 That was horrible. What are you all doing? Today we're going to be chatting about my August wrap up. Now I am recording this on the 29th. Possibly could finish the book I'm currently reading by the end of August. But I really don't think I am going to considering I haven't actually read any of it yet. And it's like 700 pages. So I don't think it's going to happen. I think we're safe to record the wrap up now. And I just want to say this may be one of my best reading months ever. Are you ready? I haven't gone back and looked through my average ratings of previous months. But let me just tell you now I got a pretty high average rating. I had quite a lot of 5 stars this month. It took me towards a latter half this month. I just really enjoyed everything that I was reading. You know, I read quite a few books this month. So it's one thing to have quite a high average rating when you've read maybe 5 books in a month. But when it starts getting over 10 I feel like you're going to have a really good reading month in order for the number to skew highly. Words aren't coming out of my mouth properly today apparently. So yeah, what we're going to do as always is go through my reading statistics and then we'll track through the disappointment, surprises and hits of the month. This month I read 13 books which I'm really happy with. I feel like that's a really good number. When I look at my Goodreads I'll put a picture in like the number of books I've read each month throughout the years. 13 is a pretty consistent like high month for me. So I feel really happy that I got to 13 books this month. The 24-hour readathon I did with my patrons is definitely what got me there because I read 4 books in one day. I read a total pages of 3,759 which works out to an average pages per day of 121 pages. Which I am very happy with. Bear in mind one of those days, in one day I read 800 pages. So as always my reading it's not linear. I've really went a couple of days after that without reading anything. So yeah, it definitely is up and down but 121 pages an average per day an average book length of 289. So yeah, like that is on the lower side. I'd say anything below 300 means I read a couple of like novellas, short, quick books but that's definitely what I did for the 24-hour readathon in order to get through a larger amount of books. My average rating was a 4.3. You deserve an Oscar. You actually deserve an award. That is so high. What is my average rating forever overall, like in terms of when I've been using Goodreads. Let's have a look because it does tell you a 3.68 average rating overall. So yeah, definitely high for me. I'm so happy. I had a lot of 5 stars this month. I wouldn't say a lot of them were like favourite books of all time but they were just solid 5 stars, like 5 stars that I really enjoyed. And the average time that books had been on my TBR was 6.5 months each. We had a couple books, I think like 2 or 3 books this month that they had spent no time on my TBR or books that I literally just decided to read or I literally just bought and then we had some books that had been on there for 20 months. So it all averages out to 6.5. Okay, let's get into the graphs. So in terms of ratings, I had 6 5 stars. I know. 6 5 stars 4 4 stars 2 3.5 stars and 1 3 star. My lowest rated book this month was a 3 star, which is pretty great. I was pretty great. I'm very happy with that. In terms of how I read the books, 2 were solely audiobooks, 6 were solely physical and 5 were mixed media, which meant I either had the physical and audiobook or the e-book and the audiobook. In terms of genre, I haven't looked this yet. Oh, we have a very wide mix of genres this month. I had 1 contemporary, 2 fantasy, 1 graphic novel, 1 historical, 1 horror, 1 magical realism, 3 mystery, 2 non-fiction and 1 thriller. That's so good. I love when I have a wide mix of genres. That's always my goal. I love reading a wide mix of genres. I often find the months where I read the most are the ones where I really change up what genres I'm reading. The months where I read less are where I have ended up through no fault of anyone, just like the way it's worked out. Reading a lot of one genre. Sometimes it can be fun like sometimes I have a lot of fun reading lots of mysteries, like in October, November time. Yeah, no, I love that mix of genres. In terms of audience, I read 5 adult, 2 middle grade and 6 YA. This has probably been one of my highest months for reading YA this year. I haven't read a lot. Huh. Maybe I should pick up some more YA because I've been reading less and less YA. Like if we look at, if I go to my year tracker, I've read 55% adult and 39% YA. But having such a good month reading so much YA makes me think... Interesting. Then in terms of how I acquired the books, 4 were gifts 4 were books I bought myself 1 were some orderable, 2 were sent to me by the publisher and 2 were from script. In terms of series stats you're all going to be proud of me. 5 were books that were partway through series and 8 were stand-alone. No series, oh wait no I did, no, hang on. I've filed one wrong. I was really going to talk myself up then about how I didn't start any series this month. 