hello bookworms it's Jade from bedtime bookworm and welcome back to my Channel
today I'm here with my may wrap-up slash readin vlog
overall I'd say that I had a pretty good reading month in May quantity wise I
didn't read as much as I would have liked to but one of the books that I
read was quite long it probably counts for like two books and then on top of
that I have just been indulging in some of my other hobbies lately i've playing a
lot more video games my husband and I played this really fun game this month
called a way out it's a two-person game like you have to have two people to be
able to play it and you guys have to work together to figure out different
puzzles and stuff but it's about these two guys that are breaking out of jail
it was so much fun I've never played a cooperative game like that before
and it wasn't too hard for me as like an amateur gamer who is terrible at aiming
at things and then also we've been playing a lot of Pokemon go lately ever
since they came out with the daily tasks and being able to get legendary Pokemon
from those and not just from raids we've gotten totally sucked back in
we're going on raids a few times a week and we've also participated in the last
two community days and that's gonna be a staple of our month going forward so I
have been indulging in my video game hobby a little bit more this month and
it's taken away a little bit from my reading time but I'm still really happy
with the amount of reading and mostly the quality of reading that I got done
this month so before we get into the vlog section just a quick recap I read
four things this month and those were everything I never told you by Celeste
Ng little fires everywhere also by Celeste Ng the fires of heaven by
Robert Jordan which is the fifth book in the Wheel of Time series the last book that
I finished on the very last day I read book of M by Peng Shepherd which was an
e arc that I received so thank you to the publishers for an early copy in
exchange for an honest review as far as my race for this month I had a really
good month I had three 5 stars and one 4 star read so while I didn't read a lot
quantity wise I think the quality of what I read was really good this month I
am leaving timestamps down in the description box for each section of the
video where I talk about the different books so feel free to check that out if
you're particularly interested in my thoughts on one of these books otherwise
just stay tuned for my May reading vlog hello bookworms so it is like may 10th
and I have finished two books already I am on a roll right now with reading
first two books that I finished this month were contemporaries and they were
actually both by Celeste Ng I've read both of her books now and I can happily say I
have a new favorite author I loved both of these books so the first one that I
read was her debut book everything I never told you I read this because I
pulled it out of my TBR jar for my spring TBR I had put on hold a physical
copy from my library and when it came in there were other people on hold for it
as well so I had a limited amount of time to read it so I started as soon as
I could I actually ended up listening to this
mostly on audiobook through hoopla but this is what I mean about requesting
books from the library and having things on hold being my push to actually read a
book at a certain time I thought the narrator did a good job
but it wasn't anything mind-blowing like I wouldn't necessarily recommend
listening to it over reading it in other formats but the narrator was good for
not familiar everything I never told you it is a actually I'm not sure if it's
considered to be YA or adult I feel like it could go either way because it's
about a family and some of those members of the family are in high school and
would fit kind of like the young adult age category but at the same time you
also get insight into some of the adults in the family so I'm not really sure I
tried to look and see what it had been marketed as I think from what I can tell
it had been marketed as an adult book but I feel like this is one of those I
could really go either way anyways it's a story about a family it's a mixed-race
family so the mother of this family is Caucasian and the father is second
generation Chinese at the very beginning of the story this book has a semi-famous
first line it starts out with saying Lydia is dead and Lydia is one of the
daughters in this family so this whole book you kind of unravel the dynamics of
the family and you you know look into the past of the parents and different
things that happened to the kids while they were growing up and by the end of
the story you find out what actually happened to Lydia and how she died so
it's definitely not a mystery at all but it has that little bit of a mystery
element that kind of pulls you through to the end of the story because you want
to know what happened to Lydia I cannot believe that this was Celeste Ng's debut
book because it was so good she touches on a lot of themes but primarily she
touches on racism and the struggles that biracial couples go through that mixed
kids deal with when they're growing up so there's definitely a race element to
the story she also has a lot of like feminists aspects to it like the mother
of the family was a scientist and wanted to go to med school but then she ended
