Hi everyone. I've got my May wrap-up and June TBR today.
Thanks to finally having a few very sunny days spent outside reading and then also probably mostly
the fact that every single one my TV shows that I've been watching over the
past couple of months, seem to have finished in May.
Either the series just finished or I finished them. Which was on the one hand
very frustrating but on the other hand led to me actually having a really good
reading month in May. So I'm just gonna skip over the rambling intro and get
straight on into it because I think I have about ten books to talk about today.
Which I also think is probably the most books I've read in a month in a very, very long time.
The first book I read in May was 'The One and Only Ivan' by Katherine Applegate
and this is a middle grade children's book, written through the perspective of Ivan the gorilla.
Who lives in this really awful tiny zoo in a shopping mall.
But when one day a baby elephant moves into the cage next door to his,
he vows to keep her safe and send her to a proper safe big zoo.
I'm a huge animal person. I always have been and elephants are my favourite animals.
So honestly this was always going to be an instant win for me but it was just wonderful.
The way it was written was so moving and the fact that it was written
through the perspective of the gorilla, gave it this childlike fun tone to it.
Whilst also allowing it to be completely brutally honest at times.
Almost to the point where you wonder whether this would be suitable for children but it
told so many truths that just kind of need to be told and as someone that
was a child who was totally obsessed with animals, I know that I would have
enjoyed this just as much then as I did now and I ended up giving it a 5 out of 5 stars.
I then read 'Fire Colour One' by Jenny Valentine and this follows Iris
who meets a father who is a wealthy art collector for the first time after she
discovers that he is dying and honestly I can't really remember anything more
than that and I feel as though that perfectly sums up my feelings for this
book because honestly I just didn't really have any. I didn't care for the characters.
I didn't care for the story. I didn't really care for the writing style.
The only reason I even finished it is because I read it in one sitting because
it was so incredibly short and yeah I ended up giving this a 2.75 out of 5 stars.
After what felt like 100 years of waiting for this book, I finally read
'Leah on the Offbeat' by Becky Albertalli and this is the companion sequel to
'Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda' and it follows Leah as she's basically
navigating life in terms of her future her family, her friendships,
her bisexuality, body image, money, mental health
and also the growing feelings she has for a friend she never intended to fall for.
I love Becky Albertalli. I love her books. I love her characters.
I love her writing and this was no exception to that rule.
The way she writes is so easy and comfortable to read and she just gets it.
Everything she writes about she just gets it. I think my favourite aspect of this book was the
anxiety of representation and also the body image representation.
There was a scene in this where Leah is trying on prom dresses with her mum that is probably
now one of my favourite scenes I've ever read in a book. I absolutely adored it.
There are were so many pop-culture references to things like Gilmore Girls
and Harry Potter and Hamilton. Which is always a win in my eyes and then also I
loved the fact that we got to spend more time with Simon and the gang from
'Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda' because as I said, she just creates characters that
you completely fall in love with and this was no different.
I honestly just couldn't put this down. To the point where I spent so long reading this outside,
that I got extremely sunburned and I ended up giving this a 5 out of 5 stars.
I then stuck with the contemporaries for a while and picked up
'Starfish' by a Akemi Dawn Bowman. Which follows Kiko, who is Japanese American
and an amazing artist living with anxiety, who dreams of going to art school.
It follows her after she discovers that she didn't get into her dream school
but when she has starts meeting with her childhood best friend and
longtime crush Jamie, she accepts his invitation to stay with him whilst she
tours art schools in California, so that she can escape her toxic and abusive home life.
This definitely wasn't a light-hearted cutesy contemporary,
although there were some super cute moments in it but I just really enjoyed
the way that it managed to discuss so many heavy and important topics, whilst not becoming overwhelming.
I thought Kiko's relationship with herself and
her art and her anxiety and her family members and Jamie and her Japanese heritage,
were all so brilliantly written and extremely emotional and candid and I
loved the fact that, especially in terms of her anxiety, nothing was wrapped up in
this neat little bow or fixed by romance and I just absolutely adored each and every page.
