 Hey guys it's Leana and I'm here today with my March wrap up. Oh no, don't fall, don't fall, don't fall. Um so my pile, my stack is slightly misleading um because there's two books on here that I started but did not finish but I intend to finish but I wanted to talk about them because I had thoughts already and um I did read some part of them in the month of March. Any hoosies. Let us be about the business. First book I read was The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Evercrombie. I have haven't posted my standalone review yet for this. Y'all know my project for this year is to read and review individually all of the first law books in anticipation of the release of the 30th final book of the age of mad history legy by Joe Evercrombie. I feel like I say this in every fucking video. I'm like as you know this year like if you don't fucking know by now that this year I'm doing this well you're not listening. Uh this was like I rushed to read this really fast at the beginning of the month because my brother was coming over and I wanted to have finished it. I mean not that I couldn't talk about it without having finished it but I wanted to finish it before he got here so that I'd be like so to be fresh and done um for when we chatted first law. So y'all already saw that I posted that video. It is spoiler rate for the trilogy. My reviews I'm trying to keep as non-spoiler as possible. So there will be a review for this as well that will be non-spoiler soonish. Yeah give it five stars again. I gave it this is the only of the trilogy that I gave five stars the first time that I read it and have given it continued to give it five stars on every subsequent read. This was my third time reading it. So yeah uh not a lot to say right here right now because I will be posting an individual review. Suffice to say chef's kits love it. The next book that I read was a reread as well Shadow and Bone by Lee Bardugo. This is the first book in the Grisha trilogy and if you are not aware me and Joshana and Jesse have been doing a Grisha read-along on anticipation of the release of the Shadow and Bone TV show. So the third live show will be on Jesse's channel this month on the 17th and I believe that Elle from Elliot Brooks will be joining us as well. I was like a special guest and as a Malina ally. So yeah I read Shadow and Bone for this rereading along of the Grisha trilogy and if you want to see our full thoughts the the live show for this book was on my channel so that is available to you. No they're the other one isn't. The others aren't on my channel. The next book that I read was The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson. The weird thing about this this is the third and final book of the Trilidivius trilogy and I say trilogy however I've learned that there's going to be I guess another book but this wraps up pretty conclusively. Like the mystery that is at the heart of this book series is wrapped up in this book so I don't know what the fuck up next book's going to be. Any who sees. The weird thing about the Trilidivius books is that I like them while I'm reading them but then I instantly forget them like in one ear out the other. I mean I'm reading them not listening to them. You know what I mean? Like I just like I know I liked it but I'm like what happened again? Like it's not the long ago that I read this and every time I pick one of the books up I'm like do I remember what happened in the last one and I pick it up and it's like it's like a sleeper cell. Like the part of my brain that knows what happens in these books gets woken up and I'm like oh yeah I know who these people are and what's going on and then as soon as I finish it that part of my brain is like goes to sleep. We don't need you anymore. I don't even know what this is about. Like I mean I know that it's about a boarding school with elites and then there's like this mystery from like back in the day that happened like in the 40s or the 30s or whatever and so like in the present day there's stuff going on but then like the characters are also kind of trying to figure out the mystery of what happened like back then. So like saying that is kind of awakening that part of my brain but until I started saying that I couldn't remember what it was about but now I'm like oh yeah I remember yeah I remember some stuff now. Some bits and pieces are coming back to me but like it's way too foggy for something that I read that recently. Um I liked them. I have a lot of fun reading these books. They're easy reads that are fun to chew through with like fun twists and turns and mysteries and cool omniots and the humor really does work for me. Like I chuckle a lot reading these books. Like I feel like the main character like a lot of YA snark drives me banana cuckoo crazy because I think YA snark is just like so not funny. It's so trying to be funny so much of the time and most of the time it does not work for me. Most of the time when I read books that are intended for a YA audience that are intended to be snarky I'm just like eye rolling the entire time. But these books work for me. The humor works for me. I chuckle a lot. So I do recommend but like don't also remember what happened to me. Okay the next book that I read was Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. This was my first time reading The Two Towers. I read The Fellowship of the Ring at the beginning of 2020 so I'm trying to like