Hi guys, I've got my September Wrap Up and October TBR today and honestly I'm just
going to get straight on into it because despite having a pretty rubbish month in general,
I have somehow ended up with 10 books to talk about today, which is kind
of unheard of for me. I have no idea how it happened. I hadn't realised that I'd
read so much until I sat down to film this video and I tend to ramble in these
videos, like I am doing now and I don't want this to be super long. I'm just going get
straight on into the books that I read during the month of September. The first
book I have, I actually finished in August but I filmed my August Wrap Up
before I finished it, so I thought I would talk about it today and that is
'You Know Me Well' by Nina LaCour and David Levithan. This is set during Pride in San Francisco.
And is a dual respective between Kate and Mark who meet at a club
after Kate has run away from the chance to meet the girl that she's had a
crush on for years. And Mark is at this club basically watching his best friend
Ryan, who he has been in love with, dancing with another guy and is
realising that he may not also be in love with him. This basically follows
them throughout that week and the friendship that blossoms between them
and how each of them helps the other one out with the things that they're dealing with.
I thought this was absolutely adorable. I really, really enjoyed it.
I loved the writing style in it. It was really easy to read and it flowed really
well between both perspectives and also it was just adorable and fluffy and just
the cutest contemporary, whilst also dealing with a lot of different issues.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would highly recommend it and I ended up giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.
Next I read 'The Taste of Blue Light' by Lydia Ruffles and this
is about Lux, who is an artist and goes to a specialist art school and one day
she goes to a party and the next thing she knows she's waking up in hospital
with no memory of what happened to her. And it basically follows her trying to
work out what happened but mainly focuses on her trying to deal with and
come to terms with the fact that this thing happened to her and she has
absolutely no idea what that is and she has this whole blank part of her memory.
This was marketed as a psychological thriller and I personally definitely
would not describe it as a psychological thriller. I would just sort of think it
was a slightly darker contemporary, with a mystery to it and I didn't really
enjoy this to be honest. Some of the side characters I really liked but the main
character I didn't warm to in the slightest.
The one thing I did really like about this was the writing style. It flowed so
quickly and I flew through it but overall the story I wasn't the biggest
fan of. I would probably end up giving a 2 to a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
I then read a book that thankfully I did really, really enjoy and
that is 'Eliza and Her Monsters' by Francesca Zappia and I have done a full
review for this, so I will leave a link to that in the description. But this follows
Eliza, who in real life doesn't really have many friends and she's extremely
shy but online she is the anonymous creator of one of the world's most
famous and successful web comics. And then one day a new boy joins her class
and she realises that he is a huge, huge fan of her webcomic but she decides not
to tell him that she is its creator. And it basically follows the relationship
that grows between them and the different things that they both
individually deal with during their day to day life and I thought this was
absolutely adorable. I really, really enjoyed it. Again, I loved the writing
style. It was very easy to read, very comfortable, very quick flowing. I really
enjoyed all of the characters in it. Eliza was fantastic, I absolutely loved
the way that her anxiety and mental illnesses were portrayed in it. I
thought it was brilliant. She has panic attacks and anxiety and also, although
not out rightly stated on the page, I'm pretty sure she was also dealing with depression.
And Wallace, the love interest, was absolutely adorable. He's
one of the cutest love interests I have read in a very long time. There were also
different elements to it. So there were some drawings and some Tumblr posts and
text messages and things like that. This is one I would definitely recommend,
especially if you enjoyed Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and Radio Silence by Alice Oseman.
I would say that this was a really great mix of those two books and
I ended up giving it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I really, really enjoyed it.
I then read 'Secrets For The Mad' by Dodie Clark, which is coming out in November.
This is essentially a collection of short autobiographical stories from
Dodie's life and follows her life from being young and then also follows her
YouTube career and things like that. Dodie's writing was absolutely fantastic.
It was just picturesque and lyrical and perfectly captured the story that she
was trying to tell in the short chapter that she told it. And you can
definitely, definitely tell that Dodie is a songwriter from it because it was
just gorgeous. She was extremely candid and honest about a lot of different
topics. From things like abuse, to depression, to various different mental
illnesses. So I will link my Goodreads review in the description box, which had
a list of some trigger warnings in it because I do think if there are certain
topics that if you are sensitive to, then you definitely need to be a little bit
wary before going into it but I really appreciated how honest she was. She kind of
put all of her cards on the table and I thought that was absolutely brilliant
and it was just a really lovely read, although it was also kind of
heartbreaking at times. I would definitely recommend picking this up
when it is out because it was a really, really lovely read and also the book and
the cover is just stunning. Next I picked up 'The Epic Cush of Genie Lo'.
