Book ReviewThis Book is Gay by James Dawson.

Hoi! This is my review of "This Book is Gay"
by James Dawson which is published by Hot Key Books, which is also where I work.
I have been excited for this book for a really long time and I'm really glad I finally get
to share it with you guys because it was published this month.
So this is sort of a YA non-fiction book about everything LGBT * or + whatever you want to use. So the keyring on the back, which describes
what's in the book says the following: Real life, facts, sex education and funny. So James
Dawson used to teach Sex Ed. And this book is definitively for people who want to educate
themselves whether it's just to know more about the topic or whether they're kind of
curious themselves.

Maybe to understand a friend or a family member better or if you're
just interested in the topic in general. This book isn't just sex education, it is literally
about every thing that you might think about or might have questions about. It's about
breaking stereotypes both inside and out of the LGBT+ community. It talks about different
religions and kind of their opinions on this topic and how to talk to people about that.
It's about bullying, it's about dating and sex apps.

Also it's accompanied by really
funny illustrations. And one of my favourites is Chapter 5 "The Fear" where there are people
screaming and Dracula's Castle in the background. One of the main things that I really loved
about this book is that it's really inclusive and if there was something that James didn't
have any personal experience with he has tweets from people and letters and just accounts
of different experiences that they've had often with different opinions as well.
It's quite a quick read, I think it took me about two or three hours. I definitively learnt
some new things as well.

It's funny 'cause it's so light hearted in a way but at the
same time it's such an important book and I think that everyone should read this.
It does say on the back that it is "honestly explicit". And that's what it is 'cause if
you're talking about Sex Ed. Obviously those topics will be discussed. I think at the beginning
of specific chapters it also says: "If you don't feel comfortable reading about this
yet, feel free to skip this chapter and just go into the other ones".
And to give you a little introduction about this book let's start with Lesson One: "Sometimes
men fancy men, sometimes women fancy women, sometimes women fancy men and women, sometimes
men fancy women and men, sometimes people don't fancy anyone, sometimes a man might
want to be a woman, sometimes a woman might want to be a man.

Got it? It really is that
simple. I could've end the Lesson there but I don't think a few pages would make a very
good book so I suppose should go into a bit more depth".
Also in the back there are helpful numbers and websites and stuff which is always good
and if you want to have a chat with the author you can find him in Twitter. I'll put his
Twitter link in the description. I hope you enjoyed this review.

If you've
read this book already, let me know what you thought in the comments and I'll talk to you
guys later. Doei!.

BOOK REVIEWSWAYFARER, HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME, & MORE

Here we go (music) So I managed to finish five books last month
which I'm quite happy with Because I'm right on track with my
goal of finishing about a book a week And also I happened to read some
pretty great books in January. So, let's get into talking about them. So, first up I have here "Wayfarer" by Alexandra Bracken. This was the BOOKSPLOSION book of the month pick for January, which was sponsored by Disney-Hyperion this month.

And this is also the second book
in the "Wayfarer" duology. It's the conclusion to the series. The general set-up here is that we
follow a teenage girl name Etta who discovers that she can travel through time. And not only can she travel through time, but her mother has hidden this very powerful object somewhere in the world, at some point in time.

And Etta is being blackmailed into finding it Because she's the only one who might be
able to understand her mother's clues. So, that's the basic set-up for book one. I did do a full spoiler-free review so I'll link that below If you want to check it out and learn a little bit
more about the first book in the series. Because I can't really say much
plot-wise about book two.

I don't want to spoil you. I can say that I enjoyed book two
even more than book one And I really enjoyed book one. I love the characters, and I'm just
enthralled by this world here. And, like, all the places we get to go And all the history and action and romance.

And the writing is beautiful. Like, I loved Alexandra Bracken's
other series, "The Darkest Minds" But the writing in this duology is like next level. Although, I did feel like the writing kind of slowed
the pacing down a little bit at times. Like, even during actions scenes there would
be longer, more beautiful sentences that I would want to kind of linger with and absorb instead of being propelled through the story.

But, still overall this was a fantastic conclusion. Like, it just met this great balance of being satisfying, yet also leaving me wanting more. Like, not even necessarily with the same characters Like, a spin-off, a prequel, a sequel I would just love to see more of this world And this society of time-travelers that
Alexandra Bracken has created. If you're looking for a satisfying series with great characters and beautiful writing and time-travel and romance and adventure This series.

You've gotta check out this series. Next up, I have here "The You I've
Never Known" by Ellen Hopkins And I received this copy from the
publisher Simon & Schuster who I'm working with this month. This is the second book by Ellen Hopkins that I've read And I've started to realize that her
books are more about characters And kind-of slice of life But, around these defining moments in people's lives In this book we follow a teenage girl named Ariel who is struggling with feelings
for both a girl and a boy. This is further complicated by Ariel's father who
is very controlling and homophobic.

There's also another plotline that
is mentioned in the synopsis But I don't want to give it away Because it doesn't happen until later in the book And I think it's better if you start it without knowing that. I read this book a while ago, in a single sitting And it still packs an emotional punch Like, I don't know Maybe it was something about just the
very end that really got me the most 'Cause that's -- that's just where I had the most feelings. And that's all I'm going to say about
that because I don't want to spoil you. But yeah, after reading this book, I definitely
want to read more by Ellen Hopkins.

Like, with the first Ellen Hopkins book I read, "Rumble" I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it Because I didn't connect much to the main character Whereas with this book, even though Ariel's
situation is super different from my own, I did feel like she was more relatable And I felt more for her. And again, I don't want to get into spoilers But I feel like there's a lot of important, relevant
subjects going on in this book. I know Ellen Hopkins has a lot of books And I'm pretty new to her So, if any of you guys have recommendations As to which Ellen Hopkins book I should pick up next I would love that. Like I feel like I am much more on board with
her different story-telling structure and style.