finish the trilogy and I've seen the extended editions of the movies more times than any human should. So those are like canon to me. Like I know the story of Lord of the Rings as presented in the films better than my own life history. So I have to actively keep reminding myself that I can't like fact check these books because my my instinct is to be like uh-uh that's not how it happens. Uh-uh that didn't happen there. Uh-uh. Um so like I mean I know that this is the real thing and that the movies are changing stuff but the movies to me are Lord of the Rings and this is like an adaptation of the movies into book four. I know that that's not true but that's just like I feel when I'm reading it. I'm like you don't do that. You don't say that. So for example is I do any to worry about spoilers? I don't think so this is Lord of the Rings. When Shilab shows up in in Two Towers I was like what you don't belong here you belong and return to the king get out of here. Get the gone. This isn't the book you're in. Also was very let down by the Battle of Helmsdeep. I was like the Battle of Helmsdeep takes up the most of the runtime of the Two Towers. The Battle of Helmsdeep in the book was just like and we're done and I was like the book is barely begun. What do you mean you're done? What? I vastly approve of the choice of Peter Jackson to intercut the plot lines to like cut back and forth between what's going on in Rohan and what's going on with Frodo and the Ring. I get both because this is an older book and so like people like messing that much with like the chronology of how you're telling something um wasn't as much done I guess. So I can't I guess I don't weigh in Tolkien. But it makes both plot lines more interesting because I feel especially the way it's written here. I mean tbqh I'm fine with sticking in Rohan in the films and like the Battle of Helmsdeep is just oh yes the best battle that cinema has ever seen. But here yeah I don't know I really like the choice to do that. So I think even the book by itself like the way it is written if we just like shuffled it a bit. Like the exact words that Tolkien wrote but just like like a deck of cards like shuffle them and take the path where Frodo and Sam are with the Ring and just intercut that with what's going on in Rohan. Personally for me that would work better and both plot lines would feel less monotonous. But aside from that I had a good time. Just like with Fellowship of the Ring like there are things about the books that are not in the movies like the very sort of poetical stuff. The more lore kind of stuff that isn't so much in the movies and wouldn't really fit in the movies because the movies are more of a gritty more realistic more grimdark kind of a vibe. The books are very much not that. So they they're both in keeping with their own styles. Like this is clearly not the type of book where we stop to have an Abercrombie style battle in the middle of it. It's just like that's not what this is about. Whereas the movies are very much Abercrombie battles with like occasionally a bit something a little poetical when it else shows up. But like it would be weird if they all broke into song all the goddamn time to tell like the history of Middle-earth. You'd be like what is going on right now? Why are you doing that you fucking weirdo. So they each have their strengths. I probably like the movies better if I'm honest. I was like on the fence about saying I was like they're kind of like they're different and good in their own ways when I read the Fellowship. But Two Towers is my favorite of the movies. So this was the hardest sell for me because I love The Two Towers the movie. So the book is it's just it's not as good as the movie to me. I'm sorry Mr. Tolkein. Thank you for giving us the thing that inspired one of my favorite movies of all time. Next up I read The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis. Tevis Tevis or to the wise at least when I was doing it. I mean I think they rotate it so I don't know if it's still available. The audiobook for this is available through Audible Plus. So if you have Audible Plus it's available to you and it's a good audiobook. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed it. It was different from what I expected. I didn't know too much about what to expect. I mean obviously I know it's about chess prodigy just from you know Netflix. I haven't watched The Queen's Gambit but you know you've seen enough promos you know it says about a girl that's like a baller at chess. So I wasn't actually aware of the like drug addiction alcoholism sex stuff. Like I didn't know all of that would be in here and I thought it was handled very well. It was like when I was talking to Bethany about it actually because she's watched the show and I was telling her that I was starting to read it and I was like whoa didn't know that would be happening. And she was like yeah the show is like that like if you'd watch the show you'd be ready for it. But I think the book handles it in a way that is absolutely fine. I don't know if that makes sense but like I wasn't at all objecting to the to the material or to the handling of the material. I just wasn't expecting it. I just didn't know that would be in here. So if you also don't know and that would bother you there's a lot of stuff in this book. Again predominantly like drug addiction would be like the big thing. But again there is some like sex