Hi everyone, my name is Kerryn, this is my channel RatherBeReading and today I'm
bringing to you my January Mid-Month Wrap Up.
January has got off to a pretty great start. I've been getting a lot of really good reading done
and I've really just been enjoying reading. I mean I always enjoy reading, but I've been
reading a lot of just like fun, easy type of reads. So I did read 11 books in
the first half of the month, from the 1st through the 15th, so I'm going to talk
about all those books in this video. The first book that I finished in 2019 was
Forget Me Not by A.M. Taylor. This is a book that I was approved for on
NetGalley and it is an adult thriller that follows a character who, when she was 17,
this girl's best friend went missing. Her car was found by the side of the
road, the car was locked and the girl was just never seen again.
It's ten years later and the girl who went missing's younger sister, who is now
17, is now murdered on the same spot that her sister went missing, like on the
10 year anniversary, and so we are trying to figure out what went on, what
happened to the sister who went missing, what happened to the sister who's been
murdered, so on and so forth. I enjoyed this. I thought it was enjoyable but I
also thought it was very predictable. It's like very predictable.
I had guessed who the assailant might be right from the beginning and I proved to
be correct. I did think that the author did a great job of creating the really
like small town atmosphere and a really cold atmosphere. It's set right in winter
and atmosphere is one of my favorite things in books. It's one of the really
important factors. So I did really enjoy that. I also enjoyed that the author
wasn't heavy handed on the romance but, as is typical of thrillers, there are
a few things that I found a little bit unrealistic and also, like I said, the
very predictable nature of the book also dragged it down a little bit, but overall
it was an enjoyable read and I gave that one 3.5 stars. I then read The Merciless
by Danielle Vega. This is a YA horror story that follows a girl who moves to a
new school and she befriends this group of popular girls and together with
these popular girls they decide to perform an exorcism on another girl from
their school and it's just all about kind of that exorcism and what goes from
there because perhaps this exorcism isn't really an exorcism but it's more
just torture and so that's what this is about. This is really enjoyable.
I recognize that this isn't like really you know high quality, you know,
intellectual type of read, but it was very very very enjoyable. Yes, it was
pretty cheesy, it's you know cheesy type of horror. I'm into cheesy horror though
and I also, I just thought this was a lot of fun. The author also wasn't afraid to go there
with, excuse me, with the gore and all of that type of thing, which I appreciated,
and I gave this 4 stars. I just thought it was really really enjoyable. Next I
read 2 Baby-Sitter's Club books. So, first I read Claudia and the New Girl. This one
is basically about a new girl arriving in town and Claudia having a lot in
common with her through her art and that causing some friction between Claudia
and the rest of the baby-sitters. I enjoyed this one, but there was nothing,
it's not one of my favorites. Nothing overly great in there. It did have some
interesting commentary in it I guess on what makes a friend and being able to
have different interests from your friends and that not meaning they aren't
good friends. So in the end I ended up giving this one a 3.25
stars, like it was enjoyable, not one of my favorites and then the second
Baby-Sitter's Club book that I read was Good-bye Stacey, Goodbye by Ann M. Martin.
This one follows Stacey moving back to New York City and leaving Stoneybrook
and the Baby-Sitter's Club. This one, I really read at kind of the right time.
All of these are re-reads for me of course, but this one hit me at the right
time. I can see it from several different angles.
Stacey is moving - I moved a lot as a kid so I definitely know what it feels like
to leave friends behind and to be scared about going to a new place. Although
Stacey's moving back to New York, so it's not a new place for her but I can relate
to all of that kind of thing and then also, I in my family at the moment have
both my brother and my sister moving away and so I could see it really from
that side as well. So it's just a really interesting read. Like it was kind of
one of those ones that was like well this is like an interesting time for
this book to come into my life type of thing, but yeah I enjoyed it. Again I don't
think one of the best ones in the series or anything but it was enjoyable and in
the end I gave that one 3.5 stars. Next I read The Merciless II which is
The Exorcism of Sofia Flores by Danielle Vega. This is the sequel obviously. I enjoyed
this one. I don't think it's as good as the first book. This also has one of my
pet peeves in it in that there's a lot given away in the synopsis that I don't
think is necessary to give away and I think that kind of spoils a lot of
suspense that could have been built up if that wasn't in there. This one, however,
is set in a creepy Catholic boarding school - loved that setting. Another thing
that I didn't like about this one is that there's a really weird kind of
thing mentioned with a side character having a, excuse me, a relationship with
her cousin, that was just kind of added in there and added nothing to the story
and it was super weird and I didn't know why it was in there but overall like I
said, as with the first one, it's just an enjoyable fun read. I don't think it lived
up quite to the first one but it was enjoyable and in the end I gave this 3.5 stars.