This follows Genie who is a Chinese American teenager, going through
her everyday life and trying to get through exams and school. When one day she
finds out that where she lives is being attacked by demons straight out of
Chinese folklore and the guy that she meets who is going to help her take them
down, turns out to be a Monkey King from the same folklore stories. And this was a
really, really fun read. It had a badass, kickass Chinese American protagonist,
which was really great. I really enjoyed all of the fast paced action scenes,
which were almost movie like and I just wish there had been more of them because
a lot of this I found quite slow and every time I got to the super fast paced
action scenes, I was just craving more of them because I think F.C. Yee wrote those
absolutely fantastically. I also really enjoyed the fact that this was a
retelling or at least inspired by Chinese folklore. It was just really
interesting to be able to learn about something and read something from a
culture that I just don't really know anything about. I do think that this is
something that a lot of people will absolutely love because it was really
fun. It just was a little bit slow paced in some places for me but I do know that
I'm very much in the minority for that because I know so many people absolutely
loved this and I ended up giving it a 3 out of 5 stars.
I then read 'You're a Good Man Charlie Brown' which is a short collection of the 'Peanuts' comic
strips, that was actually my mum's when she was younger. And I picked this up
because I needed cheering up and Charlie Brown is always the guy to do that
because these comics make me so ridiculously happy. They make me laugh
and they just bring joy to my heart. I didn't like this one as much as I did
the last one I read just because a lot of them were a continuation of the same
comic strip, rather than each one being an individual story but I loved it and I
ended up giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.
After that I read 'Ten' by Gretchen McNeil which is a way of retelling of
'And Then There Where None' by Agatha Christie and it's basically about ten teenagers
that are invited to a private party on a private island and then basically
follows them throughout the weekend as one by one they are killed off.
And I really enjoyed this. I have very conflicting feelings about it
but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was incredibly fast paced, incredibly easy to read. I was kept guessing
the entire time, which never ever happens with thrillers and I loved that because I got to the
end and hadn't really 100% worked out who was the killer and what was going on,
which just made me so happy. And also I was genuinely quite creeped out at times
and I'm not sure whether that's because of the book or whether that's because I
was reading it downstairs, on my own, at 3 in the morning, when it was pitch black
every time I picked this up but sometimes it was a little bit creepy,
which never happens to me and I love being scared by books.
It was incredibly stereotypical and cliche but in a really, really fun way.
So in that sense I absolutely loved this book but with that being said I had one
gigantic issue with this book and that was that it was absolutely littered with
ableism and ableist language. Specifically surrounding one of the
characters that was dealing with mental illness and I think she had
anxiety and bipolar and that just made me really irritated every time it
happened because it was just unnecessary. So I am conflicted about it because on
one hand, in general, I absolutely loved this book and it was an extremely
enjoyable read but on the other hand it was littered with ableism, which I just
can't really excuse. I think I'm going to give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
I would recommend this if you are looking for a really fun, quick, kind of
very addictive, creepy read but I would definitely go into it being aware of the
fact that there is some extremely ableist language in it but as I said,
overall I did really enjoy it but the ableism was a big no for me.
After that I picked up 'Ms Marvel, Crushed: Vol. 3' and 'Ms Marvel, Last Days: Vol. 4 and I
also reread 'Ms Marvel, Vol. 2'. Which I'd completely forgotten about. I don't
really know what more to say about this series that I haven't already said
because I feel as though I ramble about how much I adore this series in every
single one of my videos because it is just one of my favourite things to read
in this entire world. It makes me so incredibly happy. It is fast paced, it is
funny, it is witty, it is action packed. It's just everything you could possibly
want in something that you were reading. I love the artwork in it.
G. Willow Wilson who writes it, is such a brilliant writer.
I'm always entirely consumed by it. I'm never distracted when I'm reading it,
which I do get whilst reading books. I never really put it down. Once I start
it, unless I have to go to bed or something, I will not put this down.
I think I liked Vol. 4 slightly more than Vol. 3, both of them I gave a 5 out of 5 stars.
And I think Vol. 2 is still my favourite. I have no doubt that I will be rereading this series multiple times
because I've already reread Vol. 1 I think about three times and Vol. 2
about three times and I read this twice because I read it, had a break, then read
it again before reading this. I just love it and I definitely 110%
recommend it and I gave them both a 5 out of 5 stars.
I then picked up 'Daughter of the Burning City' by Amanda Foody. And this is a fantasy set in a
circus and follows our main character who is an illusionist and she can create
illusions that you can feel and touch and they think and feel and touch and
smell as well and that sounds a little bit strange in the way I've said that.
Basically they are essentially human beings but technically they're illusions
and then one day one of these illusions is murdered and the book basically follows
the mystery of trying to work out what happened to this illusion and who killed
them because technically they shouldn't have been able to be murdered because
technically they are not real. It's a murder mystery, set in the circus, with
magic and that just sounds like something I should absolutely love and I
did enjoy it but I didn't love it as much as I was hoping to. I found the
world building a little bit confusing. I did really enjoy the setting.
I really liked all the descriptions of the circus, I thought that was really fun.
