 Does this hat look stupid or do I look like an autumn bitch? I'm going for autumn bitch but I'm not I'm not sure if it's landing. But welcome back to my channel. I hope you're all good today. We're doing my August wrap up which means we're officially in September which means it's officially autumn. I'm filming this on the first day of autumn and let me tell you I feel it. I like autumn but usually I'm always a bit disappointed because summer is typically my favorite month because I love heat, sun, but we had such a shit summer that I'm actually more excited for autumn so like I'm feeling it. Am I gonna regret filming this whole video with a hat on? Maybe never done that before. I could be editing this like... Fuck you, bitch! But I don't know what I'm feeling her. I'm feeling her. Somebody lied to her several times and told her that she was fly hot and sexy and beautiful and she's nothing like that. She's nothing of the sort. Today like I said is my August wrap up. I feel like I've seen a lot of you lately. I feel like I've been here a lot, filming a lot, maybe not, maybe just I don't know. Are you not sick of me yet? If you watch my wrap ups you'll know that I do like all my reading statistics first and then we'll talk about all the books individually. August was a pretty good reading month for me. It could have been even better. Basically I read 12 books this month. I finished the last one on the last day of the Thousand Doors readathon which was like a week ago. More than a week ago. I have not read a book since but it didn't feel like a reading slump. It just felt like a bit of a break. That's kind of the habit I've gone into the past couple months is like read a lot for the first three weeks and then kind of have a week off at the end from reading and I think actually long term it's been helping me read a lot because I feel rejuvenated. Like I feel super excited to read more now so yeah maybe that's what works for me. I don't know but we're going to talk about all my reading statistics first and then we'll talk about the books. So let me let me get up my stats. Let me scoot on over so you can see them all. I read 12 books like I said. It was a total of 3,798 pages which actually the most pages I've read in a month this year so far. So like your girl is fucking killing it only even in 23 days. I read that in 23 days so like and I feel like September is going to be my best reading month of the year so far with what I've got on my tbr with the videos I'm making. I'm excited as a fuck bitch. Anyway why am I- this hat really has me feeling some kind of way. I really think I'm it right now. That is an average of 122 pages a day. I don't know what it is if we just cut it down to like the 23 days I actually read this month but for the whole month an average of 120 pages a day which is actually quite good. An average book length of 316 pages which I think is like a that's quite a good you know number. I always have a few shorter books in there. I do like shorter books. They are definitely the kind of books I read quite quickly. I don't think shorter books tend to stay on my tbr for that long and an average rating of 3.9 which is pretty high. That's not bad. Okay now the more in-depth in-depth statistics. I had four five stars which is maybe maybe that's the highest five stars we've had the whole any- oh sorry that's my that's my uh Patreon discord making that noise. Four five stars. Super happy with that. I read a lot of new favorites this month. I'm really really happy with that. Two four point five stars I mean come on two four stars then we jump down to two three stars and two two stars so that's why it's like a 3.9. I think if I hadn't read those two stars it would have been you know one of my highest reading months but I'm really happy with the books that I read this month. Also the thing I am probably happiest with is that out of the 12 books I read seven were 2021 new releases which makes me so happy because that is something I really want to do. Like I've got a lot of 2021 new releases I'm very lucky that I get sent a lot and I buy a lot and it's something you know I definitely want to keep on top of what's coming out so I'm super happy that more than half of what I read this month were new releases. I am so proud of her I could cry. Then in terms of genre I read two contemporary, one graphic novel, one magical realism, fabulism kind of thing, two mystery, two sci-fi and four thriller. I read a lot of thrillers this month. No fantasy which is absolutely crazy usually fantasy is my highest genre and I can't remember if I didn't read any last month or if I like read one. I've barely read any fantasy the past two months so I've got a lot of fantasy on my TBR first month both on like what TBR Cludo gave me and what I just generally want and hope that I will get to. I'm missing my fantasy a bit. I think I reached a point maybe two months ago so in June. In June where I had got a bit fed up of fantasy I'd kind of had enough and then I've taken kind of two months off of reading it and now I'm back into her again. I'm like come back come back. In terms of the audience I read seven adult and five YA that kind of like 50-50 leaning more towards adult is where I see my reading my reading growing now. I think I used to read probably more leaning more YA and now I want it to lean a little bit more adult but literally only by like a couple books a month. In terms of where I acquired the books that I received. Five were books that I previously owned myself that I bought myself. Four were gifts from people like family or you guys. One was from