I then read A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson. I listened to
this one actually on audio and it is narrated by Joshilyn Jackson herself. I
believe that she narrates all her audiobooks because her most recent
release, which is the first book of hers that I read, was also narrated by her. So
this one is a women's fiction / literary fiction. It basically follows
three generations and the grandmother and the mother both had their children
when they were 15 and now the daughter, so you've got the daughter, the mother, and
the grandmother, the daughter is now 15 so she has grown up in this family with
a lot of like expectation and a lot of pressure on her around not falling into
the same trap that her mother and her grandmother felt, fell into and at
the start of the story there is a pool being put into the backyard and
something is dug up and it all kind of kicks off from there. It creates a bit of
a mystery, all of that type of thing. So I enjoyed this. It was very enjoyable.
I really enjoyed Joshilyn Jackson's writing and I really enjoy her stories.
I really liked the mystery aspect, I like all of the commentary in there on family
and like what makes someone your family, really enjoyed all of that. I did have a
couple of problems, there is a lot of slut shamey language. There's also a
slur against mentally handicapped people that is used repeatedly and while it is
called out, one of the older characters, because it's mainly the teenage
characters using this word, the older character calls it out at one point and
so it is kind of addressed but then it's just repeatedly used and I know that
teenagers used, it teenagers use it, but it just it made me super uncomfortable
and I didn't like that it just like kept being in there, but yeah I found the
story very engrossing, really enjoyable, and in the end I gave that one
3.75 stars. Next I read The DUFF by Kody Keplinger.
This is another one that I received from NetGalley. I got this one off NetGalley like a
really long time ago, I think it was just in like the Read Now section and I
finally got around to reading it. I have seen the movie previously but I will say,
and I rewatched the movie actually after I read the book, and I will say the
movie is very very different and so the book is basically about a character who
finds out, or is tol, that she is the DUFF, which is The Designated Ugly Fat
Friend and she's told that she's the DUFF of her friend group. This causes
her to have kind of a, you know, mental crisis and she ends up entering into a
kind of enemies with benefits, it's with the like popular boy from her school who
she doesn't like, but they enter a purely sexual relationship and she does it as a
kind of a release. She's also got a lot going on in her personal life and so she
finds it as like a release to, that helps her, and so enters into this sexual
relationship and it all kind of goes from there. I really enjoyed this, I
really did. At first I had a lot of problems with it because obviously the
use of the word 'DUFF' - super offensive and it is used repeatedly and she's
repeatedly called that. There's also a lot of like slut shaming going on in it,
but both of those things are addressed in the story and are dealt with, which I
really liked. I'm also very into the tropes going on
here. I'm very into hate to love, very into friends-with-benefits, very into
secret relationships. Like this relationship, this enemies-with-benefits
whatever relationship, it's um like a secret relationship, I'm very into that in a
story as well. So it's just hitting a lot of key words for me and I just
thought that it was really really enjoyable and in the end I gave that one
4 stars. I then read The Merciless III, which is
Origins of Evil by Danielle Vega. So this one is a prequel to the other two books,
so it's set prior to the first Merciless book and because of that, again, I thought
this one lacked suspense, because we know what's gonna happen because we know what
what the set up is for the first book. So that I had a little bit of a problem with.
I also do think that the author is definitely, is constantly trying to kind of one-up
herself with the horror and the gore and so it does get a little bit over the top.
It's always cheesy, as all the other books are but I think it was really
enjoyable, I just don't think it was as good as the others but I still had a fun time
reading it and I gave this one 3 stars. I should have mentioned at the top
of this video that I also DNF'd a book. So I DNF'd The Last of the Mohicans by
James Fenimore Cooper. This is a classic story surrounding two girls who are
kidnapped and it's set during the like French British War - that's basically the
premise. The language I just found really hard to read. It was very boring like
I read 55 pages of it before I DNF'd it and like nothing happened. It was very
hard to tell what was even going on in the story, we hadn't even met the two
girls who the whole story revolves around. I just didn't really like it and
I was having a really fun time with my reading in 2019 and I didn't want to be
dragged down by a crap book so I decided to DNF that one. So I then picked up instead
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin. This is a YA historical fiction set in an
alternate history. So it's set in 1956 but it's set as if Hitler and Germany had
won the war and we follow a main character named Yael who is a
Skinshifter. She can change her appearance at will.
There is limitations on it though, she can only, she can't change her genger,
she can't remove permanent markings like tattoos or scars, things like that, and
she is entering a motorcycle race that takes place in this alternate history
where the victor of that race gets to meet Hitler and so she's entering the
race, to win the race, and execute Hitler - assassinate him, to spark kind of a
revolution that's what this is about. Really really really enjoyable.
