, I don't hate it, I
don't dislike it or anything but it didn't Wow me. This is just kind of a
middle-of-the-road book for me this month. Next I read Windfall by Jennifer E
Smith, which is another YA contemporary story - this one's set in present
day - and it is about two best friends, Alice and Teddy. Teddy is turning 18
so Alice goes and buys him a lottery ticket for his birthday and he ends up
winning this massive jackpot. So this is a story about how money changes your
life. It changes all the characters lives that are involved in the story, it
changes their friendships. I really enjoyed the family vibe in this one. Like,
Alice and her family, oh my goodness I love them so much. She lives with her Aunt and
Uncle and her cousin but I absolutely adored them and just the love in that
family and even Alice's insecurities at times, I just really really loved the
family aspect of it. That was definitely my favorite part of this book. I was not
a fan of the romance in this book. There are a couple of options for
romantic interests in this book. It did not go the way that I wanted it to. I
just didn't really like the character that got like the romance spotlight in
the book. I just didn't like some things about it and like their relationship, so
again this one just kind of hit middle of the road for me. Don't dislike it but
it's not going to be like top of my list of favorite books to recommend. And the last
book that I read this month, which was the one that I
enjoyed the most was A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas.
This is the third book in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. This one does
have a finale to that entire story arc, although I know Sarah J Maas is writing
more books and novellas set in this world with some of the characters we
know we just don't know who they're going to follow or what those stories
are going to be yet. This is a new adult series, meaning that there is some
graphic sex, there is graphic violence in it. and it is a fantasy series about fae.
I had a huge emotional connection to the second book, A Court of Mist and Fury,
because that book really deals with abusive relationships and as someone
who's been through an abusive relationship it was a mirror for me and
I was hoping that some of that would carry through into book 3. There were
a couple of lines that really resonated with me, that I was like, 'how does she get
this?' but this book did not have as strong of an emotional connection for me
because it's really not about that at this point. This one is going much more
into like the war. I will say though that I was very impressed with how Sarah J
Maas wrote all these battle scenes and I think the reason I love the battle
scenes in this one so much is because so many YA series, or just any series,
they want the finale to be about their characters going into war doing this big
thing and then it ends up focusing on like one conversation that your main character
has with the villain and like maybe their little fist fight or something and
then the war takes place outside of them and you don't really know what all
happened. Sarah J. Maas somehow wrote like all the little aspects, you see all
the characters in this war and it felt epic and it felt like a large scope to
me. It felt very hard-fought to me. It felt like there was a lot at risk and I
really enjoyed that. That's what I always want in any kind of finale that's going
to end in a war. This is the type of war and battle writing that I want it to be.
Like there were things that came out of nowhere
that surprised me that I probably should have seen coming but I didn't. I just
really loved how she used every single character you've ever heard of in this
series and every single part of the world, they all came around in the end
and I just felt like I was very fulfilled by the ending. Now, I don't agree
with all of Sarah J Maas's writing choices when it comes to diversity. There
is a female character that says she prefers women
but she likes both women and men and I know a lot of readers have been
upset by her portrayal of that. There's another bisexual character who I do
think that that character has some really bad stereotypical tendencies. And
then there was a line in this book that I know a lot of people saw as being
acephobic and that one has caused a lot of hurt. I would not recommend going to
her books if you're looking for good diverse representation. So the short
answer is I was not as emotionally connected to this book as I was to A
Court of Mist and Fury, but I really enjoyed this one as an ending. It delivered the
war that it was promising and building up to so in that aspect it was very
satisfying to me and I thought that she wrote those battle and action scenes
very well, or at least in a way that I personally liked. That's everything that
I read in the month of May. If any of you guys have read any of the books I talked
about and you want to talk about them more, definitely leave me a comment. We
can discuss them further. And I would love to know what your favorite book
that you read in May was. Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you in the comments. Bye!
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