4 were partway through series or 1 was my first in a series and 8 were stand-alone. I did start one series this month which was King of Scars which I'm not going to be talking about because it doesn't fall into any of our categories. Hopefully I'll get to all of Wolves before the year is out to cancel that series out. Then finally in terms of author status, 1 was a debut 9 were authors I'd read from before and 3 were new to me. So that's another sign like I've had a really good month when I'm reading authors that I've read from before and loved. So maybe that's something I should prioritise as well. I love checking with my stats every month even if we're always just reading the same stuff out because I love seeing what that means to my reading, you know? Okay let's talk about the disappointments, surprises and hits of the month. So disappointments I only have 2 because obviously the lowest rated book I had this month was a 3 star which is not really low. So let's talk about the 3 star first. That is The Forest of Soul and Girls by June Her. This was my book club pick for July. This is a historical book set in 1426 in Korea. We're following these two sisters who are reunited they've been living apart and they're trying to solve the mystery of what has happened to their father. He recently returned to the town to investigate this mystery of these girls going missing and this was kind of I think a disappointing book for a lot of us. I found it very predictable what was happening in this book. I called it right from the beginning when we met a certain character that it was going to be them behind everything and I remember being like I'm going to be so pissed if it's them. It's just so obvious. I was angry I was angry and I found it just a bit boring. I just wasn't excited to read it. I read it because it was a book club pick and I had to read it but I was never you know looking forward to reading it. I will say something that I loved about this book was June Her's obvious desire to really accurately portray this time period in history and it seemed like she had done so much research and it was so like I really understood this time period which I've never read from before in any culture really. Like the 1400s is not an era of history of time that I really have read before and it just felt so deep and like a real like honoured look at this time in history. So I would be interested in reading more June Her whether it's the science of the bones or like a new release that comes out at some point. I would be interested in trying this author again but yeah this was just a bit disappointing and I feel like the book club we always were very picky the book club on Patreon. Like we have high expectations. We're reading Final Girls at the moment for the August one. Our live show is this weekend and there's really been a lot of mixed opinions and I'm excited once I finish the book I'm currently reading I'm gonna read Final Girls next and I'm excited to see where I fall on the opinionated scale. Then this was like only a disappointment because I expect this to be five stars over a cool time and it's The Deep by River Solomon. It's inspired by a song by, I think it's Clipping the band. This is a short novella about the descendants of black female slaves who were thrown overboard who were pregnant and they turn into these kind of mermaid creatures and I read this for the 24 hour readathon you can check out my whole vlog for it here to summarise. The one thing I kept saying about this book is that it felt like I'd gone to the National Gallery like I was in there looking at all the classical paintings and I was looking at one and I could tell like this is a feet of its field. This is a work of art this is outstanding but like I can't see it beyond it as a work of art. I want my books to have not like a level of imperfection about them but just something about them that makes you go oh yeah I am really uncomfortable right now and I'm feeling like I want to get up and leave. How to describe it there's not a word it's like that X factor and this was like probably in terms of craft, in terms of storytelling in terms of depth of meaning higher levels than some books I give five stars but I couldn't get beyond viewing it as a work of art. There was always a distance between me and the book I am interested in reading River Solomon's other stuff I really want to read Sorrowland by them. Maybe like a longer book would benefit because I also feel like this should have been 40 to 80 pages longer. It was about 160 pages I think it should have been maybe 200 to 250. To talk about everything we wanted to there was a romance that I didn't feel like was fully explored. There was some perspectives we follow mainly the perspective of the historian who carries the trauma of the entire group. We had some of the modern day historians sorry we had some perspectives from past historians and I just didn't feel like there was enough time to really get into the depth on that that I would have wanted. Other months if I had read this this would not be the disappointments category because you know there would be other stuff replacing it but I just didn't read anything really bad this month. So I just wanted to mention it because I did expect it to be like my favourite book of all time basically. Surprises! First one I want to mention is the finale to a series that I have not mentioned loads on my channel. I've kind of just been reading it away you know away from the videos. But I read the finale to the Small Spaces Trinogy No, quad, quad, caught, caught, caught No, quad, uh something. This is the final one which is Empty Smiles. This was my favourite in the series. I really loved this. Now I can't say much about the plot because obviously like it would spoil the first three books. This is a middle grade horror series by Katherine Arden who wrote one of my favourite series of all time The Baron and the Nightingale series and once I read the first book I knew like this wasn't going to be my favourite thing from Katherine Arden when she brings out her next like YA or adult hopefully like The Baron and the Nightingale series like I reckon that would be my favourite but I like that she did this little project with following friends who keep coming into contact with this horror figure they call the Smiling Man. And he takes different forms in each book and he kind of terrorises them and tries to like capture their souls. This is essentially what his MO is. And it's them beating him and like trying to beat him in each book. And this final one is set at Fairground which is such a fun setting for like a children's horror work. I think