I loved all of the commentary in here on identity. Because Yael can change her
appearance, I really liked you know about what makes her who she is because she
doesn't remember what she looked like. She's been able to do this since she was a
little kid and she doesn't remember what she originally looked like because all
of her family and everyone who knew her has been killed. Yael is a Jewish
character - really liked that as well because not only is she having to struggle
with her identity in her appearance, but struggling with her identity as a Jewish
person, because Jewish people have basically been eradicated, or anyone who
is Jewish is not owning up to the fact that they're Jewish because Hitler is
in, he's ruling, he's in .power I also liked that there were limitations on
the skinshifting like I said it. It made it feel much more realistic than you know
it being a more Mystique X-Men type of thing. I thought it made it much more
realistic. I really enjoyed this. I did think it was a little bit predictable
and it did lack a little bit of like kind of final like punch to the story
but I thought was a very solid 4 stars and very very enjoyable. Next I
read Deliver Me by Karen Cole. This is another book that I was approved for on
NetGalley. This one is a thriller and it's about a woman who goes to the
doctor one day because she's been feeling unwell and she discovers that
she is two months pregnant, however, at the time that she find out that she is
pregnant, she hasn't had sex in over a year. So when she's told this she starts
to think back and realises that on New Year's Day she had completely blacked
out on New Year's Eve, she can't remember anything about the party that she was at and she
starts to suspect that, and the timelines work out that this is when she conceived
a child - the child. So she's dealing with that, obviously she's very upset about
that and it's dealing with all of that and the story mainly focuses on the
mystery of what happened to her who did this to her etc. I thought that this book
dealt with some really interesting issues. You've got a lot in there, so huge
trigger warnings in this for rape and sexual assault and anything kind of
around, there's talk in here of a child, like a baby's death, anything like that
if you are sensitive to - just avoid this book because it does talk about interesting
issues in that when the main character finds out she is pregnant, her sister
previously had had a baby die in childbirth
and so her sister is obviously very sensitive about that type of thing and
now she's having to tell her sister that she's pregnant, not only is she pregnant,
she's pregnant under these very weird circumstances. One of the things I found
really frustrating about the book, but it's not a problem that I had with it
because it's a realistic frustration, is everyone's telling her that she wasn't
raped because she says that she thinks that she may have been raped, may have been
slipped a date rape drug, and in my opinion it doesn't matter whether she
was slipped a date rape drug, because if she was that drunk that she's literally
blacked out an entire evening and she was that so so so drunk, she doesn't have
the ability to consent and I think it's realistic that a lot of people in real
life would be going oh that's not rape. Like in my opinion, it 100% is
and that all the commentary around that was really frustrating - but
realistic. I had a theory going the whole way through the book of like what had
gone on. There are a couple of different ways that I thought it could go and I
was, you know, kind of going back and forth but had one main thing that I
thought was going to happen and then the ending happened and I was completely
shocked - which I loved because I am very rarely completely shocked by a book. So I
think this may have bee nlike a 3.75 star rated book but that ending, and me
being so shocked by it, I find so enjoyable when I'm shocked, so I ended up
bumping it up to a 4 stars and I did really really enjoy it and then the
final book that I read in the first half of January was Wonder by R J Palacio. This
I listened to on audio and it's narrated by Kate Rudd, Nick Podehl and Diana Steele.
This is a middle grade story that follows a main character named Auggie
who has a very severe facial deformity. At the start of the book he is going to
middle school, like the first year of middle school, for the first time. He's
never been to a real school before, previously he's been home schooled and
we're following his journey of going to school for the first time and dealing
with obviously everything that goes with that, with his deformity. This book was so
beautiful. if you watched my vlog, you saw me get a
little bit emotional about it. I actually got emotional writing my
notes about this book earlier today. I just overall think it is such a good
book. It is so beautiful. The main messages in it, that I took out of it, is
just all about kindness and just it has a lot of in there as well about how
understanding or friendship, from just one person, how that can change your
entire life. It was just amazing. I also liked, it does have all lots of different
perspectives and viewpoints in there, which I really liked as well. I'm gonna
read you my favorite quote from it because this quote just hit me right in
the throat. I already was finding the book so emotional, this quote I just
think is beautiful. So the quote is: 'We carry with us, as human beings, not just
the capacity to be kind but the very choice of kindness'. I just think it is
a very poignant quote. You know it basically says it all in the quote but
that we, you know, as humans everyone has the ability to be kind, but you have to
make that conscious choice to be a kind person and a lot of times, and I'm not
just talking about awful people, I mean people in general, there are a lot of
ways in which we could be kinder to other humans that we don't choose to do
on a regular basis and this book is just a really like reminder of that and how
like even simple things can change people's lives. This book is just so
powerful. It's the type of book that I think everyone should read. It's
obviously a middle grade age book, so it's perfect for kids to read, but not
just kid,s I think adults should read this book, I think everyone should read
it. I thought it was beautiful. I gave it 5 stars. So those are all of the books
that I read in the first half of January. I would love to chat with you guys in
the comments down below if you've got any thoughts on any of the books that
I read, what you guys have been reading in January, I would love to know. Please
like this video if you liked it, please subscribe if you want to see more of my
channel but that is all I have for this video today. Bye guys!
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