stuff. Some sex stuff that again I wasn't expecting it but the way it's written I think I don't know how to explain this. But basically this whole story is kind of told through the perspective of a person that is not engaging with the world the way that normal people do or at least the types of people that we most typically see depicted and are accustomed to having stories told to the eyes of. She's very I mean I don't know if that is the intention to specifically depict her as somebody who's on the spectrum but that's kind of how it comes across to me if I know means an expert. But she doesn't have an extremely like emotional way of looking at the world. She's very sort of she's kind of detached from stuff going on around her and that's not to say she doesn't feel things she absolutely does but in a very different way from how you're used to seeing in a book. I think that I think it worked really well like this it's she's not an unemotional character but the way she's processing the world is different from how you or I would I'm making a huge assumption there maybe you would process the world exactly the way that she would. She's not processing the world the way that I would. So yeah I think it was handled well I think personally. So I enjoyed it and I think she was an interesting character to follow and seeing the chest stuff like is interesting sure but what's most interesting is this as a character study of this individual who is clearly extremely brilliant but is also very troubled and yeah yeah I really enjoyed it. I did. I watched the first episode of the show after reading the book and I don't know that I'll continue because I really don't like the tone of the show and I don't think the tone of the show really reflects the tone of the book so I kind of want to say if you love the show a lot I don't know that you love the book because the book from what I can tell is extremely different. I liked the book a lot. The show it seems almost like it's wanting to compensate for the like emotionlessness of the source material and the emotionlessness I feel is a feature not a bug and I don't like that it's doing that. I don't like that the show seems to want to like floof it up and I'm like I don't this isn't the floofy book stop floofing it that is my expert analysis stop floofing it. The nice book that I read was The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gordechek. This I picked up solely because it is a retelling of like Norse mythology-ish stuff. It is it's about like the wife of Loki and I kind of Loki hated this. I think I gave it three stars I don't remember at this point. I was really disappointed with this. I heard people compare it to Cersei and say that it was kind of like the Norse answer to Cersei by Madeline Miller. Oh it wishes. So it isn't even that like it's boring because it is boring. Cersei is arguably boring because not a lot happens in Cersei it's it's this one deity's life story basically so you kind of follow millennia of her life. But Cersei is just so beautifully written and so atmospheric and poignant and it's just so lovely. Whereas this book it just was just like a lot of stuff happening and like we it was her life story and stuff like in the in the like framework of it I suppose there's a comparison to be made to Cersei but the Cersei the magic of Cersei lies in its execution and that magic is entirely lacking here so I feel like the idea of doing that kind of thing with a figure from Norse mythology could work but this wasn't it. The characters weren't very likeable or three-dimensional or thought-provoking or anything like that. Also I apologize I'm realizing that the sun is weirdly shining on my face so whoopsie. Any hoesies um I I did not care for this um and I love Norse stuff I'm trash for Norse stuff so take it for what it's worth. Man I should not be filming this time of day this is again sorry about this. The next book that I read was me finally finishing The Gold Finch by Donna Tarpe. I started reading this two years ago or like towards the end of 2019. I mean I paid this up after I read The Secret History and then I started reading it and then just like kind of got caught up in other things and put it down and kind of accidentally DNF'd it but like by no means intended to DNF it. I like always intended to finish it so I finally did and uh I was like quite disappointed with it and then I did end up watching the movie and I think the movie is way better so I probably filmed a video about that at some point but the book I think I think the beginning of the book I quite enjoyed when I first picked it up and I stand by it. I think the beginning of the book where he's a young boy, where we're in New York, I don't want to like I guess I don't really want to spoil too much about the plot. It is basically just the plot of like this young man's life so from kind of Dickensian. I think I've heard it compared to me. It's like you know oh well they're right there a glorious Dickensian novel. I knew I heard that somewhere. Oh this also says Dickensian. Do all of these blurbed reviews say Dickensian? Oh lord um any Hoosies. It is Dickensian in that it is like like David Copperfield where you follow him from like childhood into like a large portion of his adulthood and kind of just there isn't necessarily like a plot. It's just like this happened then this happened then this happened then this happened all in my life. So yeah I guess