up not being able to because she got pregnant so there's definitely that
element as well this was set in the 70s and 80s to give you a little bit of
perspective the story is definitely not told in a chronological order if I had
heard that before I probably would have thought that would have been very
confusing but it actually wasn't confusing at all Celeste Ng did an amazing
job of jumping back and forth in different times of this family but
always making it clear exactly what time period you're in and I was never
confused about what time in their lives I was visiting at the moment I've never
read a book that had such a fluid sense of time and like jumping around in time
that wasn't confusing and Celeste Ng also does such an amazing job of giving you
little bits and pieces of information at exactly the right time to help you tie
together different loose ends of the story I just it was masterfully done I
am still in awe it was so good I loved the family dynamics it really highlights
how complicated families can be and the relationships between siblings and the
relationships between you know kids and parents nothing is black and white in
this book and every character in it was just so complex I will say that I
definitely identified with Lydia the most I really identified with her
struggle to please her parents but at the same time figure out who she is and
like live her own life I don't know what else to say guys the hype is real even
though the hype has really died down for this book but it was awesome and I
definitely recommend it ok moving on to the next book so then I read little
fires everywhere by Celeste Ng which is her second book and I read that because
I had a workbook club meeting just last night where we were discussing this book
this one I had put on hold at my library months ago when it was selected as the
next book club read and I did not make much progress on those hold lists
because there are just so many people who are on
hold for this I had I swear like 10 different versions like e-copies audio
books physical copies so many different versions of this book on hold I even had
some large print copies on hold because I thought maybe those would come through
but they didn't I blame Reese Witherspoon because she's gonna make a
movie out of this and has been publicizing it and so now everybody
wants to read it apparently I don't blame them cuz it was really good so in
the end I ended up using a audible credit and I ended up actually buying it
myself I also really enjoyed this narrator again I don't know if it was
really a better experience than reading it she was good but she wasn't like
mind-blowing so this story is about it's about so much it's so hard to summarize
this book it's about primarily these two families the Richardson's and the
I actually don't know what the other family's last name is but a
mother-daughter duo who rents an apartment from the Richardson's and that
mother is an artist so she's kind of had a pretty nomadic lifestyle with her
child they move around and she's a photographer so she moves to wherever
inspiration takes her stays there works on a project and then moves on again so
very different lifestyle from the Richardson's who are very you know upper
white middle class have a really nice house they have four kids they've always
pretty much had a housekeeper but it's about like the dynamics between these
two families because the daughter of the artist pearl ends up becoming like
really good friends with the kids of the Richardson's and there's also this other
storyline about a Chinese baby that gets adopted by a white couple which I know a
lot of people talk about as being a really important to the story and I mean
it is pretty important to the story but that storyline doesn't even get
started until like a quarter of the way through the book I was listening to this
with my mom and she asked me what it was about and I told her mostly it was about
this Chinese baby storyline cus that's what I thought and we kind of laughed
about it because that didn't even happen until like a quarter of the way through
the book so the story is about a lot there's a lot of different storylines
going on but they all intertwine together beautifully there are a lot of
similar themes in this book as I saw in everything I never told you such as race
but this book has so many more themes it touches a lot on mother-daughter
relationships and like what makes a parent is it your biology
or is it you know who raises you is that who loves you it touches on infertility
issues adoption choosing what kind of life you want to live just so many
things it just amazes me how many layers this book has and the way Celeste Ng was
able to intertwine all those storylines and layers and in the end pretty much
tie it up seamlessly everything pretty much comes full circle there were like a
few things that I wish had been wrapped up a little more nicely but honestly
that's life you know life doesn't wrap up nicely there was always gonna be some
loose ends and that's kind of how I felt the ending was this book just really
highlights how complicated people and family can be and you know reminds you
not to judge other people because you don't know what's going on in their
lives it was just so interesting guys I highly highly recommend little fires
everywhere again the hype is so real I guess I didn't say it but I gave