Scribd and two were sent to me by the publisher. Only one book I read this month was actually part of a series. The vast majority were stand alone. Usually that's like 50-50 leaning towards series. I said fuck the series this month. This is not for me. I was like I'm only reading stand alone. I think I've gotten a bit scared of my series. I think I've gone a little bit scared of starting new series which is probably what most of my part of a series this year being has been new ones because I've seen how many I started and it's like it's just not feasible. Like I need to just finish or make some progress in the series I'm currently reading and that has drastically decreased how many books from series I am actually reading. In terms of author status three were debuts. Eight were authors I'd read before and one author was new to me so I read a lot of authors that I've previously really enjoyed this month and then a lot of you know that my goal is to read more than 50% non-white authors and I did the worst that I've done the whole year so far in that this month. I read from three black authors or books by black authors and nine books by white authors so it was 75-25 which isn't a split that I'm happy with. We're still close to the 50-50 for like the year so far but I'm not happy with how I did on that this month but hopefully next month I will do better. Okay so that is all of my reading statistics. Now we're gonna get into the books I read. Now literally every single one of these books is in a reading blog. I've spoken about them in depth already you can go to those to see my in-depth thoughts. I'm literally every single one. I don't think I've ever had that where I have read anything outside of a blog so I'm we're gonna try so hard to speed through this but I say that every time when I wrap up and I still speak about the books for like two minutes so we're actually gonna try and be fast. We're actually we're actually gonna try and do that. That's not happening. All right. The first three books that I read this month were all in my first episode of my new series Booktube Twin Test where Booktubers that you guys have said that I have similar reading tastes to pick three books that they really enjoyed that they think I'm gonna enjoy too and I read them and the first Booktuber that we had for that was Books and Lala because I get all of my book recommendations from her so that's why you think we have a similar reading taste. So first she picked The Night Swim by Megan Golden. I love this. I gave it five stars. It's about this podcaster who travels this small town to cover a rape trial that is going on. They're a very high profile rape trial and she's also getting letters from this woman who says that her sister was murdered when the kind of story is that she just drowned accidentally. I loved this. I absolutely loved the audiobook for this. It's not really available in the UK. I had to get it through like dodgy, not dodgy means but you know I scammed the system a bit but if you can get your hands on audiobook I would really recommend it. I thought this was such an interesting thriller. It really is centered in like this courtroom drama which I don't read enough of. I generally can't remember another thriller that I've read that has like courtroom scenes and I loved it so I'm really excited to read more thrillers like that and I thought it had a really good message about historical mistreatment of women and young girls and sexual assault and how it bled into communities particularly in like these small communities. I just really loved it. I thought the the audiobook often has like music for the podcast or sound effects and I'm literally like you've got me if you do that. Like you've got me without a shadow of doubt. I love the drama. I love the theatrics of the sound effects. I'm like oh! It's all the drama mate! I just love it! If you have an opportunity in an audiobook to do sound effects and you don't, you're off my list. I'm not I'm not here for it. And then next I read The Weight of the Stars by Kay Ankrom. This is my second Kay Ankrom and I also gave this five stars. This is the story of two girls. We have Ryan and Alexandria. Ryan lives with her brother who has stopped talking since their parents died and they have a very interesting relationship. Their relationship was one of my favorite parts of this novel but it's a very like small part of the book. And Alexandria's mum, Wenzel Juncker volunteered to be part of a one-way trip into space when Alexandria was a baby. So she's never really you know she never really knew her mum but she waits outside every night to get signals from her mum to get like radio signals. And Ryan and her build this relationship and friendship well friendship and relationship. This was such an interesting like found family book. I found the friendships and relationships and they're so interesting. It's written in this really interesting way that Kay Ankrom typically writes her books. I don't think Darling, her latest one is written in this style but very short. Has it been yet? I always forget the word and I look like a fool. I look like a fucking fool. I look like an idiot. Dumb dumb. One or two page chapters. I don't know I just absolutely love it. It broke my heart. It broke my heart. It broke my fucking heart. But when I tell you I was devastated, I loved it. I thought I couldn't love this more than the Wicker King but then I did. Kay Ankrom's like quickly becoming an author by author for me. I mean I haven't bought Darling yet. Maybe I'll get it soon. Listen my TBR is far too long so I'm really trying to