it's Dickensian in that but I feel like for all of the ponderousness of this it the characters are quite two-dimensional. If you're going to have a book that's almost entirely a character study the characters have to be interesting and the characters here were like caricatures and and archetypes and kind of like stereotypes. Stereotypes in terms of like race and ethnicity and and ethnic background. Stereotypes in terms of class and culture and it just felt like a just a collection of stereotypes. But then it spent so much time pontificating on its depth and meaning that it like it felt like it really wanted to be deep. It didn't feel like a book that just is deep it felt like it was trying very much to be deep and I found that aggravating. So I thought the writing was was quite beautiful and immersive and lush and it's sort of like ultra saturated. This like velvety immersive breathing life into the smallest like pixel of the moment in the beginning when we were in his childhood in New York there was a magic to it the same magic that is present. It's a very different style of story but the same magic in the prose as I found in Secret History which is why I wanted to continue reading Donna Tartt's work because her prose in the Secret History was chef's kiss. Here it felt like if I didn't know better I would think this was somebody who wanted to imitate Donna Tartt and wasn't doing a very good job of it. So I I don't know. I don't know. The beginning was solid but um I think the movie is quite good especially as compared to the book. If I hadn't read the book I never know that I would love the movie but I feel like the movie actually improved on a lot of stuff here and when I looked up some reviews of the movie some of the complaints people had about the movie I wanted to be like well that's what's in the book. You can't blame the movie for that. Like things to do with the characters like I honestly think the characters in the movie have more depth simply because the characters are in like the actors that embody those characters bring full fleshed life and blood to the characters by virtue of being humans filling those roles and filling in those gaps by existing. And I do think the cast is excellent and well cast so I feel like the movie like did a much better job in that and I saw reviews saying that the characters felt a little two-dimensional and lifeless and I'm like if you want two-dimensional characters look at the book this is the movie's way better. Unpopular opinion I know both on the book and the movie but that's how I feel about it. The next book that I read was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Fronte and I really liked this a lot. I had never read it before I had seen an adaptation of it sometime ago so I was more or less aware of the story and the adaptation that I saw as it happens is like scene for scene accurate so it's quite a loyal adaptation. If you don't know at all what this is this is again it's by Anne Fronte. Anne Fronte being the sister of Emily Fronte and Charlotte Fronte. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was written you know around the same time as Wuthering Heights engineer and it is so good. I don't know like I had heard a lot of people say that this was their favorite Bronte and that like it's the unsung hero of the Bronte's and that this is the one that like people have forgotten but it's probably like the hidden gem like the best of them even though people don't talk about it. So I was excited to read it but having seen the adaptation I was like I find it hard to believe that I'll feel that way because I've seen the adaptation and I liked it not to say that I didn't but I found it hard to believe that the book that that adaptation is based on could be like an all-time favorite but then I also suspected and was correct that some of the magic of the book lies in the storytelling, lies in the prose, lies in just sort of how Anne Bronte goes about conveying the situation and these events to you. So that is in fact the case. The plot as depicted in the adaptation is again like scene for scene page for page almost verbatim the exact plot of the book. So I guess I was spoiled for that but this type of book is not really much of it's not the kind of book that like this isn't I don't know what book is famous for having a twist. This isn't Golden Sun by Pierce Brown where like you really don't want the twist through and because half the fun is going oh my god what oh my god what. The Tenant Oil Fill Hall isn't exactly like dropping mega bomb shells and plot twists on every page it's not the kind of book. So having the overarching plot spoiled for me I don't really feel like the tracks much from it or is much of a spoiler. I did find it interesting that in talking to Maro who also happened to read it in March we did not body read it on purpose. She hadn't seen an adaptation of it wasn't aware of the story and she had actually a different idea of where the story would be going and she was wrong which I just found interesting because I never had an opportunity really to guess at what it might have been and I'm curious what I would have thought if I picked this up without ever having seen the adaptation like what my guess would have been for this was going. I'll never know. So many who's ease. Yeah so the book the premise for at the outset is that this woman she comes with her son to live to this at this place