 Julia and welcome back to my channel and for today's video I'm going to be talking to you guys about some of my recent reads. I missed the first video already this is the second recent reads video that I'm doing I did like if you're talking about this year I did do a wrap-up for January I believe and February and then I started my recent reads first one here's the second one today's video I'm going to be talking about a four books that I've read recently obviously that and just give you my thoughts on the play one the novel we got some poetry in there so let's jump right into it first book I have here is in a dream you saw a way to survive and this is by Clementine Vaughn Radix. This is a really interesting collection it has to do with things like divorce, abortions involved as well as just mental health in general. I was sent this by the publisher Andrews McMeo publishing so thank you so much to them they always send me so much stuff over and like I absolutely love it so thank you. This collection like overall to me had like a really powerful voice it had a really the author you could just tell like her writing was really great this is like like I've never heard anything else by this author so I believe it's their debut it's not like the best collection ever ever read by any means but I'm very like you could see like I could see the potential and I could see that she just had this powerful voice that I really admired while reading so I'm excited to see what else she comes out with but I gave this one a 3.5 stars. Next up here we have A Thousand Blood and Sons by Khaled Hussaini. So you guys have probably heard of this this is kind of like in modern day classic kind of ish a lot of people know about it basically I read this one for school so my thoughts could be partially because I write it for school because you know when some things are assigned reading you can have different reactions to it but I did not enjoy this book and you're not supposed to enjoy this book but I'll start with some basic trigger warnings so suicide abuse sexual assault and violence are all involved in this book so please keep that in mind. In this book we follow two perspectives we follow Layla and Miriam and both their experiences in Afghanistan. There is a ranged marriage in this book there is a lot of topics of abuse a lot of like hardships a lot of just overall a lot's happening. It is a historical fiction so it takes time it does have some like elements of like the bombings that happened at that time stuff like that. The message of like the treatment of women in this book was really interesting because you saw how women from Afghanistan and from other countries how poorly they're treated how they can only be walked around like they can only walk around the city like fully covered and with a man you kind of got to see that point of view. Also got to see the abuse that these women endure by their husbands who they are forced to marry. This book was like I was never like wanting to pick it up I never really was like inclined to read it. It's a difficult read for sure not in terms of the content but in terms of the actual messages around this book it's a lot. So the writing was overall pretty average like it was nothing like poetic or beautiful or like it was a pretty straightforward writing and it was just kind of like the story of these two girls and how they intertwine towards like the end. Overall I gave this two stars I would love to know your guys opinions on this book. I personally because I didn't love it I didn't supposed to enjoy it but I didn't I just didn't really enjoy it. There's some messages that I enjoyed like the treatment of women I thought that was really important to talk about and like I liked seeing that representation for Afghanistan women and women from those countries who are treated so poorly. So I gave this one two stars but I would love to know your guys' thoughts down below. Next I read another poetry question so this one is called This is the Journey by Allison Mall. So thank you so much to Andrews McMill publishing again for sending this my way I really appreciate it. So this is divided into like wanting, waiting, and then possibility. This is like one of those divided poetry collections and it was just really nice. It wasn't like again it wasn't like a mind-blowing collection or anything like that but it was enjoyable. It was like a pretty average collection for me. I ended up giving it three stars like I thought it was solid. Wouldn't not recommend it wouldn't highly recommend it and lastly we have a book that I do not own but that is King Lear by William Shakespeare. This is going to be a very not formal description of King Lear. I assume a lot of you guys know what it's about and if you don't you would probably want more of a formal description than I'm gonna give you but essentially this is about a king, King Lear, who has three daughters. I, watch I probably got that wrong knowing me but he has these three dollars and he's trying to see who's gonna inherit his kingdom so he's like all of you must profess your love to me and much like just just gas me up and then one of you guys will like inherit the kingdom and of course this doesn't go as planned. Some of the daughters like suck up to him and some of them like kind of rebel and they like turn on him to in the book and there is all these issues with marriages and different men and you know how Shakespeare goes. It's a big soap opera drama. Here's this one. I have read three Shakespeare's in school. I've read The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet and Othello. Othello that's when I read so far. Hands down. Characters were amazing. Plot was amazing. Loved everything about it. King Lear was really disappointing because I've never disliked a Shakespeare play before. I enjoyed Hamlet, didn't love it and The Merchant of Venice I enjoyed that. Othello is like way up here for me like out of the camera frame like amazing but King Lear was like out of the camera frame but like down. I just didn't enjoy it. I didn't care about the characters. I didn't like the plot. I didn't like it. It's not even that I didn't like the characters because some of them are supposed to be unlikable but I just didn't feel an attachment to the story or the characters. I wasn't invested. I didn't really enjoy my time reading it. I also just hated the ending like everything about it was just like stupid and I don't know. I would love to know why you guys if any of you guys really enjoyed King Lear because I know there's some big fans who love King Lear so I'd love to know why you enjoyed it and stuff like that because like I want to hear different opinions as well but it was like my least favorite Shakespeare play. I gave it two stars like it wasn't my thing. So there you guys have it. That is me talking to you guys and basically having a bunch of average books to like average books to below average books in this video. I hope you guys enjoyed it nonetheless. If you want to please let me know your thoughts in the comments down below. I also started a patreon page which I've talked about so that is linked in the description as well if you want to support me on there. My youtube, not my youtube, you're on my youtube. Well you can subscribe to this channel if you want but twitter, instagram, goodreads, all that stuff linked down below. Make sure you check that out if you care and yeah I'll see you guys all super soon with a new video. Bye!