It somehow managed to totally break my heart and then also start to put the pieces back together again
and I ended up giving this a 5 out of 5 stars.
I then read 'Far From the Tree' by Robin Benway and this is told through the perspectives of three teenagers
who meet for the first time after discovering that they are all siblings.
You have Grace who is 16 and has just that her own baby up for adoption.
Maya whose adoptive parents's relationship troubles are kind of starting to finally bubble to the surface
and Joaquin, who has been in and out of the foster system his whole life due to being the only one
of the three siblings who was not adopted. I really, really enjoyed this.
I loved the way that it explored family and identity and discovering who you are and
discovering your place in the world. And I thought it did a really good job with
discussing so many different things, like teen pregnancy and adoption and race and
sexuality. As Maya was in a female female relationship and Joaquin's biological
father, who he had never met, was Mexican. I think it did a really good job of
simultaneously keeping those things intertwined, whilst also never feeling as
though it was discussing too many things and never feeling as though it was just too much.
And although each character's story was connected, I also really liked
their individual narrative and story and I ended up giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.
Next I picked up 'The Start of Me and You' by Emery Lord,
which follows Paige one year after her first boyfriend died in a swimming accident.
It basically follows her after she decides that it is about
time that she had finally rejoins the world and decides to make a plan of all
the things that she needs to do before the year is up. But then the cousin of the
guy she has been crushing on a moves into town and recruits her for the QuizBowl
and her plan basically kind of goes awry and changes and this was absolutely adorable.
I instantly warmed to all of the characters. The friendships and the
romance just filled my heart with all the warm fuzzies. They were just funny
and honest and caring and respectful and there wasn't any huge explosive drama in
terms of the romance, which I just thought was so refreshing.
It also had brilliantly explored family dynamics and a great narrative on grief
and Gilmore Girls references, which again is always a win.
I just thought it was the perfect, cute multi layered, summery read
and I ended up giving this a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
And this is the first book I have ever read by Emery Lord but
I'm definitely wanting to read more by her soon because I really enjoyed this and I
also just found out there's gonna be a sequel to this, which I am all for.
Next I read 'The Chaos of Longing' by K.Y. Robinson, which is a poetry collection
split into four sections: inception, longing, chaos and epiphany and there were
poems in this about things like relationships and love and abuse
trauma and identity and mental health and I like this but I didn't love it.
There where a few poems in this that I did absolutely love and will definitely be
rereading multiple times but for the most part I think this was a collection
of mostly likes with a few loves in it. I do think that was probably more of a
case of me just not emotionally connecting to the poems, rather than
disliking them because I do feel as though a lot of people would absolutely love these.
Also I'm still very, very new to poetry and I'm still figuring out my
preferences and tastes when it comes to it. So I did like this but I didn't love it and I gave this a 3 out of 5 stars.
After that I read 'Monday's Not Coming' by Tiffany D. Jackson
and this follows Claudia after her best friend Monday goes missing
and Claudia feels as though she's the only one that cares or has noticed,
especially since it seems as though everyone around her, including Monday's family,
are just ignoring it and refusing to acknowledge it.
This was absolutely devastating and gripping and so intense. It had my heart beating a million times a minute
and the fact that this was very much inspired by the
countless stories of young black girls seemingly vanishing from the face of the earth,
just made it all the more heartbreaking. I will say that I wasn't
the biggest fan of the structure of this. As it kind of jumped back and forth in
time and I therefore found myself a little bit confused at times.
There where also some potentially harmful plot points in this and I don't feel as though
those narratives and the language used alongside those, really added much to the story.
But those things aside, I thought this was an incredibly important
and relevant a story. With wonderfully written characters and relationships and
applauded that that was just a rollercoaster from start to finish and I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 stars.
I then picked up 'Starlight Nights' by Stacey Kade which is a new adult book following Calista,
a former teen TV star, who left LA to escape her past mistakes and controlling mother.
And Eric, her former co-star who wants Calista to move back to LA to star in his new show.