everything I never told you five stars that one probably if I was doing half
stars I would have given four and a half but I definitely wouldn't round it down
to four so I gave it five on Goodreads and then little fires everywhere I
definitely gave five stars highest rating I could ever give a book I loved
it that much it's funny I was telling my friend to Sashana
that reading little fires everywhere made me want to give everything I never
told you four stars but in the end I decided that little fires everywhere was
just an even better five stars okay so those are the two books that I have read
so far and I will check in with you guys when I've read something else hey guys
I'm here to update you on another book that I finished in the month of May I've
spent a lot of this month reading the fires of heaven by Robert Jordan this
was a reread for me I love the series as I'm sure you are tired of hearing me say
and I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars I have a physical copy of this book an
e-copy of this book and an audio copy of this book all of which I personally paid
for it's my own money and I own I am a little bit obsessed with this series if
you couldn't tell I did mostly listen to this on audio and occasionally I read it
on eBook I didn't really read my physical copy very much I did film a
review and video diary of my experience reading this book the review section
spoiler-free but the video diary is full of spoilers that's the point of the
video diary is to go in spoilers about the book and it's definitely like a
really long video but it's intended to be so I'm not gonna talk too much about
it here because if you want more information on my thoughts you can go
check out at least the review portion of that video but basically this was a
really good installment in the series I didn't love it quite as much as I loved
book four so far book four has been my favorite in the series this one the
pacing was a little bit off I'd say like the second half of the book pacing was
great things were moving things were happening lots of exciting things happen
and even the first quarter of the book wasn't too bad but that middle 25 to 50
percent definitely slogged a little bit there was a lot of character building a
lot of world building and just kind of like laying groundwork as someone who
loves the series and loves his characters I didn't mind it but I
definitely noticed that there was a little bit of a slowdown in the pacing
in that like second quarter of the book and the last book book for definitely
had a lot of really big reveals and while this one also has reveals it
wasn't quite as impactful I think as the fourth book I just love the complexity
of this world there are so many different countries and cities and
cultures of people from all of those countries and cities there's a lot of
political intrigue there like myths and legends that are in this world there's
just so much about it that I love if you guys are interested in hearing more
about the series I did do like an introduction to Wheel of Time video that
I can link for you I'm gonna be reading one of these every month from here on
out so I don't know what I'm gonna say in these wrap ups about them because I
think I'm gonna continue to do these book review and book diary things but
basically I really enjoyed my time reading it the audio book is fantastic
for this whole series and I'm gonna continue to listen to it on audio
because I think especially as a rereader that's a really great way to go about
reading the series I hope I have one more book to talk to you about before
the end of the month I have about three days left and I'm about halfway through
a book right now and I'm gonna try really hard to finish it because I want
to include it in this wrap-up if I can alright I'll check in with you later
hey guys so May is over and I did finish one more book before the end of the
month I totally squeezed it in at the last
minute I had like 20 maybe 25 percent left of this book on the 31st the last
day of the month and I sat down for like two hours straight and just plowed
through the end of it because I was enjoying it but also because I wanted to
be able to include it in this wrap-up I've actually already attempted to film
this clip once and this book was really hard for me to talk about so I am trying
it again because I didn't say all the things that I wanted to say in my last
attempt so the book that I finished was the Book of M by peng Shepherd and this
was an eARC that I received from either NetGalley or at Edelweiss in exchange for
an honest review so I requested this book because it's a post-apocalyptic
story and I love me some post-apocalyptic stories and the premise
was really interesting basically the disease or plague in this world is that
people start to lose their shadows this phenomenon starts to spread across the
globe and you know we can't really explain it
scientifically I will say for those of you who like to have some sort of
scientific explanation this book - even though it's like post apocalyptic
it's also kind of fantasy because there's definitely magic there is no
scientific explanation for shadows disappearing what the world learns is
that there are consequences to losing your shadow the one that they don't realize
at first is that people who lose their shadow are gaining a new ability but