And I liked it, I want more. If you're looking for a stand-alone
contemporary that's different It has a different writing style It's very poetic and beautiful And it's very raw and real These characters are in a tough situation. This, I recommend this. Or, probably any Ellen Hopkins book Because this seems to be, like, her thing But, I really enjoyed this one And if anything that I've said sounds interesting
to you, you should give it a go The next book I have here is, "The Hundred Lives of Lizzie Lovett" by Chelsea Sedoti.

This is a debut novel, I believe it's a stand-alone That focuses on the disappearance
of this girl, Lizzie Lovett Our main character is a girl named Hawthorne who went to school with Lizzie and becomes
obsessed with the mystery of her disappearance. She's so determined to figure out what happened She starts investigating Lizzie's
disappearance on her own And kind of inserting herself into Lizzie's life. She takes up Lizzie's old job, and
she gets close to Lizzie's boyfriend And this was a very interesting book. Mostly due to the main character Hawthorne who is just unlike most YA characters
I've, like, been in the head of Her personality and her voice shone through so much That, like, she makes the book.

But, ultimately I had trouble
connecting to her as a character Like, some aspects of her life
and her situation were relatable Like her feeling left out and her being curious
about what happened to Lizzie But, a lot of the things that she thought and did were just things that I, personally,
would never think or do. So, it was hard to, like, get on board with her. But, I was still completely hooked into her narration And just like fascinated by everything she was doing and what was happening here. I can't say a lot about the mystery, because of spoilers.

I had so many theories and they were all wrong But, the actual, like, answer/solution is one
of my favorite parts of the book now. Because it's what hit me the most emotionally. If you're looking for a book with humor and mystery and an interesting main character
who is full of personality you might want to check this one out. Then I have here, "History is All You Left Me"
by Adam Silvera.

[Sigh] I still have a lot of feelings about this book This story opens on a boy names Griffin who is attending the funeral of his
ex-boyfriend and first love, Theo. Even though Theo had moved to California
and was dating someone new Griffin still felt like they were end-game. They were going to get back together down the line But, then Theo had to go and die. And now Griffin has to make sense of everything
and go into a future without Theo.

This book really got to me It's told in two different timelines The first timeline is the present day It's when Griffin is attending Theo's funeral and trying to make sense of his life moving foreward and the other timeline is history It's in the past It's the start of Theo and Griffin's relationship, Of them falling in love and then breaking up
when he moves to California Because we're dealing with love and loss and grief And we have this dual timeline This book is just like primed to
give you emotional whiplash I'd be reading from the history timeline and cracking up because something really cute and funny was happening And then I'd turn the page, and I'd be back into
the present and on the verge of tears Aside from these two timelines that are just perfectly woven together
to punch you right in the heart the other thing that I loved about this book was just how real and raw and flawed the characters are If you're looking for a book that will make you feel things A book that will make you laugh
on one page and then cry the next You gotta check this one out You gotta check this one out 'Cause that was my experience and I don't often cry while reading books This one got me This one got me Alright, there you have it. Those are the books I have finished in January And that is gonna be it for this video today Thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed it I hope you have a great night And I will have another video up soon So, I will  see you then Goodbye.

BOOK REVIEWSGEEKERELLA, THE BONE SEASON, & MORE

Hello, my name is Kat and today, I would like to share of my thoughts on the books I have recently finished. I finished five books in the last month or so and I'm pretty happy with that number because I'm right on track with my reading challenge for the year. Yeah, let's just get started. Let's get into these books! So, first, I have here: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon.

This was the BOOKSPLOSION book of the Month for March. We are working with Bloomsbury and the live show has already happened. So, if you want to hear these spoilery discussions, I will link the video down below. This book takes place in what is a futuristic London but in an alternate timeline.

Basically, in the 1800s, people started developing clairvoyant abilities and now, over 200 years later, clairvoyance are illegal. They're hunted down in order to protect themselves and like, survive in this society. Many clairvoyants has formed this kind of underground culture, full of crime families. The main character follows is a woman named Paige.

She is a clairvoyant and she is a member in one of the most notorious of these crime families but then she's involved in this altercation and she ends up being captured and sent what is basically an interment camp, full of clairvoyant slaves. However, once she arrive there, she realizes that there's a lot more going on behind the scenes then she previously thought. I really enjoyed this book. I think my favorite aspect was probably the world because I just found it so fascinating especially, all the different clairvoyant abilities and the politics.

And I'm so excited to see all that explored in the rest of the series. I also really enjoyed a lot of the relationship dynamics between Paige and her crime family and also between Paige and her captors and some other enslaved clairvoyants. There's a lot of characters, which was a bit overwhelming at times but it paid off because there's so many relationships that developed out of that. It's definitely a solid first book in, what is going to be a big complex series.

Now, being the first book in a big complex series, there was quite a bit of setup and some info dumping particularly in the beginning, like, it just took me a little bit to really get grounded in the story. There's a lot of new words being thrown around and a lot of characters. Many of which go by more than one name so I was confused at times but that was mostly in the beginning. By the time, I, like, got into the groove of it, I was really enjoying it.

If you're looking for an awesome and complex dystopian/fantasy series, I would definitely recommend. Give it a try. Next up, I have here: Geekerella by Ashley Poston. And this is the April book of the month pick for the BOOKSPLOSION.

We're working with Quirk Books on this one and I'll go ahead and put all of the read along details down below if you want to join in. I absolutely adored this book. I actually read this at the end of March and I didn't plan to do that. I like to read the books closer to the live show so it's, like, fresh in my head but I saw on the cover of the food truck here, it says 'vegan treats' and I was like, oh my gosh, was the main character vegan? So, I started reading to find out and it turns out she's not vegan but by the time, I discovered that, I was too hooked into the story to stop and I just flew through it in a single sitting.