This was incredibly cheesy, totally cliche and full of very unhealthy relationships
in terms of both family and romance but I can't deny it was pretty entertaining.
It wasn't the best book I've ever read and I doubt I'll remember it in a couple of months time
and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone but despite myself,
I did find it pretty addictive and I ended up giving it a 3 out of 5 stars.
Although now thinking back on it, I think I'd probably just give it a 2.75 out 5 stars.
After that I read 'Forest of a Thousand Lanterns' by Julie C. Dao and this is an East Asian inspired fantasy
which I would describe as kind of a reimagined Snow White prequel but following the
Evil Queen and following how she came to be. This was dark and gritty and unique and unpredictable
and honestly I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a fantasy as much a I did this one. I absolutely loved it.
I thought the way that the narrative of the Evil Queen was kind of intertwined into the story was
so incredibly clever and the protagonist, who is basically just a villain, was one
of the most intriguing and complex characters I've come across in a very
long time and this was just absolutely superb. I was so pleasantly surprised
with how much I enjoyed this. As I haven't really been getting on with
fantasy that much lately but this was so fantastic and I'm so incredibly excited
about the sequel. Although I feel as though the wait from now until the end
of the year when it comes out, is going to be very painful but I'm hoping and
I'm honestly just assuming that it will be totally worth the wait because this
was so brilliantly written and I ended up giving this a 4. 75 out of 5 stars.
And then finally in May I finally finished, after literally reading this for months and months and months,
'The Disney Princess Comic Treasury'. Which is just basically a collection of all the Disney Princess stories
in comic form, with also a few original stories in it as well and I have as I said been
reading this for months. I feel as though it's probably been almost a year now.
I only ever read these stories at a very specific time, which is when I have
finished a book but I haven't finished feeling like reading but the time was
too close to start a new book. So I would just read a couple of these stories.
This was so bizarre because I am the biggest Disney fan.
So it would have been impossible for me not to love this but the stories in this
were so simplified to make them short enough to put into a book, that they
almost just became parodies of themselves and I found it hilarious because it was just so awful.
They would quote all of the Disney songs in it but it would just be wrong.
The way that they would write the lyrics were just always slightly wrong.
I haven't rated this because I honestly don't know what to
give it a rating because on the one hand it was just
truly terrible but on the other hand it was so incredibly brilliant and I feel
as though had I read this at the age that this was most definitely aimed for.
Which was properly like six year olds, I would absolutely love it.
So I don't know what to rate this but I am very happy that I have finally
finished it because it has been a long time. So those were all of the books that I
read in May and I only have one book on my TBR for June and that is 'Floored'
which is a collaborative novel written by seven UKYA authors and I don't
really know anything about this book, other than it's been described as
'The Breakfast Club' meet 'One Day' and I believe it's about a load of teens who are
all totally different, that get trapped in an elevator together and then return
to the elevator every year or something like that.
I really don't know but it sounds very intriguing and I'm just incredibly
intrigued to see how this is gonna work because I don't know whether each author
wrote a different chapter or whether they wrote a different character.
I haven't quite worked it out because I'm not entirely sure but it sounds great.
So this is the only book that I kind of have on my TBR to get to this month.
In terms of what I was watching in May and what I'm hoping to watch in June, as I said
I have just finished every single one of the TV shows that I've been
watching over the past couple of months, So I finished 'Marvel's Agents of Shield'
and 'iZombie' and 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' and everything is just gone. I have nothing left.
So I do not know who I'm going to be watching in June but if you have any
recommendations for anything I would love to hear them. I'm definitely in the
mood to watch something 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' esque. I just want an uplifting sitcom to watch.
But yeah, that is everything and I would absolutely love to
know what you've been reading and watching in May and what you are hoping
to read and watch in June and I will leave the links to my Twitter, Instagram,
Tumblr, Goodreads and blog in the description box below. So feel free to
follow me on any of those if you would like and I just hope you have the most
fantastic June and I hope you're having a really, really lovely day. Bye!
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