 Hello friends, how are we all doing today? We're going to chat about my November wrap-up and my gosh guys, one of the best reading months I've ever had. It was amazing. I have had, we'll get into this, but I have had so many five stars this month. So many, so many. I love my family. I love my work. I love my life. Yeah, I've had the best time reading this month. I've read so many good books that I want to chat to you about, but there are some that I can't chat about with you yet because the video isn't out of them yet and I don't want to spoil it. It's quite exciting. But yeah, I'm very excited. We'll just get into it. I don't want to, there's nothing else to say. I've had a great month. Let's chat about it. If you haven't watched my wrap-ups before, I do my reading stats first, then go through all the books I read this month with their ratings, and then we do disappointment, surprises, and hits of the month. So I don't talk about every book in detail because almost every book is always on a vlog on my channel. You've heard me speak about it in detail. So shall we just get into it with the reading statistics? So this month I read 15 books, which is pretty good. That's pretty high for me. I'd say 12 to 15 is kind of my usual range. What's interesting about this month is that there was the 10 days I was in Costa Rica in November. I read two books in those 10 days. So then you take out, then it's 20 days left where I read 13 books. So it was almost a book a day for the rest of November. So it was a very interesting reading month because my reading was not paced well. When I was in Costa Rica, I was like, oh my god, I'm going to read nothing this month. But I actually have read a lot because I've read a lot of books in one day, essentially. I read 4,498 pages this month, which averages out to 150 pages per day. That gives you an idea. If there were like eight days, seven days where I read nothing, some of these other days, I'd be reading 400 pages in a day. But that's just what you've got to do at the end of the year because I've got a lot of reading that I want to get done. Then I've read pages per book of 300. Nice little number. I love these round numbers, 150 and 300. And I had an average rating of 3.83. I'm very happy with that rating. It's not the highest rating I've had this year, but as we'll get into it, it's definitely the highest rating I've had without any rereads. Because I had some high ratings at the start of the year, but they had quite a few rereads in them. And the average time a book had spent on my TBR was nine months. I had quite a few books that had not been on my TBR for any time at all, and then I had quite a few books that had been on my TBR for like three years. So in terms of genres, I read four fantasy, one historical, two horror, one that I marked as literary fiction. It's like a literary mystery. One magical realism, two mystery, one sci-fi and three thriller. Look at the amount of pie slices on that pie chart. I mean, look. Look. This is lovely, isn't it? Listen, it just makes me so happy. The more slices I have on a pie chart, the happier I am, because I love reading a wide array of genres. In terms of how I read the books, one was just an audiobook, six were just physical, and eight I had the audiobook and the physical. In terms of audience, 13 were adult, one was middle grade, and one was YA. What did I read that was middle grade? Oh yeah, I put the T-Dragon tapestry as middle grade, because I think it technically is middle grade. I don't know. But yeah, Lord, I do want to read more YA. I just feel like the YA read nowadays I don't love. In terms of format, I read one graphic novel, ten novels, three novellas, and one anthology. In terms of series stats, I read one companion, three that were part of a series, six that were standalone, one that was last in a series. What was that? Oh yeah, T-Dragon Tapestry. Four that were first in a series, but how many of those series am I continuing? I'm not continuing any of those series. So I read four that were first in a series, but I'm not continuing any of them. So that's fine. It doesn't add to my series stats. In terms of where the books were from, four were gifted to me, eight were books I bought myself, two were from the publisher, and one was from script. And in terms of author status, two were debuts, ten were from authors I'd read from before, and three were new to me. I think that's all of our stats, isn't it? Anything else? No. Oh, ratings! Oh, shit. It's almost hurtful to me to watch her be so dumb. Sorry, I haven't told you the ratings. Okay, my ratings is fine. Two two stars, one 2.5 star, two three stars, two three point five stars, two four stars, and six five stars. Six five stars, guys. Six five stars. I've looked back, that is the joint top amount of five stars I've had in a single month this month, but the only other month I had that many five stars was in January. And how many of those were rereads? Let's have a look, shall we? So half three of those were rereads in January. So everybody only had three new five stars. Whereas I had six five stars this month, guys. Actually, let's also look at, if you guys remember I had a five star drought this month, let's go from like April. So in order to get the same amount of five stars, I had read April, May, June, July. In April, May, June, and July, I had six five stars in four months, and I had six in one month this month. It's crazy. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. It was a great reading month. I can tell you about four of those five stars, but two of them I cannot tell you about. Anyway, shall we get into all the books I read this month and their ratings? So this month I read The Fatal Flying Affair by T.E.Kinsey, which I gave four stars. Before Our Memory Fades by Tosha Kazu Kawaguchi, which I gave three stars. Lost in the Moment and Found by Shonda Maguire, which I gave five stars. My Best Friends Exorcism by Grady Hendricks, which I gave five stars. The Tea Dragon Tapestry by Kay O'Neill, which I gave five stars. Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias, which I gave two stars. A Beach House to Die For by Casey Ames, which I gave two stars. My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones, which I gave two point five stars. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross, which I gave three stars. Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson, which I gave five stars. A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers, which I gave, was it three or three point five? I gave that three point five stars. And then four more books, which I cannot tell you about yet, but I gave two of those four five stars. And I'm kind of in disbelief about it. Okay, let's get into the Disappointments. Okie dokie. For such a great reading month, I actually have quite a lot of disappointments, so I'll try not to spend too long on them because I want to keep the positive vibes. But I have four that I would class as Disappointments on varying levels of disappointments. The first two that I'm going to chat about are books that I had really no expectations for, the worst books of the month. And that is Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias and A Beach Has to Die for by Casey Ames. These were the two books that we read on my trip to Costa Rica as our little book club, and we all hated both of them. I wanted to find books that were set in Costa Rica, particularly by Costa Rican authors as well. I know John Manuel Arias is from Costa Rica. And so we picked both these books because they were set there. And one was more of a serious literary book. I almost should have marked this as literary fiction in some ways, actually, as well. And one like fun, cozy mystery. Let's talk about these quickly, right? This one is a historical family saga about this family and the stuff that's gone through, what happened to them over the years. But it's also about American intervention and abuse of power and abuse of individuals in other countries, et cetera, et cetera. This book was just trying to do too much. And it was just, it didn't do it for me. We all did not like it. Now everybody's ganging up against me. For what? What the fuck did I do? Either of those routes would I think have been interesting to go down in those topics it was trying to handle. And yes, they went into twine by the end, but it meant that neither of them were handled well. I was more interested in the, did you know in the synopsis what it's about? No, I'm not going to tell you what the kind of intervention and exploitation is about. But I was more interested in that side of it, but it barely really went into it. And the family side of it, none of these characters felt fleshed out to me. And he also had a bit of an obsession with like people and things pissing themselves. Like people kept pissing themselves, animals kept pissing themselves. A river was describing, described as pissing itself like, that's weird. I don't know what was going on there. Ew, that was really weird. But then a beach house I thought this was just quite poorly written. It was fun, you know. I didn't have a terrible time while reading it. Well, it was nothing to it really. It's like a cosy mystery, but this isn't my flavour of cosy mystery. I like my cosy mysteries to be, having a little bit of intelligence to them. Like the Lady Hardcastle mysteries. I read one of those this month and I loved them. This was just no thoughts. It was bad, it was really really bad. But I wasn't expecting a ton going into it, but like it still managed to disappoint me. But yeah, it was fun discussing both of these with everyone. They were longer bus trips and we all just like ripped into them. I feel bad that I made the group read together. They weren't good. Then I feel like this is going to be a controversial one. But my heart is a chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. I was really disappointed by it. I read this for my book club. It was our October pick, so I always tend to read them in November. Plus it was quite late this month because I was in Costa Rica for the first two weekends of November. I didn't love this. I gave it a 2.5. I was really disappointed guys. I was really disappointed by this book. I've had so many good things. You're following Jade who's really into horror films and she's convinced that like a horror slasher is happening in her town and she needs to like solve it basically. What were my critiques of this? I can't even remember. I just remember not a lot of us enjoyed it. I enjoyed the first third but then the other two thirds just went on too long and kind of bored me. I don't know. I genuinely can't even remember this book. I just want to put that in as a caveat that I think this wasn't the book that I needed when I was reading it. I needed something fun, something quick, fast paced and that's not really what this is. But I really enjoyed The Only Good Indies by Stephen Graham Jones. I enjoyed Night of the Manikins by Stephen Graham Jones but this one really just did not work for me and didn't work for a lot of us. I really enjoyed the first third but then it kind of meandered and I just think it needed to be shorter. It's like how many pages? 