Basically, it's a YA contemporary that kind of combines a modern Cinderella retelling with the geeky fandom culture. First, we have our female lead, a girl named Elle, who, growing up, her parents were really into this sci-fi show called Starfield and they actually started the fan convention for it but now, that both of Elle's parents have passed away and she's kind of, in an unpleasant situation with her stepmother and stepsisters, the Starfield fandom is more important to her than ever before. And now, Starfield is giving a reboot and Elle is not happy at all with the actor that has been cast as the male lead. The other main of the book, the other point of view that we get is from Darien and he is the guy who was just cast in the lead role and he's kind of struggling because he's actually a huge fan of the show but people keep dismissing him because he's most well known for his role in a melodramatic teenage soap opera type show.

He wants to get in contact with the people who are running the fan convention and he ends up getting ahold of Elle's number and they start texting back and forth a little bit, not really knowing who the other person is. Just bonding over their shared love for Starfield and it's just the best! There's so much cuteness and humor and like, it's just a celebration of geeky fandom culture. It is so good! Honestly, my least favorite aspect of this book was the Cinderella retelling aspect because personally, I'm not a huge fan of the Cinderella story but I was super into the relationship development and all of the geeky fandom elements. I also love that we got a dual perspective, like, both characters had their own separate stories and struggles.

Like, Elle is dealing with her family and Darien is filming this movie. If you're looking for a cute, fun rom-com type of book then I highly recommend this, especially, if you do like Cinderella retellings or you're into fandom culture which I imagine many of you are. You'll like this. I highly recommend this.

Next up, I read... Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. This is, I'm going to say, the first book in a series, even though the books are more like companions rather than direct sequel and it basically just delves into life after the portal fantasy. If you aren't familiar with that term, a portal fantasy is one of those stories, where you have a character in the real world usually, a child or a young adult, and they end up going through a portal into another world.

They have adventures, maybe saves the day, maybe live out a full life in that other world and then they come back to the real world. And what this book really explores is what happens to these children after they return, they have to learn how to cope and adjust with being back in this world. When all they want to do is go back where they feel they belong. Just the premise alone sold me on this book and it's kind of a good thing that I was attracted to the premise because I would definitely say that this book is more of an idea book than a plot book.

There is a mystery plot line that runs through more of the second half of the book than the first. And I did enjoy that aspect, even though I did feel it was a bit of rushed. But what I really loved about this book, was learning about all of the worlds and the experiences that the children have had in them and in returning to the real world. And there's so many amazing fantastical and whimsical details that just made this book so fascinating and captivating.

The writing was wonderful, like, even though it's a very short book. It's like, less than 200 pages. There's still so much packed into each sentence and there was so much great imagery and whimsy and it touched on so many different ideas. For me, it was definitely what I call a sticky book, which is a book is going to stick with me for a long time.

Like, I will be thinking about this for weeks, months, years to come. I just wish it was longer. Like, again, I am really impressed with the quality of the writing and how much was packed into such a small amount of pages but again, I did feel the mystery aspect was a bit rushed. It just felt like the plot points of that storyline happened way too close together with, like, not a lot of breathing room in between.

But still, you know, if it's wanting more is my biggest issue with a book, that's a good book in my eyes. If you like portal fantasy and you've ever wondered what happens to the characters after they return to the real world, this is the book for you, especially, if you also enjoy fantastical and whimsical aspects because this has plenty of those and it was just an enchanting read. Next up, I have here: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.

If you don't know what this book is about, I can't talk to you. I actually didn't read this book, I listened to the audiobook. Last month, I went to Harry Potter World in Orlando and I thought it would be a good idea to listen to the audiobook for this on the plane right over and it turns out it was  a good idea. It was fantastic, listening to it and then going to Harry Potter World.

It was a good week, it was a real good week. I actually haven't reread the series since I started booktubing, which was five, six years ago. So, this is so overdue. I'm going to start making my way through the entire series but in audiobook form, because I just brought all the audiobooks.

I want to finish them all by the end of the year, so I'm going to try to do at least one a month, I think. And yeah, I'm just... I'm so happy about this book in this series, and the fact that I'm rereading it and just Harry freakin' Potter, man! Finally, I have here: Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. This is a nonfiction, it's actually a collection of 13 essays by Ray Bradbury on the art of writing.

I have read this a couple times before, but it's one of those that I love rereading like, every year or so because it's just so inspirational and motivational and it gets me in the mood to write. Like, it's such a writing pick me up. Ray Bradbury is so in love with the craft of writing and that love is so present in the pages, in the words. Like, it's infectious.

I'm actually doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month. I haven't talked about it on my channel at all because I, like, didn't make a video for three weeks but my twitter is full of updates. So, if you're interested, check there. So, I decided to reread this at the beginning of the month to like, keep  me motivated and encouraged and it works beautifully.

If you're a writer, you're looking for some  more motivation or maybe you're kind of in a low point in your writing life, I highly recommend this. Like, this might just jump start your writing life and like reinvigorate you. At least, that's what it does for me, it might do the same thing for you. All right there, you have it.

Those are my thoughts on the books I have recently finished and that's going to do it for this video today. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you have a lovely night and I will have another video up soon so I will see you then.

Goodbyeee! [Music].

Book ReviewScythe by Neal Shusterman

Hey! What's up, you guys? It's Connor, and today I'm going to be doing a book review on Scythe by Neal Shusterman. If you guys
don't know, Neal Shusterman is one of my favorite YA authors, and so I was really
excited when he was coming out with a new book. And I wanted to read and review
it for you guys. It came out last year at some point, but I am just now getting
around to reading it.

This book was also given to me by Mari from mynameismarines who I will leave linked down below. She's awesome, so thank you
so much for sending me this book. Scythe takes place in a future Earth where the
medical field has progressed so much so that when you become older, you're
allowed to what's called "turn the corner," and you'll get reset to a younger age. So
if you're 60 or something like that, you can "turn the corner" and turn back into a
25 year old.

And with this medical technology, no one ever dies, and so the
population of humans on earth has grown exponentially. And other advancements
have allowed disease, and cancer, and everything like that to all be
eradicated, so there's really no way that humans naturally die on earth anymore.
The only thing is fire. If there's a fire and you die in the fire, then you
actually die. But even if you die (like, you jump off a building and you die), it's
called being deadish, and they can bring you back to life.

