Hi everyone i'm rincey and this is rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing
my April wrap-up part 2. April, right? Yes, it's April. I have no idea what day it
is anymore. Today I'm going to be talking about the books that I read in the second half
of the month. I will link up in the cards my part one wrap up that I did a couple
of weeks ago where he talked about the books that I read in the first half of
the month in case you haven't seen that one already.
So yeah, let's jump into the books. So the first book I'm just going to mention
very briefly is I read Circe by Madeline Miller. I'm not gonna talk about
this one very much here because I did an entire review on this one last week
because I love this book so so much. And I would just tell you I gave it a five
out of five stars. So go ahead and watch that review if you want more information
about this book or more of my thoughts on this book. But yeah, I adored it. I am
just going to give a blanket recommendation to everyone to pick up
this book because I, yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. Alright next I read the long
way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers. This is a book I picked up for
the book riot read harder challenge of a read a science fiction book with a
female protagonist written by a female author. So yeah, I read this one because
everyone here on booktube adores it and so I figured it would be a good one for
me to pick up since I don't read a lot of science fiction. Again, I've heard this
one is really accessible and it's true. This is just a really fun, delightful
story. So if for some reason you haven't heard about this book yet, you are
basically following this crew of people on the spaceship called the wayfarer.
And while there is a plot to the story basically what you're doing is you're
following them as they head off to a job. They're tunnelers. They explained in the
book what that means. I'm not gonna pretend like I fully understand
everything that was happening in this book. But there's just a crew of people.
And so you get to really see who all of these people are. They're not all humans.
They're different like species and stuff happening in here as well. So there's
that whole aspect to it. But yeah, I just found this to be a really just fun,
heartwarming read. The characters in here are all really interesting. I think
on Goodreads I rated it a four out of five stars. But I think like in general
it's a more like a three and a half for me. The only reason why I docked it down
that half star in my head is because it gets a little
heavy-handed sometimes with the more moral type stuff. Like some of the ways
that the characters are used in here to talk about things like gender and racism
and sexuality, like obviously, I enjoy books that have those positive messages
in them. But it felt a little bit heavy-handed at times in this book.
But overall I really enjoyed this book. It was so much fun. It was a book that I
didn't want to put down. And I feel like this is a book that I could recommend to
a bunch of different people even if they're not necessarily science fiction
readers themselves like me. I'm not really a science fiction reader very
much. And so this was a great entry-level book. I'm definitely going to be checking
out more books cause I know that she wrote, not the sequel but like the companion
novel to this one that's out. And I think she has a third book that's coming out
this year. So I definitely plan on picking those up eventually as well.
I know that the second one is really different from this one but I think that
I just enjoy these characters enough that I'm willing to read more about them.
Alright the next book that I picked up was dark chapter by Winnie M. Li. This is
a fiction mystery book technically but this story is based on events that
occurred to the author. So in the story you are following Vivian who is this
Taiwanese American young woman. She is now living in London and she likes to
travel usually by herself to go like hiking and things like that. So she
travels to Belfast to go on this hike and also for work. And while she is on
this hike, she ends up getting attacked and raped. So you follow the story from
both her point of view as well as the young man who attacks her. And it
switches back and forth between the two perspectives. So you see what Vivian's
life is like and what sort of led up until this point. And you also see her
recovering after the fact. And then you also follow again the attackers point of
view and you see his life up into this point and what his life was like moving
forward. This book was okay. The things I liked about this book is that this book
is very honest and real about the attack itself as well as the effects that the
attack has on people. Like this book is very detailed about how like after
Vivian's attacked the steps that she had to take with the police how she had to
tell her story multiple times to multiple
different people, like the police stationed at the hospital and things
like that. The sort of almost degrading process that you have to go through at
the hospital to get like a rape kit done, to like be photographed, like have your
bruises and whatever photographed, things like that. And how much of a toll that
takes on someone who's already like a victim and the difficult things they
have to deal with even after the fact while they're looking for the person and
things like that. It also talks about how difficult it was for her to just like
deal with other people and trying to move forward and things like that. But I
don't think this book is very well written and at times it felt a little
bit too neatly packaged. Like I think that this book is a good eye opener for
a lot of people especially if they don't really know that much about the impacts
that being attacked can have on a person. It's one of those things where it's like
I feel bad criticizing it because obviously this is based on true life and
her real experiences. But at the same time, something about the way this book
was put together just really didn't appeal to me very much. I felt like
everything from the attackers point of view just felt very almost stereotypical
at times. And just yeah, I had a hard time with this one. I never really connected
with it. And one of the things I had a problem with, not a problem with, but it
was hard to read a lot of times cause they're very detailed about the
attack and they go over it multiple times. Like there's a scene where she's
getting attacked and you read very explicitly what's happening and then
there's a scene I think when she's talking to either the police officers
where again it's described explicitly and then there's another scene where
they're in a courtroom and again it's talked about explicitly. I kind of
understand because obviously she's had to deal with it multiple times and talk
about explicitly multiple times. But as a reader it was really hard to read.