called Wildfell Hall which is kind of on the outskirts. As all the Bronte books they all take place in very rural very remote places so she comes to stay with her son at Wildfell Hall and the the locals are like who is she why is she here where is this boy's father where did she come from what is her deal and she's very like standoffish and doesn't really want to talk to anybody doesn't want to get to know anybody keeps herself to herself but she ends up kind of befriending some of the locals particularly in particular my young maiden Gilbert who is quite interested in her and wants to know more about her and is like kind of falling for her so through them getting to know each other then you learn where she came from and why she's why she finds herself here in this remote hall by herself with her son. So actually the majority of the book is kind of like then a flashback like basically the whole book is a flashback that is bookended by the present day situation where she is at Wildfell Hall so most of the book is finding out where she came from and what led her to need to be now here so yeah Anne Bronte's authorial voice is one that I really enjoyed and the the characters that she wrote even the minor characters had a lot of life to them was they were very three-dimensional characters with some really like funny quirks and and they were they really felt kind of like flesh and blood people kind of similar to the way that people describe Dickens where Dickens has just these really memorable characters that all kind of leap off the page and you really remember them that's how I feel about like all of the like locals around the Wildfell Hall where she lives like Gilbert's family and all of those people with these like really quirky personalities that like immediately leap off the page and immediately like you have an image in your mind of who these people are and why they're reacting to Helen the way that they are and Helen herself is just such a force of nature herself her personality is is this through line through the book that really impressed me and it wasn't it didn't feel forced it didn't feel like a Mary Sue character you're like well I guess you're just like the most biggest badass ever she's a very flawed character but she's written so well and so compellingly that you just I fell in love with Helen as a character and I really like Gilbert uh I think Mara doesn't really like Gilbert and I know why but I really do like Gilbert but it's also partly I think because in the adaptation Gilbert is played by Toby Stevens and I really likes Toby Toby Stevens so I was just picturing Toby Stevens and he is quite charming so that might be why I like Gilbert in any event quite like to this highly recommend as a classic and I think there is something there about that this might be the best of the Brontes like I do like Jane here I do like Weathering Heights I'd have to think about that some more but like I would definitely say it's on par with those so it should be talked about just as much as those at the very least on next I read what did we read to the widow of rose house for book club we have the live show on Mara's channel where none of us liked it this was a gothic romance that we found should be neither particularly gothic nor particularly romantic I'm holding this up as though this is really this is just my placeholder reminder because I read it on Kindle it was it was just like so exceedingly meh it just didn't work it wasn't creepy it wasn't romantic it wasn't interesting it wasn't fun or funny it was just a whole big pile of meh so I would not recommend next up I read season storm by Lee Bardugo again second book in the Grisha trilogy part of the read along and this live show is on to shyness channel so if you missed it you can watch the replay there the battle over mal continues and we will win in the third live show because l will join me but yeah so I think we all are enjoying our rereads I'm enjoying my reread all of us are feeling like these books are a lot faster and shorter than we remember like all the events that we recall happening I am so sorry for this like I really shouldn't film this time of day noted for future reference yeah I'm enjoying it it's it feels very very it for the first time I read it it felt like a bit dated YA and it feels even more so now it's just kind of fun and you chew through it and you're like that was a bit of fun and Nikolai for the win if it wasn't for Nikolai this would remained like super basic YA even though I do ship Molina Nikolai is the thing that stand out that like make like like raises this from being just like YA to being like YA because Nikolai is hysterical I love Nikolai so this is the book where you get to meet him and the book in which that I think he really does shine and Nikolai is reason alone to read this book and next up I read Thunderhead by Neal Schesterman and everybody kept saying that Thunderhead is probably better than Scythe this is the second book in the arc of the Scythe I read Scythe a long time ago like two or three years ago and I was worried that I wouldn't remember enough as I read this it was coming back to me so I didn't end up having to reread Scythe at first I was like whoo but as they said things I was like oh yeah that and that person and why do oh yep nope I remember and Thunderhead is I don't I mean it's been so long but I don't remember Scythe being this good this was so good from page one