this new ability comes at a cost which they do notice the cost is that they
start to lose their memories when they lose their memories it starts out being
like really little things but then it gets to be bigger and bigger things to
the point where it becomes life-threatening and people die I'm not
gonna tell you what the ability people gain from losing their shadow because I
looked at the synopsis on Goodreads and it doesn't say so I guess technically
that's a spoiler even though you kind of figure it out pretty early in the book
so that's the world-building premise of the book but let me tell you about the
characters that we're actually following so this is a diverse read one of the
main characters is orly short for orlando and he from what I could tell is
Asian American I'm pretty sure like Chinese American I
think and his wife max was african-american so at the beginning of
the book max loses her shadow and she runs away from Orly because she doesn't
want to have him watch her forget things and forget him so she runs away and he
basically is trying to chase her so that's one of the storylines we get
point of views from both of them we get orly's point of view which is in
third-person like most of the book is in third-person but then Max's point of
views are actually in second person because she takes a tape recorder with
her and like talks into the tape recorder as if she's talking to Orly
and so her chapters are written in second person which I actually really
enjoyed I don't always like second person narration but it really works
especially in this book and it was only her point of view and then you also get
point of views from other characters it's a multi perspective book and you're
seeing views from lots of other people and there's different ethnicities
there's different sexual orientations and things like that the author herself
Peng Shepherd is also a author of color I think she's some sort of Asian so if
you're looking for a diverse read I think this would definitely fulfill
those requirements I mean they're not requirements but you know what I mean
it's a diverse read okay so those are some basics on what the story is about
now let me tell you what I thought about it for about the first 50% I was
intrigued but there were definitely moments where I was like am I really
enjoying myself I'm not sure like I questioned myself a few times and what I
want to say is that while this is a post-apocalyptic story this magical
element that's added to it and the way that it's written adds almost like a
magical realism feel to it which really kind of clashes with this
post-apocalyptic trying to survive vibe as well it was just a really strange
reading experience for me there is that survival aspect to it but at the same
time there's this magic in the world and a little bit of like a whimsical feel to
it at times I wasn't sure how I felt about that juxtaposition between those
two different styles I can't really say if I think that she did it well or not
like there are times that I liked it and times that I didn't so when I originally
finished this book I gave it a three star rating because there were so many
moments while I was reading it that I was just like questioning myself
as far as like well am I really enjoying this do I like this like I can't decide
if I like this but I ended up giving it a three star rating but after sitting on
it for two or three days I just could not stop thinking about the ending of
this book going towards the ending I was kind of like this is really predictable
like I think I know what's gonna happen but there is a twist and it did surprise
me and I just loved the ending especially like the very last scene I
love how everything wrapped up and the idea that's really explored by this book
is just who are we without our memories and how do our memories make us who we
and I just thought it was fascinating I could not stop thinking about this book
for a couple days like I'm still thinking about it
it's just it was a really fascinating book so even though at times I was kind
of questioning myself as far as like how much I was enjoying it it was
interesting and it was thought-provoking and for those reasons I ended up bumping
it actually from a three to a four star rating if anything that I said about
this book intrigues you I say try it check it out it's definitely a unique
book I've never read anything like it before I really enjoyed it it definitely
is slower paced you know it's just pace like an adult book is you know like not
super action-packed which you might expect from something that's
post-apocalyptic I wouldn't go into this expecting like a traditional
post-apocalyptic story I definitely recommend checking it out if you guys
think it's at all interesting it is coming out on June 5th which by the time
this video comes out it will be released keep an eye out for it if you've read it
let me know what you think because this is definitely one that I want to discuss
with people alright bye okay so those are all the books that I
read in May if you like this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and
subscribe to my channel if you like bookish content I post one to two times
a week that is all I have for now thank you so much for watching and until next
time bookworms keep reading bye
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