And you can continue
living, and because there needs to be some form of population control and making
sure that the population doesn't grow too much (although it continues to grow
no matter what), there's a group called the scythes who are tasked with deciding
which people need to be killed and what's called gleaned. And they're
permanently dead and not just deadish. In this book you follow two characters that
both get chosen to become scythe apprentices, and to become a scythe, you
have to be morally upstanding and have very good morals. So both characters are
both really good people.

The female main character's name is Citra, and she is
very family-oriented. She's very loyal, and she is very straightforward. She
doesn't fluff a lot. She gets straight to the point.

She also has a very dry sense
of humor, and she's actually a personal color. In this world pretty much no one
is any pure race. They all have all the races in them, and the way that they
identify is they have different percentages for what they are. So there's
a percentage for being white, black, Latino, and Pan-Asian, and other.

I don't
really know what other is. Citra is primarily black. The other main character
that you follow is a boy named Rowan. He is very compassionate and loyal
to the ones that he has decided to be close to.

He's not actually very close to
this family, but he is close with this one best friend of his. He's very honest
and selfless. He's very giving, and he's also very independent. He is primarily
white, but again as I said before, no one is any pure race.

So everyone is mixed
race. Neither of these two main characters want to become scythes, but they
end up accepting the apprenticeship for different reasons.
As usual with my book reviews, I'm going to go through my pros, go through my cons, give you my
rating, and be done. My first pro is that you just cannot help but like the two
main characters of this series because they are chosen for their moral
standards and for being good people. And although it's very common for YA and
middle grade characters to really be morally high-grounded, it makes sense in
this book that they would be because that is a requirement, again, for becoming
a scythe.

Another thing that I liked about this
was just the world in general. I liked that the sides are one governing body
they decide who lives and who dies basically, and they have a quota with how
many people they have to kill. I think it's like 240 per year, and they also
have quotas that they have to make sure that they aren't prejudiced in any way.
So they have to make sure that the people that they kill are all diverse
and all the numbers equal out in the end. In opposition to the scythes, there's also
this thing called the Thunder[head], and the Thunder[head] has taken over all of
the governments in the world.

There's no reason for there to be a government when
no one dies and there's no fighting over land, or food, or any resources, or
anything like that because there's plenty and no one has to fight over any
of it. The Thunderhead basically takes care of everyone. There's not some rogue
computer that is taking over the world. People actually like the Thundehead
being in charge, and the Thunderhead is not allowed to get involved with the
scythes.

So it's a big separation there, but I really liked seeing both of those
and seeing how people viewed the two different ruling bodies basically. I
could also really believe that this was the future because the language and the
words that people use have all been very simplified. Because there is no United
States or anything like that, the names of different areas have become
shortened. So instead of it being middle America it gets shortened to Midmerica
because over time English simplifies and words become
condensed.

And this book mainly takes place in Mid America, but there's
different regions. And they're all called something shorter than what they used to
be. I also like that in between every chapter you get this diary entry. All
scythes are required to keep diaries, and I.

Really liked seeing the different
opinions that the different scythes that show up in these diary entries have.
Their different viewpoints of what they're doing and how they morally view
the fact that they're having to kill 240ish people per year, and also scythes take
the name of scientists or important people in history, and so it's really
interesting because at first I was trying to figure out who the different
scythes were and how they would play a role in the story and everything like
that. So I really enjoyed those diary entries because it gave some insight
into the characters without it being blatantly said within the narrative. It
was actually the character telling you they view this this way. Another thing I
liked was just the fact that the two characters are being apprentices, so it
just became, kind of, a game of trying to figure out if they would even become
scythes in the end.

Would they pass their tests that they have to take. Obviously
there's some bad things that are happening, so what will that have as an
effect on them and how they will deal with those things. I was just trying to
figure everything out, and it was very, very entertaining for me. I was reading
some reviews after I finished the book, and I saw some people complain about the
bad guys in this just being kind of like your stereotypical, maniacal bad guy
that's just evil for being evil.

And I. Don't think that that is necessarily
true. Yes, it kind of seems like that, but if you think about the background of the
bad guys... Obviously it's going to have something to do with the scythes, so that's
not a spoiler.

But if you think about the idea of scythes is that they're forced to
be killers and kill 240 people every year, and they can live forever. So they
can live for hundreds of years and they're taking hundreds of lives every
year. That amount of pressure and morally wrong actions would really upset people.
It would make sense that someone would have a break at some point, and try
to rationalize the situation that they're in, and figure out why they were
given this ability to become a scythe and everything like that. Sorry if angle
changed.

My camera just died. But I don't think that the bad guys are evil for
being evil. I think that they're evil because they're a product of what
they've been forced to do. Now on to my cons.

One of my
cons was that I just didn't feel for the characters as much as I thought I was
going to when going into this book. I. Just felt like I was watching their
story happen, and I didn't feel invested in their story if that makes
sense. So if something bad was happening to them, I was like, " oh no! That sucks, but
uh...

What's going to happen next?" And that kind of thing, and the only other con
that I had was that the loyalty between the two apprentices didn't really make
sense. I didn't see where the two of them would have become such great friends
that they would be super loyal to each other. I felt like there could have been
some extra time at the beginning of the novel where the two characters really
become really good friends, and then I. Could see why they would be so loyal for
the rest of the book.

But I just didn't see it, so that kind of pushed me out. And I was like, "Well what the heck? Why are you making these decisions? Look out for
yourself. Look out for your family!" That kind of thing first. I don't really
understand it, but it is what it is.

So because of all my pros and just a
couple of those cons, I ended up giving this book 4.5 Stars out of 5 stars. I
loved it so much! I'm so excited for the series to continue. It was exactly the
quality of storytelling that I expect from Neal Shusterman. So I was very happy
with this one, and I definitely recommend it.

