 Hey filler reading warriors, and welcome to today's video. It's going to be a bit of a doozy, but uh, hopefully it'll be a fun doozy So this is going to be a recent reads video And I have quite a few books that I would like to talk about normally and try and limit them to five or six books But I kind of had a I read a little bit and then I stopped for a while And then I read a ton all of a sudden and I'm in the middle of reading like four books right now so I Kind of have a lot to talk about so I might speed through these reviews just a little bit But I hope that you can still get a good feel for them and decide whether or not you want to read them If you haven't if you have read them comment down below what you thought of them If you enjoyed them if you agree with me if you disagree with me Let me know I would love to talk about things and just kind of hear your opinions Also while you're down there hit the subscribe button I hit the bell to get notified when I upload videos, which is every Thursday and then since you're doing all that stuff Why not just give it a thumbs up to if you Hopefully you'll like the video and you feel like you want to give it a thumbs up So the first book that I would like to talk about I'm actually going to talk about the first two books in a trilogy And I'm currently reading the third book in the trilogy The trilogy is called the Brooklyn Bruhaz and it's by Zora Cordova and the first book is called Labyrinth Lost And the premise of these books is that there is a family who are Bruhaz who are witches and There are three daughters. They live with their mom and in the very first one their daughter Alex Really just doesn't like her magic. She doesn't want to use the magic. She's not happy with it So on her death day on her celebration where she's supposed to gain Kind of like a blessing from her ancestors and from all the other local Bruhaz around her instead of helping her control and hone her power. She tries to Make an Encanthus spell and ends up getting rid of her entire family And now she has to go travel through Los Lagos the magical land with this Brujo boy. She does not like it all to try and get her family back I rated this 3.5 4 out of 5 stars I I thought it was a solid book when I read it looking back after reading the second and then Starting the third one. I can appreciate what it laid down for But I think the books definitely got better as they went along It just it just didn't seem like anything too special, you know girl makes a mistake enemies to love a romance kind of Or queer friendly, but you know, it's your classic adventure story There were quite a few twists in here that I did appreciate though There were some elements where I thought I saw it coming But then something else happened and I was surprised and it was twisted. I appreciated those little moments It just didn't seem like anything to Mind-blowing or by the time the twist one or two there were one or two twists where I was like Yeah, that makes sense or even if I didn't think of it. I'm not super shocked by it But I did I did love the ending It just it seems kind of slow in the beginning and it picked up in the middle of the book and I had a pretty fast ending but Yeah, once you get past the beginning it really does pick up a lot faster, but Whereas the second book was Bruja born and this follows the oldest sister Lula and she Has a very different kind of magic from her sister. She has healing magic, but After her boyfriend sadly breaks up with her due to the trauma that she faced for the first book that you know She can't really talk about anyway She is heartbroken and after an accident on the school bus with her and all of her peers She ends up attempting to bring him back to life Except, you know, when you do something like bring someone back to life It just doesn't quite go how you want it to or how you expect it to So this is less of an adventuring through mythical lands and more focusing on your hometown and figuring out magic that way I like to the expansion into the magical world We got to meet a few other creatures and learn more about the political kind of society aspect of magic But without doing a big head dive, you know It was still very tolerable something that you can slowly latch on to and not get confused by but also still learn more and enjoy I feel like in this book obviously because the family is around the family dynamics are The best the bickering between the sisters and the mom it just it felt like such a relatable family It's your classic everyday family who just happens to have magic on top of it You know and it was so much fun to read or in my case listen to as I listen to the audiobooks for these and oh, I Was laughing I enjoyed the humor of the book There was a really great progression with the characters I felt like it referenced the first book quite a bit But I didn't mind it too much and there's a lot of emotion in this one, which is great because that's kind of what Lacked in the first one a little bit, but not too much And there are a lot plenty of other mysteries to unfold in this third book And it it finishes the story in each book But there's still like these major questions that are good enough of a cliffhanger to make me want to continue So the end of one book have like okay It's an ending but all my word this happened right at the end and now I have no idea what's going on with this Element even though the story did finish and I really appreciated that because I need a cliffhanger if I'm gonna continue a series The next book that I finished was the stars in April by Peggy We're go and I actually read this in a reading vlog So I won't talk too much about it here But I will have that reading blocked up above and down below it is quite the fun vlog Because it was also the weekend that I went camping with my family back in Michigan I thought this would be the perfect just weekend read while camping with my family and Let's just say I was right. I rated this four four point five out of five stars I really enjoyed it. It almost made me cry. It is the story of a Titanic survivor But who's also a child? So again click on that vlog if you're interested to learn more and I really enjoyed this book I highly recommend it Speaking of that vlog the next book I'm going to briefly talk about was girls serpent thorn by Melissa Bashardoust and I say speaking of that vlog Even though I didn't talk about this at all in the vlog It was actually the car ride from Michigan back to Minnesota After the camping trip that I listened to this audio book in one sitting My husband and I it is a 10-hour drive for us and So and I listened to books at two-point speed. So I finished this book Driving through Wisconsin and then into Minnesota like we finished right before we got home But we didn't start it until after Illinois. So And and we loved it enough to keep going on this road trip right now. It is five out of five stars I might knock it down a little bit because it's not perfect But then also at the same time I'm fighting myself like I never rate books five out of five stars So I need to not look for the book to be perfect It doesn't have to be perfect to be five out of five stars So this is five out of five stars as a couple of reads in this recent reads video though actually I'm gonna be honest Anyway, I love this book. So this features a main character a princess who is poisonous to the touch She cannot touch any Human or animal including insects as they will be poisoned and die almost instantly however, she can Touch plants without killing them. And so her big hobby is gardening. This is also a queer-friendly book and I loved it It made me so happy when I realized