not buy any books right now. I can't. I can't. I've tried it and I failed. Why does everyone expect it then? I'm not doing very well at it but I'm trying. I'm really trying. And then for that video I read Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno. This is a kind of fabulismy book where we have these two sisters by the sea and they have magical abilities but one of the twins doesn't basically. So like the lineage of women has magical abilities but one of the twins the one who's perspective we read from doesn't and it's kind of about their relationship but it's also about this isolated small town and they have this bird that flies to the area every year. All the bird watches come but then this year the bird isn't showing and then something tragic happens and it's about kind of the fallout from that. This was disappointing for me. I gave Katrina Leno's other book You Must Not Miss, another book that I've read, Five Stars. I loved it. I thought it was incredible and this really felt like the start of the stuff I love about Katrina Leno's writing but not quite there yet if that makes sense. It just didn't connect with me in the way that I wanted it to. I was a bit bored. I didn't feel like the plot was as good as I wanted it to be. I was just a bit disappointed by it. I feel like I kind of erased it from my memory because I'm like I don't want to remember this book that I've been disappointed about. The ending was good and I feel like it discussed important topics again but it just didn't lie with me. I just didn't, I wasn't fully drawn in so it was three stars. I'm sorry. Then I read books on holiday. I have a holiday reading vlog. I went and stayed in like the English language. I went and stayed in the English countryside. The first book I read I don't have here. I read it as an audiobook and it is In the Market for Murder by T. E. Kinsey. This is the second in the Lady Hard Castle mysteries and let me just tell you right now. Five stars. Five stars. Five stars. Five stars. If you fucking need, I'm sorry. I'm just getting excited about this book. I love it. I love it and it gives me that buzz. It feeds exactly what I want to do. If you need a quaint English cozy mystery historical, this is it. This is it. I love these audiobooks. It's the story of Lady Hard Castle who's this kind of like old widowed lady. She's not that old but you know kind of like mature shall we say and her maid who's also kind of her best friend and they solve mysteries together and it's just so wholesome and I mean there's murders but like it's wholesome and cute and their relationship is so much fun. I think they're both such funny characters. The audiobooks are great for this. In this one there was three separate mysteries which I really appreciated because sometimes with cozy mysteries there's not like many layers to it you know but I feel like although the mysteries in themselves weren't complex, having the three of them really kept the story going and I thought that was great. I just love these characters. I feel like I'm just gonna become more and more in love with these characters and I feel like it's kind of like a comfort read for me now this series and I'm kind of just gonna keep giving them five stars regardless of how good they actually are. Then next I read a book I was so excited to read which is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. This is a story of a guy who wakes up on this spaceship from a coma and his crewmates are dead he's the only one who survived and he has no real memory of what has happened basically and why he's on this ship and it all starts coming back to him slowly. It turns out there's this catastrophic event basically happening at the moment that could cause well if it carries on it will cause humanity to go extinct and he's kind of the one who has to save them all but he's like I don't really remember what I'm supposed to be doing I'm just gonna come out here and guess if that was me. I just don't think this is like great for me. I don't want to do it. I want to go home like I can't take the pressure of it. Don't you think any job interview... I loved this I gave it 4.5 stars it wasn't quite a five. I think one of my biggest reasons that I said was that it didn't feel as high stakes as The Martian by Andy Weir which I love that book I love that film but it's higher stakes because The Martian is one man right one man's life in the balance this is one man's life and the whole of humanity and you're like but why doesn't it feel as high stakes but the part of this I love the most I can't tell you about I can't tell you because it's a spoiler some people have hinted at it I've hinted at it you probably if you watch a lot of reviews you probably have like an idea I don't think it is that much of a spoiler because it wouldn't for me spoil the book if I knew but I'm still gonna keep my mouth shut because I don't want to upset anyone the story shifts in a way and there's a very interesting thing that happens and continues to the book and it's heartwarming it's fun Andy Weir I think does such a good job of making sci-fi digestible and understandable for everyone and it was just so good it was really really good but then sadly I read one of my biggest disappointments of the year I'm not gonna lie to you I still gave it three stars but it was like a five star five five five five five five star prediction and it was three stars it's ace of spades by frude a bk omede I don't want to talk about it I don't want to talk about it this I don't want to talk about it I don't want to talk about it I don't please don't make me