That's going to be my review on Scythe
by Neal Shusterman. If you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up and
comment down below if you've read this book. Have you read anything similar? I
actually just read a book that was similar in thought process where the
human race has found immortality, but I. Didn't like that one quite as much as
this one.

So if you have any recommendations that do something
similar, leave them down below, and I will talk to you guys next time. Bye! (Finger gun and tongue click).

BOOK REVIEWSCARAVAL, THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING, ASOUE 1-4

I've been reading! [Intro] Hello! My name is Kat. Today, we'll be talking about the six books I have recently finished. So, let's just get into it. First up, I have here: The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles.

And this was the Booksplosion book of the month for February, we were working with Bloomsbury on this one. This is the first book in a new series that I guess, I would categorize as Urban Fantasy. It's kind of hard to label this because the main female character, Zoe is from our modern world and her struggles feel very contemporary then we have the main male character, who is known as X and he is a bounty hunter from the underworld so his storyline and the whole setting of the underworld has a very fantasy feel. The sort of 200 mashup was actually one of? My favorite aspects of this book.

Like, we just got everything. Like, I love Zoe dealing with her father's death and her family dynamics and I loved X. Dealing with the politics of Hell and this whole Underworld society. A basic setup of this book is that we have X, who is a bounty hunter from Hell and when he's up in the world hunting for a bounty, he ends up saving Zoe's life and their world just collide and the story goes from there.

I really enjoyed this book, it was so easy and fun to just fly through. There's plenty of action and excitement and I also, especially, loved the characterization. Like, not only do I. Feel like, I got a really good grasp of our two main characters but many of the secondary characters I found, so vivid and like, present on the page and just well drawn.

I did feel like the pacing was a little bit off at times, like, it did get kind of slow in the middle, though I. Feel like that was more noticeable because the beginning and the ending were so, like, explosive and jam-packed. Also, I wasn't super feeling the romance aspect. I didn't just like the relationship and there were definitely some cute moments but I felt like it just happened too fast, for me to be like, really emotionally invested.

I was just so much more invested in the, like, individual personal journeys that the main characters were experiencing rather than their relationship together. Overall, though again, I did still really enjoy this. I thought it was a solid start to a new series and I'm definitely going to be continuing it when book two comes out. If you're looking for a fun, fast read with the well-drawn characters that has both fantasy and contemporary vibes.

You want to check one out, you're gonna... You're going to want to give it a go and if you've already read this book and you want to know some more splintery opinions, I will link the Booksplosion live show down below and you can check that out. Next up, I have here: Caraval by Stephanie Garver This book follows a girl named Scarlett, who has always wanted to attend Caraval, which, is this interactive performance / festival / game that has just drenched in magic and mystery. A week before her arranged marriage, she finally gets tickets to Caraval and she wants to take her sister, Tella.

However, their father is very abusive and controlling and he's not going to let them go. So, they end up kind of running away to this island where Caraval is held but once, Scarlett and Tella get there, they are separated and Scarlett has always been the more responsible one who, like, looks out for her more wild sister so she is determined to find Tella and like, look out for her and make sure she doesn't get into any trouble. But Scarlett learns that Tella has become sort of the objective of the game this year. And the first person to find her gets the prize of having their wish granted.

So, now Scarlett has to get involved and play the game to get her sister back and she has to do this while navigating all the magic and manipulation and mysteries of Caraval, where nothing is as it seems. I've been seeing so much hype surrounding this book since BEA of last year, like, last May. People were buzzed about this book and it definitely had me intrigued but also apprehensive because hype can lead to inflated expectations. So, I went into this book with sort of tapered expectations and I ended up really enjoying it.

Like, it wasn't perfect, I understand the critical reviews but I personally got so swept up into the story and the mystery. I found it very immersive and fascinating and I never knew what to expect or who to trust and that mystery and tension just kept me so hooked. I'd say that the main thing that didn't work for me, though was the ending. It felt a little info dumpy.

Like, the solution to this mystery was explained to Scarlett rather than her like, experiencing it and discovering it and part of that I feel is because the magic system and the rules of this world weren't very well defined. The fantasy elements in this book are much more whimsical and atmospheric rather than like, a magic system. Again, I did love that magical atmosphere but it wasn't like a grounded magic system so the ending didn't quite pack the punch that it could have if I'd like, understood more about the rules of magic if that make sense. Overall, though I thought this was a fantastic book.

I loved how vivid and mysterious it was. I also loved that the story had a full art like, this could almost be a standalone. There's just a little hint of like, what's to come at the end, which I am very excited for. I'm definitely going to be reading book two.

If you are looking for a book that has mystery and romance and a magical atmosphere then you might want to check this one out. And then I read the first four books in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. And I read these on my Kindle because I do not own physical copies. I did mislead you guys slightly in the thumbnail, I held up Spiderwick Chronicles as a stand-in for A Series of Unfortunate Events.

'Cause I want you guys to tell from the thumbnail that I read six books this month. I want the credit for that. Now, I didn't read these books growing up. So, I don't have like, any nostalgic connection to the series.

I was like, 12, 13 years old when the series was like, first starting and getting popular and I think at that age, I was reaching more for YA books and I just... I missed out on this series and I really regret that because after reading these first four books, I know that I. Would have enjoyed these much more when I was younger. Like, objectively, I would rate these books higher than what I.

Would raise them for my own personal enjoyment. Though, I did really warm up on the series more as I progressed and also as I started watching the Netflix show. My approach was to read a book and then watch the two corresponding Netflix episodes and I had a great time doing that. Like, I enjoyed the books all right but I loved the show.

This Netflix show is so good and it got me so much more invested into the story, especially in regards to Lemony Snicket, who in the show is an actual character and I just... I love how they did that in the shell. It made me care so much more about Lemony Snicket and made me like, get on his side and connect with him and get that much more invested into the series. Of the the author, Lemony Snicket / Daniel Handler is working on the show and he is just doing a brilliant job of adapting his own work to a new medium.