it's such like an evocative atmosphere. And I just really loved the writing and I really loved the characters in this one. The pacing really worked me. The ending was a bit rushed but I just had the best time reading this one. I'm just glad I finished another series ticked another series off the list and yeah it was definitely my favourite in a series as a whole. And then I have to say Killjoy by Holly Jackson. Now this is our beginning talking about all the five stars. I put two of them in the surprises and the rest we're going to talk about in minutes. This is a prequel to the Good Girls Guide to Murder series. I would recommend reading this in between books one and two. Read the main first book first then read this in between books one and two. I think that's the best time to read it. This is before the events of the crazy series and it's just Pip our main character and her friends holding like a murder mystery party and it's like a lot of fun and games. It's gonna be good and we're all gonna have fun! And I was just so surprised at how much I enjoyed this and gave it five stars. Like of course expecting great things but it's like a very short novella. It's like 130 pages. Holly Jackson always knows how to just bring a bit of fun. She always knows how to just bring that little bit of fun. Like just a little bit. So it's this murder mystery party and they've obviously bought a pack and like they're going through the pack and you'll see it on screen like the graphics of this page gives you your alibi. This page gives us our cast of characters. This gives you instructions of what to do in the next round. Like I said I think you want to read the first book to get us through the easter eggs but it really sets up well for you to be introduced in a little bit before the second books comes up because the second book for me was a four star. But I feel like perhaps if I'd got to know some of the characters that are shown in that a little bit better, just a tiny bit better like you do in this book I would have enjoyed it even more. So I would definitely recommend reading it in that order. So just seeing those characters it was just a lot of fun. And then my final surprise was the Wintering in Mystery by Anthony Berkeley. I just posted one of my favorite videos ever which was solving this mystery. The comments on it have been absolutely amazing. Like your comments have made my day. But YouTube ain't happy and it's like 9 out of 10 performing out of my videos. So if you want to go watch a video I'm very proud of, go watch the video where I solve this mystery or at least try to. I tried to solve the mystery. This is like a classic British crime book you know set at the stately home. We have this locked room mystery where these characters are hosting the seance. It's a lot rich people at home basically they're hosting the seance and one of the guests goes missing during the seance. I was just shocked at how much I enjoyed this. This is probably my first classic mystery other than Agatha Christie and I loved this. I liked this more than the other like stately home. Stately home is the right word. What's the word for like mansions, manners books from Agatha Christie that I've read. I much preferred this one and I really loved the tone of writing. It's very humorous. I was in the introduction and it was talking about how the author is known for being like funny like injecting humor into his mysteries and I was like yeah sure okay like fine. Sure Jan. But I read it and it felt modern in the humor and the style of writing and I thought we had a really big cast of characters as you'll see if you go watch that video. I fancast I fancast the book with different actors and actresses. All of the characters had really fun dynamics and brought something really fun to the table so yeah I was not expecting to love this as much as I did but I'm definitely gonna try out some more Anthony Berkeley in the future. And then finally time for our hits. We have four other five stars to mention in this video. So let's chat about the other two five stars I had for the 24 hour readathon which was a very successful really readathon for me obviously. We have cracked up to be by Courtney Summers. Now this book inducted Courtney Summers finally into my hall of fame favourite authors. I loved this. This is Courtney Summers debut and I just literally still can't get over the fact this was written in 2008. Like I can't get over it. Like if you ask me to get over it I say no. It's just impossible. I loved this. We're following Parker who was previously like she was the head of cheer she was dating the hottest guy at school she was the it girl and then something happened and she fell apart she started drinking at school a lot she almost got kicked out. She's still in danger of not graduating in this book and we're slowly finding out what happened to her to make this happen and just the journey that we go on without this book it's so good the way that you know Courtney Summers crafts this character who is not there to be likeable and I love that I love that I thought the look at mental health and the way that we treat people in a situation like Parker was very interesting it made me think a lot about when I had friends going through some of the situations like at secondary school and stuff how they were treated and viewed and how society viewed them it's just so good and I'm very excited now to read all of Courtney Summers backlist I have quite a few to get through still and then I suppose this was a surprise as well actually we have Delicates by Brenna Thunna so I read Sheets I gave that like a four star I enjoyed it it was a fine graphic novel this is a sequel to it we're following Marjorie whose mother passed away a few years ago a year or so two years ago and her grief is a big plot in the first book and this book we meet is it Erika Eliza sorry we meet Eliza who is this character here who is