I was hooked and amused and interested and excited to be reading it and I just chewed my way through it I loved it so much uh hype was well deserved I already have the toll which I don't I fell in the hall but I don't know if that went up already or not but I have it because the way this and everybody was like well as soon as you finish Thunderhead you're gonna want to read the toll and they were not wrong I do want to read the toll but it's not on my tbr and I really want to read it the only person I'd heard say that they didn't like this was my dad because he read Scythe and then picked up Thunderhead and he was like oh no like he might have even DNF'd it and that was like the thought in my head this whole time was like everyone says it's not my dad says that it's not so good but sorry dad you're wrong Thunderhead is great crazy but dad also didn't he DNF'd Golden Son so my dad's crazy he doesn't know what the books are apparently he'd get along with that one so yeah I really really liked Thunderhead if you don't know the Ark of the Scythe is like a dystopian where we've defeated death basically so people don't really die of natural causes anymore because they don't have to they don't need to we've defeated death but that we would have an immense population problem if we didn't die so there are people whose job it is to kill people and it's to control population basically but they are Scythe's so Scythe's are like this whole separate thing and they basically are carte blanche to go around killing people and they have a certain quota to kind of maintain population so in the first book you meet two young people that have been chosen to train to possibly become Scythe's and then I can't say any real anymore really but the next book goes on from there and the Thunderhead which is a thing that you learn about in the first book basically all of humanity is kind of governed by this AI called the Thunderhead and the only thing that the Thunderhead is not in charge of is the Scythe's the Scythe Dome so they're like the only ones operating outside of the Thunderhead's purview so yeah the second book is called the Thunderhead and that's why it's called the Thunderhead and I can't tell you why the toll is called the toll but there's a reason that I you learned during the Thunderhead and I was always wondering why the third one would be called I mean obviously having by the first one I was like I know why the second one's called the Thunderhead or I can guess I was like I wonder why the third one's called the toll when you read the Thunderhead you realize why the third one will be called the toll anyway Thunderhead so so so so good I'm really hoping the toll is just as good but it's so good and also funny like kind of British humor I don't know if Mill Schisterman is British but the humor is kind of British in its appeal and I love British humor so I recommend and last but not least I have the two books that I started but did not finish and those are Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb which I absolutely intend to finish I made it that far and this is a massive fucking book so I knew that I wasn't going to be able to finish it even if I like prioritized it so I like finished a few other things instead because it's just isn't going to happen it's not in the cards so I pushed it aside of it so I am given to understand for Mara who did finish it because she read in the beginning of the month that like a big old chunk of this is going to be a slog and I think I have just entered the slog territory and again I already think like she said this and I already feel like I think I agree and I think I know as well that there's like a very definite reason for the slog like it's an intentional slog on the part of Robin Hobb like it's intended to have a certain effect on the reader the slogginess of it nonetheless it is sloggy so I do want to read this I am enjoying it overall I do still love it but I'm feeling the that of it so basically the slogginess wasn't like conducive to me also trying to like push through and like finish stuff towards the end of the month I need time that I don't feel rushed in which I can just kind of like wallow in the slog so I'll set aside some time at some point obviously not April because my TBR is busting but I need to set aside some time to just shoot my way through this and the last book that I was reading but did not finish and I would have finished it if not for certain things occurring in my life that derailed me a bit uh blue blue blue lily lily blue which is the last the second to last book in the Wraith and Cycle was really really enjoying it I'm still really enjoying it do intend to finish it right out of time and haven't read anything um since certain things happened so it's all I have to say about that oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy I'm trying to avoid the sun which is very difficult this is a terrible time to be filming oh my god let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about the books that I read in April um whether you liked or hated them whether I've convinced you to pick them up or convinced you to not pick them up depending on how I felt about them whatever you want to let me know I post videos on saturdays other random times as well definitely saturdays so like and subscribe uh join my patreon if you feel so inclined or don't that's entirely up to you and I'll see you when I see you bye