It's a very faithful adaptation like, it's the same story, it's the same feeling, but because of the different format and the potentially wider audience, there's more depth in the shell. Like, there's a plot line that runs through the show that isn't in the books at all and that plot line like, got me more invested in the books, which is weird but that's how it works. So, yeah overall, I do still wish that I'd read these books when I was younger because my personal enjoyment would have been higher but I am still enjoying them and I'm loving the show. I just...

I can't wait for more. All right, there you have it, those are my thoughts on the books I read in the last month or so and that's going to be it for this video. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video.

I hope you have a great night and I will have another video soon so I will see you then. Goodbyeeee!.

Book ReviewJane Eyre by Charlotte Bront

Hoi and welcome to you Jane Eyre week. All
the videos that I will be posting this week as you might have guessed will be Jane
Eyre themed. This book is loved by so many people but I just
kind of want to devote an entire week to it maybe its good chance for you to
reread it or if haven't read it yet maybe this is
a good time to start. This is my copy of Jane Eyre it's kind of a weird Penguin
edition but I love this mass paperback size.

I read this book when I was at University I
wrote an essay on it but I don't really remember a lot and I cant remember if I read the entire thing
but I have seen the adaptations so many times so I'm quite familiar with
the story. I feel like when you review a classic novel people sometimes expect
you to sort of really break it down and talk about the
historical background and almost kind of teach it as a sort of lesson on the book
but what I really want to do is just talk about my personal experience of reading Jane Eyre but if you want a more
detailed breakdown I suggest you check out the Jane Eyre episodes from crash
course literature. Jane Eyre is about a young girl called
Jane Eyre and when she was younger her aunt was sort of forced to take her in because
she was an orphan and then she sent her off to this school for girls called
Lowood. Its strict, it's cold, the girls don't
get a lot of food and in general they sort of have a miserable
time there but Jane sort of manages to make the best of the situation shes always very
rebellious but obviously at the schools just she has to tone that down and learn how to be
quiet.

She gets a good education and eventually becomes a teacher there
and when she's 18 she decides that she wants to advertise as a governess so she can see a
little bit more the world. So she ends up at Thornfield Hall
where she is the governess to a young french girl called Adele and she lives there with the
caretaker house Mrs Fairfax and then one day when she is out to bring a letter to a nearby
town she runs into someone or he sort of runs
into her because he is on a horse, horse stumbles and he falls off his
horse. She helps this mysterious stranger back on his horse while he
accuses her of being a witch. They both go on their merry way but when she comes
back to Thornfield Hall she realizes that that was Mr Rochester the man who owns
Thornfield Hall.

He seems a bit grumpy and a bit rude but as they
spend time together turns out they get along quite well but
meanwhile there are also some mysterious things happening in Thornfield Hall and Im going to stop here because I don't give too much
away but there a lot more going on because quite a big
book my edition has about 600 pages. First of all Charlotte Bronte published
this book under the pseudonym Currer Bell which is either a male pseudonym or a neutral pseudonym. What I found quite
interesting and that there are lot instances of Jane talking about how she
wishes that women to do the same things that men do just go out and just have an exciting
life and not be stuck at home and its quite interesting to think about how
people at the time would have perceived this if they had known it was written by
a woman or they thought it was written by a man. I found Jane a very pleasant character she's
very smart she really likes to observe people and figure out their personalities she seems very stable from a younger age she
sort of has this rage inside and she wants to burst free.

The setting is really remote Thornfield
Hall is very quiet and empty most of the time and it makes it a
really good setting for creepy stuff to happen but Jane Eyre's life in general
is quite lonely and limited she used to live with
her aunt and then she went to Lowood and then
she went to Thornfield Hall and like she says she's never really seen a lot of the world before although she does
fantasize about it and then to contrast that there is Mr Rochester who has been all across the world and he has all
these amazing stories about far away countries. One of my favorite bits is when Jane is talking
about how she's never really seen a hot guy before but she bets that if she
would ever see one she would know gives you a good idea of like how limited
her contact with the outside world has been which is also something that comes up in
the book quite a lot where she talks about the theme of if you havent experienced a
lot, if you're quite plain or if you're younger does it make you less
than anyone else? Especially with the treatment of
children at Lowood where they're just kind of like mmm kids don't really have
feelings so its okay they just need to learn how
to behave and be quiet and I feel like a lot of the book
is Jane fighting for her little place in the world. I also like that when she first
meets Mr Rochester and he's being kind of
rude her first reaction is that's very exciting cuz I imagine if
he would have been very polite that would've been quite boring at least that's the way to bring the
excitement to my life. Because the little girl Adele is French and Mr Rochester speaks
French and Jane speaks French there is quite a bit of
French in this book and there were sometimes just entire paragraphs in French and if you
don't speak French you can just skip it and you'll be fine you might miss a couple phrases but youll
get the general gist of what's going on.

It's fine to not know everything and it
kind of puts you right in that place and it feels a lot more real than if the narrator
goes well actually this is what they just said, I'll just translate it for you. A lot of the
quotes on the back of my copy talk about love quite a lot and I don't feel like this book is as much
about love as people think it is. There are lots of problematic things in this book
especially romanticising Mr Rochester which is sort of totally
understandable and while I think its really interesting to
read about sort of the deep connection that Mr Rochester and Jane have its always good to think things over
while you're reading it. This is a book that I can see myself
reading over and over again in years to come.

I love the story, I
really enjoy the writing, there's so many different themes being discussed. I actually
think that this could be a great starter classic even though it is quite
big it's not that hard to read. You don't have a bunch of different characters and
sort of a nonlinear story. Im looking at you Wuthering Heights and I feel like there's a lot of things that
any teenager or adult could relate to.