this is the story of these two black characters who go to this private school a gossip girl star character called aces starts leaking information about them and they're like what the fuck why are you leaking information about me what is going on here's the thing I thought this was a fun thriller it discusses a lot of important conversations about like institutional racism you know whiteness of these kind of institutions stuff like that I thought it did such a good job of that I really like cheer maca the girl I thought she was such an interesting character because she's very headstrong knows what she wants which is something that is looked down upon in girls but especially black girls so to see that represented I would I loved that aspect of it but I just didn't love the writing style so it's a completely personal thing I can understand why so many people are giving us five stars like everyone else fucking loves this I'm the outlier so literally don't listen to me for me I've I've spoken about this before writing style is the first port of call like I can't really enjoy the characters the plot you know the pacing if I don't enjoy the writing some people can I feel like characters plot writing are indifferent you know order of priority for everyone some people the characters are the most important thing some people the plot are the most important thing for me it's the writing that is the first stumbling hurdle for me and I just didn't love the writing I found it difficult to read I found it difficult to get into and enjoy that is what really stopped me enjoying it like as much as I wanted to so I gave it three stars because I could still recognize the elements of character and pot that I really enjoyed but it just wasn't a super enjoyable reading experience because I wasn't actually enjoying the words that I was reading and then next the next vlog that I did was are these authors one hit wonders and what I mean by that is authors I've read once and gave five stars one of my you know they wrote they've written one of my favorite books but I've never read from them again so it was me reading from them again and testing whether you know I only love them once this time or if I read them again they still love them basically first for that vlog I read the project by Courtney Summers and oh my god five stars five stars anyone anyone who doesn't give us five stars is wrong you are wrong you are wrong you are incorrect no it's true oh it's true so this is about two sisters we have low and b and low is in this tragic car crash that kills their parents and after low gets out the hospital b joins this community called the project which from the outside by many in society is kind of seen as a good thing they do a lot of charity work but a lot a lot of other people see it as a cult and low sees as a cult and we're kind of jumping back and forth in time in this story because low is kind of meeting finally the members of the cult and they're finally talking to her and they agreed to do an interview with her to kind of expose what they say is the truth of the project they want people to know what the truth is I cried a lot at the end of this I guarantee if I read the last two pages of this again it would set me off never has an ending set me up well maybe Sadie did by Courtney Summers but oh my god Courtney Summers endings are criminal they are criminal they are not they are not fair they're like evil they're evil opposite of ace of spades this was some of my favorite writing I have read so far this year I loved just the way the words flow the kind of phrases that we use I absolutely loved it like some of my favorite writing I've read the sisterly relationships in this was so emotional and oh just kills me and I thought the look at cults and what can make people join cults and the kind of psychology behind that was really really interesting so I loved it I absolutely loved it I absolutely loved it I loved it so much I just thought it was just it would I'm not going to cry then I read we are okay by Nina LaCour I really like this I gave it four stars it's about this girl called is it Marin yeah Marin there's Marin and Mabel and I get confused too basically Marin moved away to university and hasn't spoken to anyone back home since her friend Mabel has flown out on Christmas like Christmasy to try and talk to her and like see why she hasn't been speaking to anyone and try to convince her to move back home basically this was very sad Nina LaCour's books sit in this beautiful sadness and I really wasn't expecting the route that this went down I just felt a little bit removed from the story in a way that I didn't with watch over me which is the one I gave five stars by Nina LaCour I just felt a little bit removed like a little bit like I was on the outside looking in but I did really enjoy it very raw very beautiful a great book basically and then another one I do not wish to discuss in great detail you can go watch the vlog if you want is Hairpin Bridge by Taylor Adams he's mugged you off darling he has mugged you off now I loved no exit by Taylor Adams I speak about it all the time this no gave it two stars we follow again two sisters Lena her twin Cambry supposedly killed herself on this bridge Lena don't believe that shit she goes meets the kind of policeman patrolman who was by the bridge of that time when he found his sister's body we quickly learn this man he shit he a liar and it's very much his cat and mouse game jumping back and forth in time between Lena's story with him and Cambry's story with him now Cambry's story I found very difficult to believe