440? I think it more needed to be like 300, 320. I just think it wasn't... They're edited well enough for me. And then a quick mention to a three star but it's a three star that hurt me to my core a little bit. Night is Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross. I know a lot of you've enjoyed this. I mean it was the most popular book when I asked you guys what your best book of the year was. The most of you said this one. I really did not love this. Again this was another tale of two halves for me. I would give the first half of this four stars. I would give the second half of this two stars. We're following two journalists and it's like enemies to lovers and they're in this war with gods and that's basically what we do tonight. And I really enjoyed the journalism setting but then they go to kind of the war front and that setting just didn't work for me and the romance was too insta-lovy. I never felt any connection. I already shot it too much because I know somebody really loved it but like that romance one of the worst perpetrators of insta-lob I've ever read. I don't want to talk about it. It wasn't for me and I mentioned I gave A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross 3.5 stars. But I am going to continue on with that series because I really loved her writing in that. Her writing for me in this did not stand out. Again I sent a vlog. I don't know if it's because these characters writing had to stand out because they're good writers that then the rest of the writing had to be tamped down a bit and it felt like the book wasn't written as well. There's something so unique and special individual I feel like about A River Enchanted even if I didn't love it I think it's very different to a lot of what's out there. It has so many interesting themes. It was taking inspiration from some really interesting sources of storytelling and then this just felt a bit like oh I'm going to write this with the tropes that are popular and like it's going to be really successful and yes it is really successful but like I feel like a little bit of a lack of artistic integrity. See this! Okay. We don't need your shitty opinions babe alright. Okay then we usually do surprises and hits but I'm actually going to combine them this month because I only really had one surprise and it's my biggest hit of the month. So we'll talk about that one fast and then we'll talk about my other five stars. Well it's my biggest hit that I can tell you about. There's one other book that I gave five stars that I can't tell you about is competing. You'll see you'll see soon. See you next week. Okay. My biggest surprise and biggest hit of the month is Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sandstone. The least biggest hit that I can tell you about. I loved this. I went into it really not expecting a lot. It was also for that best books video. I went into it really not expecting a lot because I read Skyward by Brandon Sandstone and I found it kind of boring. I think I gave it a three star. I've never read his fantasy. I'm now interested in doing so. But this one Tress of the Emerald Sea is about Tress who lives on the Emerald Sea and her boyfriend kind of the boy she loves is captured by this evil sorceress and she goes on a journey to save him but it's really about the kind of ship that she's on on that journey to save him and the found family that she meets there and I just loved this. There's a talking rat. There is a talking rat. Finally a giant rat has been awarded a gold medal. That's what made you go click and order that right now. I don't know what will. I loved this. I thought the writing was just amazing and again I was comparing it a lot to Divine Rivals because I read that first but in comparison to feeling like that was you know playing into the tropes of the day you know kind of just a bit of a I don't want to say cash grab but you know this felt like a book that was written for the love of the game do you know what I mean? It was written for the love of writing and he actually says in the description he only ever intended to write this as like a gift to his wife and I just feel like you can feel that it's so beautiful. I loved I loved every second of reading this and I really did not expect to. I thought it was wonderful. The found family in this as well was beautiful. It's a perfect cosy fantasy for me. I've tried out so many cosy fantasy and they just don't, they're not cosy fantasy to me. This is, I don't know this reminds me a lot of legends and lattes and what I loved about it. So yeah this was such a hit for me and some of you have recommended the Yumi, Yumi and the Night Painter I want to say which I think is one of the secret projects. So I think I might pick that up because I loved this. I thought it was wonderful and the audio book was great. It's a little bit difficult to get your hands on but I thought the audio book was wonderful as well. And then I had three of the five stars I can tell you about these were all in vlogs so we'll just talk about them I mean that was in vlogs as well. All these books have been in vlogs but actually you know the Costa Rica books in the heart is a chainsaw one so that's fine. So there was a whole vlog on this book so I won't to speak about too long. It's a whole vlog where I did a quick pick what I read and then I read the book in a vlog. But that is my best friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendricks. This is by far my Grady Hendricks my favourite Grady Hendricks that I've read so far. We're following these two best friends who's set in the 80s of looking to these friends and one of them maybe gets possessed by the devil. And it's the story of friendship and love and oh I just loved it. It's so campy and ridiculous and fun. I had the best time reading this. You know Grady Hendricks I always say is my he's probably my favourite horror author. I've read other horror authors that I really enjoy like T. Kingfisher I'm starting to really enjoy um who else um Sylvan Roigasi has hit or miss for me. I'd say the only other person that I've read a lot of horror from that can compare is probably T. Kingfisher. I think I've read a lot of horror by different authors. But yeah Grady Hendricks is my favourite horror author and I just love what he does. It's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's fabulous. I can see where the writers love