Those are my thoughts on
Jane Eyre I really, really enjoyed reading it again and while I reading I was sort of doubting
how much I'd actually read of it before. I really
wish I could read it for the first time again. So in the comments to would be great if you could avoid
posting spoilers and if you do want to kind of discuss something about the end maybe put spoilers in all caps and have
a couple of open lines and then itll just disappear under the read more bit. Another fun thing
that will be going on this week is that if you tweet using #JaneEyreWeek
whether it is sharing your favourite quote from the book or
sharing a picture of your copy or just talking about Jane Eyre in general everyone that uses the hashtag is
automatically entering themselves in a competition to win a really cool Jane Eyre poster just basically the
text of I think the first couple chapters of Jane Eyre with an image Jane and Mr Rochester sort of in the middle of
that.

I think that's it more Jane Eyre themed videos coming later this week I hope you
enjoyed this review and I'll talk to you guys later. Doei!.

Book ReviewBeartown by Fredrik Backman [CC]

Hey What's up, you guys? It's Connor, and today I'm going to be doing a book review on Beartown by Fredrik Backman. If you don't know, Fredrik Backman is one of my favorite authors, and I have read all of the books and novella that he has that have been translated into English. I've also done book reviews on all of them, and I'll leave those in the card symbol as well as in a playlist in the description. You can check them out if you want to, but today we're talking about Beartown.

I requested and was sent this book from the publisher in order to read it and review it for you guys because I. Was so excited that is coming out. But that in no way affects my basically love for this book. Beartown really follows just this small Swedish town that is surrounded by forests.

It is a town that has been degrading and going downhill for a while now. A lot of people have lost their jobs. People are moving away from this town, and not many people are moving there. And I think one of the lines in the book is that "if a town is not growing, it's actually dying", and that's what Beartown is.

It is slowly dying. This town is really centered around hockey, and you don't have to really like hockey to really love this book or appreciate the things that talks about even when it's talking about hockey. You can easily substitute any other type of physical activity or hobby that a small town would collect around so possibly football in America or soccer in pretty much every other country. You know what? I'm just going to read the back of this book because that is going to give you a better description than what I'm trying to do right now.

It's been a long time since the residents of Beartown have felt like winners. That could change this year if the teenage boys who make up the junior ice hockey team can win the national championship.They have the heads, the hands, and hearts to do it, but it's what happens off the ice that will change this town forever... Dun Dun Dun!  And because it really follows a town, you follow a lot of different characters. I think you follow 10-or-something people closely, and there are some other people that are just around the fringes.

But don't let that daunt you. It's not very overwhelming or anything like that. You're definitely going to know who people are, and how they're related to each other, and everything like that. As usual with my book reviews, I'm gonna go through my pros, go through my cons, give you my rating; then be done.

My first pro is just going to be that I love Fredrik Backman's writing. He is such a good writer. He uses literary devices and elements so well. I.

Was just astounded. I think that something that he uses particularly well in this novel is the use of repetition. I get annoyed when books are very repetitive, but this book uses repetition perfectly. So the first line of chapter two - chapter one is just this one little thing here - it says "Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang." That little "Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang." Is repeated throughout the novel, but it's used with different people and used to represent different things.

I just love that, and he does that with some other things as well. Oone chapter it says marriage is complicated at the very beginning or something along those lines, and then in the chapter that certain things happen. And then at the end it's like, "A marriage is complicated.", And it gives such a heavy weight to those words. I just - I don't know how he did it.

They also use things like, "Again and Again and Again" Every time that it pops up even though it's it's the same sentence, where it shows up in the story means different things. And I just loved how the different repetitions, and the things that he brought back into the story, and the same sentences that he said over and over again always meant something a little bit different, and it meant something different for each character that they showed up alongside. So just wow! There are so many examples of the repetition this book that I. Absolutely loved and found to just be fantastic that I wrote down a bunch of them.

But I just decided that I am not going to spoil you, so uh yeah just look for to that for yourself. Another pro for this book is the hockey element. I don't love hockey. I don't really know how to play hockey.

I don't know all the rules, but the way that hockey plays a role in this story is so relatable to pretty much every small town around. I'm from a small town, and my town really comes around football which is a lot of towns in America. The weight that's put on to the players of football in high school or to the players of hockey in this book is insanely high, but it's so realistic that these parents and this community have put so much weight on the shoulders of 17 year olds. I like how real that was and how I just I know that happens in real life.

They think that if this hockey team does really well, then it'll bring all of these other people towards their town and help their town start to grow again. That's a crazy amount of pressure to put on a seventeen-year-old. Another thing I. Loved was the characters.

They're so real, and although you don't like all the characters because how could you just with what's going on in here. But I just thought that all the characters were so well done, so real, so fleshed out. I really liked how he did his characters too. At the very beginning you're given a surface layer of each character, and I think at first you really dislike every single character.

I think except for Amat. He's, like, the only one that you don't dislike. Him and his mom, Fatima, but  for everyone else you're like, "Dang! They are so annoying! Why would I even care about this person?" And then as the story goes along it just digs a slight bit deeper, and then a little bit deeper, and then a little bit deeper, and you find yourself understanding each character. Although you don't love all of them, you definitely understand where they're coming from.

And I don't know at what point I became so invested in every single character, and I think that was so well done because I just didn't even realize it was happening until after it was done and I was really invested. The characterization was incredibly well done. No one was just completely morally correct. They all have rough times.

They all fall down, and it's the ones that really work hard to be good people that end up being, like, better people, I guess, than the other ones. But no one in this book is perfect, and i love that. There's a huge theme of competition in this book. Competition with others but also competition with yourself, and I think that the competition with yourself was the one that was much more important in this book.

And I think that's a thing just about life - that you have to realize that being competitive with yourself is a lose-lose situation because if you're trying to weigh two different parts of your life, then one of them is going to lose and one of them is going to win. But it's still you, so you lose. For instance one of the characters is having to deal with the fact that she wants to be a career woman and how the town really thinks that being a career woman is basically a bad thing because she also have to balance being a mom. She is competing with herself being a mom and being a career woman, and how does that work, and who wins in the end if you're trying to be the best mom but you're also trying to be the best career woman.