I also found the characters really interesting. I wish we had gotten to know
the side characters more and the illusions more because I thought all
their personalities were incredibly intriguing and they all had something
different about them and something quite peculiar about them. So one of them had
the wings of hawk. I did find it to be quite slow paced throughout most of the
book but the faster paced scenes I really enjoyed. The main thing I did
really enjoy about this was how diverse it was, especially regarding sexuality.
The main character in it seemed to be bisexual, as a lot of the time she talked
about how she was excited about marrying a prince or a princess. And then also
there was another bisexual character, one of her sisters/one of the side
characters was a lesbian and then also the love interested seemed to be somewhere
on the asexual spectrum. But I would definitely recommend looking for some
own voices reviews for it, if you are interested in knowing
specifically how the representation was for each individual sexuality. In the end
I ended up giving this a 3 to a 3.5 out of 5 stars. I did enjoy it and it was
definitely intriguing but I didn't love it as much as I was hoping to.
And lastly in September I read 'How Hard Can Love Be?' by Holly Bourne, which is the second book in
the 'Spinster Trilogy' and the companion sequel to 'Am I Normal Yet?', which I
read a few years ago and absolutely adored. And this follows Amber, who was
one of the side characters in 'Am I Normal Yet?', and it follows her as she
goes to spent the summer in California with her mum, who left her when she was
younger as she was an alcoholic and she hasn't seen her for two years.
And she goes to California to work on the summer camp that her mum runs with
her new husband. This was so, so cute. I loved the way that it was written. Again
it was very easy and comfortable to read. I really enjoy Holly Bourne's writing style.
I just think it flows so brilliantly and it is funny, it is witty but also
integrates feminism and things like that. I was nervous about reading this because
I really loved 'Am I Normal Yet?' I was worried that this wouldn't live up to it
but I enjoyed this just as much as 'Am I Normal Yet?' but in a totally different way.
The first one was about OCD and mental illness, so it was definitely a
tough read but a really enjoyable one. Whereas this one, although it did touch
on things like alcoholism and family breakups, it was just lovely. And it was
set in a U.S summer camp, which is everything I want and it had a U.S road
trip in it, which is even more of everything I want
and that sentence made no sense but I really loved it. I love Amber as a
character, I just think she's brilliant. I loved, loved, loved the love interest
in it. He was absolutely adorable but both of them were kind of perfectly
imperfect, which I liked because they were both human but I loved them both.
And I really enjoyed the friendships in it, I really enjoyed the relationships.
Yeah, I can't really say anything more than that. It was a really, really enjoyable,
fun, cute, fluffy read that had depth to it and had more than just a romance in
it and I thought it was great and I ended up giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.
For my October TBR I don't necessarily have a specific book that I want to get
to, it's more a specific goal that I want to do and that is to read books
by black authors. As October is Black History Month and I don't know whether
that is internationally or whether that's just in the UK. I have three that I
wanted to mention today because those are the ones that I'm most excited about
and the ones that I think are definitely the highest on my priority to get to.
The first one I have is 'Allegedly' by Tiffany D. Jackson which I believe is a thriller
contemporary and it sounds really interesting. I then also have
'The Hate You Give' by Angie Thomas, which I can't believe I still haven't read because I
have heard so many amazing things about this and it's being made into movie and
I just need to read it as soon as possible. And lastly I have 'Brown Girl Dreaming'
by Jacqueline Woodson, which I think is the one that I'm definitely
going to start with. I've been wanting to read this for such a long time and then
also I believe it is autobiographical and it is set during the 1960s and the
1970s and it is also written a verse, which I'm really intrigued by.
TV wise in September I finished MasterChef Celebrity MasterChef. There were two
people that I was desperate to win and one of them won, which made me and my mum
extremely happy, although I'm feeling a little bit lost without it now. And then
I also finished season three of 'How To Get Away With Murder' and had my heart
ripped out and stopped on. In October I'm going to continue watching 'How To Get Away With Murder'
season four and I don't know how I'm gonna deal with it.
One, because of what happened to last season but also because I've just binged
watched the first three seasons and I don't know how I'm meant to just wait a
week between each one because I'm already exploding with the need to know
what happened after episode one and I don't know how I'm going to deal with that.
Also the next season of 'Jane the Virgin' is coming back, which makes me so
incredibly happy and then season two of 'Stranger Things'. But yeah that is it
for my September Wrap Up and October TBR. I would absolutely love to know what you
were reading and watching during September and what was your favourite and
also what you are hoping to read and watch during October. I will leave the
links to my Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr Goodreads, Blog and Snapchat in the
description box below, so feel free to follow me on any of those if you would like.
I've also been using my blog quite a bit more recently, so if that is
something you are interested in, as I said I will leave it in the description
box because I have some reviews up there and then also some personality quizzes
and things like that and I hope you had an amazing September and I hope you
have the most fantastic October. Bye!
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