So obviously major trigger warnings for this book. I definitely don't recommend
it to everyone because they don't think it's going to be easy for people to read
this topic and to read about it in the way that it's written. But I do think
that it's one of those books where I'm glad that it's written because it talks
about things so openly and honestly. I don't know. I'm of two minds with this
book and I don't really know exactly where I land with it.
So yeah. If this book sounds interesting to you or it sounds like
something that you would want to read I say like you know maybe get it from the
library. Yeah, the way that this book is written was just really off-putting for
me in a way that had a strong negative effect on the way that I viewed this
overall story. All right and the final book that I have to talk about in this
video is promise me, dad by Joe Biden. The subtitle to this is a year of hope,
hardship and purpose. So if you saw back in December my vlog that I did, I went
and I actually saw Joe Biden speak live here in Chicago while he was touring for
this book. And with the ticket we also got a copy of the book, obviously.
So I actually listened to this one on audiobook I picked up the audiobook from
Audible because Joe Biden narrates it and I feel like
thats always a great way to experience memoirs and I'm really glad that I did
that. I think that if you're a fan of Joe Biden, you're going to like this book but
I think that if you're not a fan of Joe Biden, I don't know if you're necessarily
going to like this book. So the premise behind this book is that it
follows basically the year from when he finds out that his son has cancer up and
through his son passing away and sort of dealing with the grief after the fact.
Generally I don't like memoirs by politicians because in my eyes it always
feels like they're selling me on something, whether it be like themselves
or the work that they've done or something along those lines. Like I know
in general memoirs are usually written a relatively positive light. But I feel
like especially politicians, it just feels like, okay, I get it. Like you think
you've been doing good work sometimes. So generally I stay away from them. This one
I picked up because Joe Biden's son Beau who was the topic of this book passed
away maybe like four months after my dad passed away. And I remember it very
distinctly because his son passed away on a Saturday, and Sunday I was on Twitter and
people were talking about how they felt obviously. And someone shared a link
to a speech Joe Biden gave. It was prior to Beau passing away because Joe Biden's
wife and daughter, I want to say, passed away a number of years ago. And so he was
giving a speech to the family members of fallen soldiers and he talks about grief
and dealing with grief. And watching that speech
soon after my dad passed away had a very strong positive effect on me and the
grieving process. It was like one of the first times where someone talked about
grief in a way that felt real to me. I'll link it in the description or up in the
cards if I can find a link to it because yeah just the way he talks about the
grieving process just really helped me through my grieving process. And so ever
since then I've had a slight affection for Joe Biden. And so I wanted to pick up
this book because again he talks about Beau passing away and he talks about
things like grief and grieving and things like that. So overall I enjoyed
this book especially for those reasons. It, again, just feels very honest and real
when it comes to dealing with things like grief. Joe Biden is a very positive
person too though. So this isn't really like a dark side of grief. It's more like
finding the hope, finding the joy finding the motivation to move forward and
things like that. But to be honest my favorite parts of this book are at any
time that Joe Biden talks about Obama because I'm all in for that Obama-Biden
friendship. Like the way that Joe Biden talks about Barack Obama is just so full
of love and it just makes me really happy. So
All of those passages, all of those chapters, I'm very much into. Also I'm
going to link to down below the video, if I can find it if it's still up, of when
Obama presented Biden with, I think it's the Medal of Honor he provided him with.
It was like within the last couple of months of their presidency that he
provides that to Joe Biden. And it warms my heart so much. But anyways that's a
giant tangent. So yeah, I, do I recommend this book? Yeah it's like well written
obviously and like if you like Joe Biden's personality you're gonna like
this book. And again, I not enjoy the way that he talks about grief but I think
that the way that you talked about grief is very honest and very helpful. So if
you are someone who is possibly grieving over something or someone then it might
be helpful to you as well. It's also really short so there's that too. So yeah,
I enjoyed it. I can't say that necessarily everyone's going to enjoy it
but I enjoyed it. All right so those are of the books that I have for you guys in
this video. Definitely leave a comment down below letting me know if you have read
any of these books and what your thoughts are on any of them. Or you
talk to me about what your favorite read was this month because I always
enjoy reading those comments as well. So yeah,
that's all I have for now and thanks for watching.
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