because it was what Lena was writing like kind of of what she imagined happening and when that's half the book basically you're kind of like but I'm kind of reading alive like I'm like everything is kind of alive so I found that aspect of it hard to believe I found it very static there was a lot of standing around waiting for someone to make the move waiting to react to the move that has just been made like it was very static and I just found it very boring I was just bored as fuck I was really bored I'm sorry I'm really sorry sorry to this man I'm so sorry I wanted to love it but I was so bored and then it was oh what was that and then it was a thousand dollars readathon which is a readathon I co-host with Emma and Tasman hopefully those of you that participated enjoyed it a lot of you participated and it was absolutely amazing and I read three books for that in a weekend and then I didn't read anything for a week are you not ashamed of yourself? are you not embarrassed? I read Blackout by Daniel Clayton Nick Stone a book just dropped down Tiffany D Jackson Ashley Woodfolk Angie Thomas and Nicola Yoon it's one interconnected story really we'll get into that the story made up of chapters I guess written by the different authors of this blackout in New York and different like romances that happen during this blackout what I loved so much about this was that it felt like it had one cohesive voice right I don't even necessarily want to call them short stories that each of the authors wrote because they are interconnected so we have characters from some appearing characters and others and usually when you have an anthology right I find it a bit jarring sometimes right there'll be some stories that you want to give five stars there'll be some stories you want to give two stars but with this it felt like one book because they all had this like cohesive vision that they they had for the book so it read like this cohesive voice and that's what I felt like worked so well about it I think I gave this four stars I thought it was such you know beautiful books so many gorgeous romantic relationships with so much different representation you know we had sapphic stories we had gay stories we like we had everything and I just thought it was such beautiful to see black love like appreciated and written about in this way I absolutely loved it if you haven't read this yet I would super recommend it then I read quarantine comics by Rachel Smith this is like a graphic novel which is comic book strip style and it's basically about life in lockdown in the UK kind of at the start of covid and it was very relatable because it was speaking about all the different things we found difficult then you know the isolation the changes to our lives it was so quick and abrupt it definitely took me back to that period of like living in lockdown but I thought this brought it back in a really relatable way that was heartwarming whilst at the same time recognizing the pain that a lot of people went through there's a cat in there who has you know speaking role which I always love I love cats who speak we all know that's you know that's a weakness for me and it was a super quick read but super you know heartfelt and tender and beautiful so I really recommend this I had a great time reading it I love the illustration style I thought it was really really funny and this was a great pick for a readathon as well and then the final book I read again don't really want to talk about it we'll just talk about it quickly it's if I disappear by Eliza Jane Bresier I gave this two stars no I'm sorry this is about this woman who is obsessed with this true crime podcast and the podcaster goes missing and she decides to travel to this woman's house and go live on the farm that her parents run and try and find out what's happening basically I just have a host of you know floors of this that I didn't enjoy I thought it was very predictable whilst at the same time there wasn't enough setting up done to make the ending satisfying not much happened in the book it was very boring didn't enjoy it like this hasn't had great reviews I think it's only got like a 3.02 or something on Goodreads as the average rating so not a lot of people have loved it and I was hoping I would love it more but I am not the outlier I am in agreement with a lot of other people basically yeah it just didn't work it was another book that I'm glad I had the audiobook for because I just had to kind of force myself through it and the audiobook definitely helped with that I'm sorry I'm sorry Samantha Downing says on the back you won't guess where this one is going well Samantha hate to break it to you but uh so that is all of the books that I read in August let me know if you've read any of these and what you thought of them if did I think I had a pretty good reading month I'm at a pretty successful reading month and there's a lot of books on here I would recommend to you guys even though there was a few downs basically thank you so much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed it I'm just having so much fun with YouTube at the moment I've never been more proud of the content that I'm making and I had more fun like churning out videos basically I just love doing it so much so thank you for watching I really appreciate every view every like every comment like it means the world to me if you got to the end of this video comment a tree emoji for all of the trees on the cover of this book that's on the top even though it was trash and yeah thank you so much for watching I will see you very soon in another video bye