There's got to be a balance, but she's trying to compete. And it just doesn't work. And I really like that throughout this novel there are tons of characters that are having to go through the same thing of "Well there's this one side of me, and there's another side of me. Which one is the one that will come out on top kind of thing." As well as external [competition].

So the hockey team having to be the other hockey team.It's just all very competitive. As well as being competitive, there are also a lot of parallels that are made. Like, certain characters will be put alongside another character, and you can see how their paths diverge and what could possibly happen to a person if this happened versus that happening. I don't want to go into too much detail because I don't want to spoil anything, again, but I just love seeing how two people can be in the same position, but because this accident or this thing happened at this one point in time, their future is completely different because of it.

I feel like I'm a little bit all over the place with this review. That's because I'm gushing really. It's just a gush basically. Another thing that I love about this book is that it just is beautiful.

It's just a beautiful book, and the reason why I think that it's a beautiful book is that it has a lot of just simple truths and they don't try to make them more complicated than they have to be. If you're describing a flower, you can just call it a flower. You don't have to say that it's a combination of stamens, and anthers, and pedals, and sepals, and ovaries, and whatever. You can just call it a flower, and that's what this book kind of does.

He has a very simple way of getting the point across, but if you are invested when you're reading it, you get so much more out of it. I love that. It's very easy to tell if something is good or evil, but even still with those lines drawn, life is still complicated. This book has a bit of a darker tone than any of his other books.

I mean, I. Know A Man Called Ove is about a guy who's trying to kill himself, but in this I feel like Ove is really trying to find a reason to live now that his wife has passed away. In this one it's more of a dark feeling. A lot of people in this book seems isolated, and so it's a bit darker.

Just know that going in. I really enjoyed it. I really liked the change in tone, and I really liked how it was done it this northern town that doesn't have a whole lot of sunlight throughout all of the year. It fits the story, and it fit the characters.

Just know going in that this book is also going to have some triggers as well. One of which is that there's a lot of teasing and bullying, so if that's going to affect you in a negative way. It doesn't depict those things as good, but there are some instances where there are teasing and bullying and what's called locker-room talk where there are crass jokes about homosexuality or women or other groups of people. Those are in there, and they're not depicted as being right.

But it's realistic because that does happen in locker rooms, and I liked how it was handled in this. But if thats going to trigger you, then just know that is going on in here. Some of the kids in this are really picked on at school, and a lot of parents are okay with it. There's definitely some commentary on that being a bad thing, and locker-room talk is stupid, and making crude and disgusting comments about women is dumb and shouldn't be done.

But they are in here. The main thing that affects this town can also be triggering, but I don't want to spoil it because I think at the beginning of the book - for the first half or so - you're like, "Oh shoot! What's gonna happen?" You're trying to figure out who's going to do the bad thing; What is going to actually happen. You know, you're you're trying to figure it out, and the tension in the beginning of the book is just building and building and building to that point. So I don't want to give away that point to people that are not triggered by things, but after I'm done talking about the book, I will tell you what the event is that really affects this town so that you can know going in what it is or if it's going to trigger you or not so you can avoid the book is if it is going to.

So stay tuned to the end if you have triggers. Another thing I like about Fredrik Backman's books is that he always does two different timelines - usually in his books. For instance, in My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry there's the timeline of the main character who's an eight-year-old girl as a younger girl and then the current time period. A Man Called Ove follows Ove in the current time as well as Ove in the past.

In this book he did something a little bit different. There's the current time period, but then there's also the future. And so in the book it'll be like, "She will never forget this for the rest of her life", and so you know this specific thing will be affecting her in the future even if it doesn't right now. Ten years in the future is really what this book goes for, so it will say, "In ten years he will look back on this memory and think 'this'", so I liked seeing the future come back into the present and explain why the present is so important to these people, and to this town, and in general.

I think that the future being the other timeline that he follows really adds to the tension and the building of this novel until the big event happens because you're like, "Oh shoot! This character is being affected this way in 10 years. Why? And what's going to happen in this timeline?" So yeah really like the two timeline things the future and the present. I also like that Fredrik Backman's books are diverse. One of the main characters that you follow is gay, so you follow him as he is trying to come to terms with that and what that means for him and for his future.

As well as it follows a boy named Amat who is living with his single mother, and they're refugees from war that is happening. So the people of color in this very white environment, and you see the exploration of them being of color and how that affects their life being in Beartown and everything like that. So yeah, I really like the diversity and exploration of what it means to be someone different, someone other in a town where everyone is the same. There are so many more things that I loved about this book, but I honestly just don't have time to talk about it.

I feel like I've already talked your ear off enough about all the things that I love about this book. I don't have any cons, so I can't go through any of those because I literally love this book so much. I've already pre-ordered the book. I got it from Barnes & Noble because they have signed editions of it, so i wanted to get a signed edition.

I gave it five stars obviously. I think it is incredible. I. Really recommend you pre-ordering it, or getting it from the library, or just somehow getting your hands on this story.

It is that good. I honestly don't even know if its review made any sense, but if you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up and comment down below if you're planning on reading Beartown. Have you read any of Fredrik Backman's other books? Are you interested now? Or if you want to talk to you about this book you can message me on Twitter or message me on Goodreads. I.

Just want to talk about it. Anything else you want me to know, leave it down below, and I will talk to you guys next time. Bye! So if you don't want to hear what the big event is that happens in this book, the event that happens off the ice that will change the town forever, click off. The only reason why I'm saying it right now is because some people have triggers and really would like to know what it is that is bad that happens.

And so the big event that happens is that one of the characters is raped, and it goes into a decent amount of detail about what happens during that situation. And obviously in this book it's not portrayed as a good thing, but it's portrayed in a realistic way. And how people respond to someone being raped in a small town is very realistic ,so all those things might be triggering to people that are triggered by rape. So I.

Just wanted to put that out there, and let people know if that is going to affect their reading experience or not. Again I definitely recommend this book! Please, please check it out!.