her. And you know I often have issues with sometimes male writers writing female characters not because I'm against it morally like I think you know people can write what they want to write but like I often feel like they just don't do it well like if you're gonna do something do it well and with if you're writing outside of your own identity I don't believe that we should like say no one can ever write outside of their own identity. Of course there's parameters to that but I think if you're gonna do it do it and they don't. So that's often why I have an issue with it. I just feel like the representation of young female friendship was so on point in this to me. It was like spot on. Some of the feelings and the attachment you feel towards particularly when you're a teenager some of your female friends and they kind of love. Just the dynamics there. I thought were really interesting and well done so I just I loved it and the horror was great. I thought it was wonderful. And then at the start of this month I did a vlog where I finished seven series or made progress in seven series in seven days. So I'll talk about these two with the five stars. Oh no there was another five star on the vlog. Lights by Brenna Thumbler but I read that in October. But I couldn't tell you about it in October because the video didn't come out yet. You know. But I gave five stars to both Lost in the Moment and Found by Sean McGuire and the Tea, Dragon, Tapestry by K. O'Neill. I'll talk about this one first because this is probably one of my least lesser favourites in the series that I love all three. I've given all three five stars but I think that's because I was reading this like the night before I flew to Costa Rica and I was a bit stressed. So I definitely, this is a series that I'm going to read time and time again. It's this fantasy series and it's really about family and love and purpose and joy and care for one another. I just love every second of the series. They're so so beautiful to me and I always say I cannot wait to read them to my kids one day because I think the outlook on the world that this, that these graphic novels have, the outlook on the world I would want my kids to have one day, you know? I just think it's the purest, most beautiful view on the world that we should hope for, you know? So I loved it. And then Lost in a Moment of Found by Sean McGuire is another series now, the way we're trying a series that is like an automatic five star for me and this is the latest edition and I loved it. The one critique I would have of this one, it's not really a critique, is that the story felt a little bit unfinished but I believe the next book in the series is kind of directly following on from the events of this one and going more into like, and finishing up this kind of story arc. So it's a bit different some of the others in the Wayward Children series. We're following Antsy who after some really difficult and horrible stuff happens to her at home by an adult figure in the home that she should be able to trust but can't and that, that topic is handled with such care. She runs away and falls into this shop that is kind of like a portal to other of the Wayward Children world. So this is a new kind of element in the fantasy world building of the series which I really appreciated and just what this book was saying, A, about that topic that I mentioned earlier that Sean McGuire handles with such care and there's an author's note in the beginning that I think really prepares the reader and anyone who would need to be prepared for that really well. But also what it's saying about I think particularly something I resonated with is like pressure on young girls to grow up quickly especially as like I was, so you know this is like a, we're getting into like it's only the last year at the end of the video but I was really, really tall growing up. So I'm like five, six and a half, right? I was this height by the time I was 11. I stopped growing when I was 11 and in primary school I was always like a head taller than everyone else, even all the boys. I was really really tall growing up. I was like projected to be 5'10 on the, you know when you're a baby and like all three charters you have like a chart that like projects what presentile you're in. I was like always on track to be like 5'10 and then I just stopped growing abruptly. But yeah, so I was always much taller than everyone else growing up and I think that made me feel like I had to grow up a lot quicker. I think adults treated me differently because I was taller which I just think is interesting and I think there's a different dynamic with that happening to young girls, the young boys and so I just thought that was an element of this that I really connected to so much. I mean we could go on forever about how amazing the way the trailer series is but if you want to hear more of the thoughts, go check out the vlog but I just saw it was wonderful and there's something about Sean McGuire's writing that like gives me stop and pause so often. Like I'm just, it takes my breath away, some of the lines that she writes that I just cannot wait to read more in the return series and more Sean McGuire in general. There's like I know there's a whole Sean McGuire cinematic universe out there that I've fairly even scratched the surface of so I'm excited to have that to read over the rest of my life basically. So there we have it that was my November wrap up. I hope that was fun for you guys. I, listen I had such a great reading month and I'm feeling really positive about the reading I'm gonna do in December as well. Last month of the year. I can't believe it. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you've gotten to the end of the video, comment a heart emoji spread the love, end of the year we're all happy, we fully enjoy and I will see you guys very soon in another video. Bye!