like socially awkward I think is coded as autistic in the book she has a special interest in photography particularly for photographing ghosts this is a middle grade book and I just thought A is beautifully illustrated like I love Brenna Thunna's illustration style like and the tones like the pinks and the purples and the blues it's really a story about like not bullying and treating people with kindness and looking past your own insecurities to support others right so much like I remember being at school and like you're so consumed with how you you're perceived by others that you don't then break the mold to help other people you know you're so I worry how you're perceived by your friends or the people that you look up to or admire that you don't break the mold to help others so you know what this says about depression and sadness and difficult times for kids I think is so so beneficial and important so yeah I was so surprised actually by how much I loved this and especially like because sheets was fun like I enjoyed it I tend to give all graphic novels like four stars at least because I just love the experience of reading them but this was really special and I feel like this is such an important book for kids to have the option of reading then another hit that I just read was I'm Glad My Mum Died by Jeanette McCurdy I listened to the audiobook for this and I just absolutely loved it I mean obviously everyone's talking about it so you don't need me to say much and everyone's loving it but just her honesty of her life of her talking about the abuse that she has suffered by her mum throughout most of the book you're in the moment with her of her loving her mum and looking up to her mum and her mum being her whole world and you know towards the end of the book you start to see the moment that that broke and it's very heart breaking because you've been it's not like the book is necessary tell the moments with hindsight it tells the moments that she has with her mum suffering the abuse at her hands with the perspective that young Jeanette had and so it's very heart breaking to kind of go through that moment with her and it's very very raw and honest and you know not just with the situation with her mum but the situation that she had at Nickelodeon working for example I hope that this will be the start of you know getting the ball rolling of exposing the you know terrible stuff that probably happened behind the scenes at Nickelodeon I will say Jeanette is very open about her eating disorder in this and I don't tend to read stuff I guess that I would get triggered by but I think I do have to be careful sometimes when watching or consuming you know watching TV shows or consuming media where there's a character whose mental health is not 100 in some way if it's something that I feel I relate to sometimes it can restart ways of thinking for me so if you have suffered from anorexia or bulimia be careful going into this bit because I wasn't quite expecting the rawness of honesty and it's like a lot to read and you have to like I had to be very you know conscious that I didn't slip into certain ways of thinking so yeah I will just say that it was very valuable but I think on a personal level just like protect yourself read trigger warnings read some reviews just so you know how honesty is because it's very honest in descriptions and depictions so yeah just be aware of that but I loved this I mean I could make a whole video talking about it but I don't know if we need another person making a video talking about it because everyone has but it was just such a wonderful you know such a wonderful honest read and I'm very excited for Jett McCurdy's fiction which she said she's now writing and that's what she wants to do is write fiction so I'm really really excited for that and then my last final five stars I won't spend too long talking about this because it wasn't like everything I was hoping for. It was the man who died Triaspo Richard Osmond obviously Thursday Medical my favourite of last year this wasn't that but I still really loved it. We're following a group of friends who live at this retirement village and they used to solve mysteries like cold cases you know try and solve them now you know mysteries land on their doorstep I've got a whole vlog on this so I will just say that I love the characters I love a good mainstream mystery like anything that is a mainstream mystery nowadays I just love because like let's do it what I mean I love that that is becoming a thing just like the shit that these characters get themselves into whilst you know being a pensioners and like just doing everything like I love seeing older characters I really do and I feel like there's a trend now with older characters in mysteries because of this because of the success of this I'd love to see older characters in other genres as well like there's been a massive boom of older characters and murder mysteries like solving mysteries because of the success of this I'd love to see that translate into other genres as well yeah I didn't love this as much as the first one but I still loved it and I'm very excited for the third one to come out and I think a month less than a month maybe sometime in September so so there we have everyone that was my wrap up for the month of August let me know how your reading went down below I would love to know if you had a good reading mat not a good reading month let me know your disappointment surprises and hits and let me know what you thought of any of the books that I read this month and what you thought of them I would love to know if you got into the end of the video comment just comment a star emoji because this was a five star month for me comment a star emoji below if you got into the end thank you guys so much for your support kind comments you know all your love as always I appreciate it so so much and I'll see you very soon in another video bye