that halfway through it just oh it warmed my heart There is a lot of political intrigue in here. It is a very political book With lots of twists and turns in that aspect. There was one Twist that you definitely see coming and I think me myself My husband and a lot of people probably saw this twist coming. So when it happened I was like kind of disappointed because I thought it was gonna be the big twist in the book And then when it ended up not being the big twist in the book It was like such a relief and I felt like everything after that was just you could never tell who to trust You had no idea who was telling the truth who was telling the whole truth who was telling parts of the truth So it just kind of got to a point where you just can't trust anybody even if you want to which I enjoy But at the same time it can get old very quickly, but considering it wasn't that long of a book We didn't have to deal with it for too long but they're the themes of touch and Storytelling were so prominent and beautifully written about Because obviously touch because poisonous, but also storytelling was so prominent in here and I loved it This was obviously based off of Persian mythology And it was really cool to read the author's note at the end of the book It kind of made me want to go through and read the book again Just because she was very specific in her references to different myths and characters ideals From Persian mythology, and I thought that was just the coolest thing and it was absolutely beautiful I did have a few like main character reminds me of Elsa a little bit not in a bad way, but it was just kind of like a That's that's starting to be a little overdone here, but it was okay I do wish there was more of the brother in this book, but I did love them all Yeah, it was a very interesting because it seems like it was a journey Storybook, but they never actually like journeyed anywhere or traveled anywhere, which was really interesting to me I mean they kind of did but not like across lands or anything like that Which I also thought was very interesting I think it was pretty fitting for like a road trip where we're not going like cross-country or anything But like it's still a 10 hour drive Anyway, so I loved that this book by about a five stars queer fantasy Just oh If you if you are like me and you need more of that in your life here you go The next one I'm going to talk about is homegoing by a gyasi I did not give this book a rating because I feel it is one of those books That's really hard to give a rating to because the message is so deep and Themes are just so heavy and important that I just don't want to Rate it too much. The writing was good. The idea was Phenomenal, I did not know that this was going to switch perspectives every chapter to a new character There were it starts off with these two women who are unknowingly sisters or half sisters and it follows their Generations so one who stays in Ghana and another who goes to the United States as part of the slave trade and it in detail outlines so many different struggles that Africans and African-Americans have both in their home country and when they were brought over to the states as slaves And I think this is just such an important read. So I didn't want to give it a star rating I feel it's too important for that To be judged in that way, but if you have not read this I highly recommend it It was really fun because my aunt again in this camping reading blog that I did My aunt saw that I had this with me and she had read this and she's also reading Yagiya sees other book Transcended Kingdom and she just oh Raises it and so I really need to pick that one up And I would encourage you all to pick this one and that one up as well moving on I read Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo and Obviously, I loved this book and It was beautiful. I don't read a lot of books in verse. I rated it five out of five stars. I loved the characters I loved both of the daughters who are the daughter of a man who had Two kind of secret lives one in the Dominican Republic and one in New York He had a wife and a daughter with both of them and they are unknown to each other until he dies in the plane crash that was a real event actually a few years ago and It's just tragic. It deals with grief and it's very emotional and it's very It's hard for me to describe because I just loved it. I loved the writing I loved the little bits of Spanish in the writing as well and it just felt like It felt like the author poured her heart and soul into this book It was very clear that she did and that just made it a phenomenal book. There's not much else I can say then I read the cover of after by Emily XR Pan I listened to this book and I also didn't rate this one because this is another book That is just so heavy on the topic of grief and loss and it's so emotion packed I didn't feel it was a book to judge Like with a five like with a star rating system And so this book is about a girl who is Taiwanese American and she loses her mom to suicide So there are some trigger warnings. I encourage you to look up if you are interested in this book but she is convinced that her mom has been reincarnated into a bird and She goes to Taiwan meets her grandparents and learns more about her family history and her culture and her tradition as well as learning to Live life without her mom and this book has a lot of flashbacks a lot of memories at some point It was kind of hard to keep up with them because sometimes it would just flashback and sometimes there's context to the flashback But the use of color in this book was just phenomenal how the color is used for the emotions or the Situation with the main character and her friend. It just it blew me away and now I Yeah, we're getting close to the end here. I've got a couple more books So the next two books are the first two volumes in a manga. Yeah, I have started to read a manga How crazy is that? So it's called spy x family and it's by Tatsuya Endo and it is Wonderful a huge contrast from a lot of the books I've been reading who are that are very heavy very deep kind of dealing with grief and loss but spy x family is Hilarious, so it is about the spy named codename Twilight who has to help unite the east and the west and his mission to do that is to get close to this guy and the way that he's gonna do that is by Getting a wife and child and enrolling that child in one of the most prestigious schools in Japan and Getting that child to befriend the child of the guy. He's trying to infiltrate and It's hilarious because he goes to an orphanage to adopt a child to help him do this and he unknowingly adopts a telepath So the child can read his mind. So she knows he's a spy But she is just Over the moon that someone has finally chosen to adopt her and she really doesn't want to ruin her chance with a family And then little does Twilight know that the wife that he ends up choosing and yes, this all is all within the first The premise of the book. I'm not spoiling too much. I promise but the wife he chooses is They is an assassin and she murders people for money, but she's like socially awkward too. So it's a fan Fantastic combination there, but that's her secret. So she doesn't know he's a spy. He doesn't know she's an assassin But the child knows Both of their secrets the child knows he's a spy and she's an assassin and the child's just like So I have read the second volume. I am this close to buying all of them The sixth one is about to be translated and the seventh one is going to come out later this year Oh my gosh, I cannot stress how much I love it. It is hilarious. I am thoroughly enjoying it I need to calm down. I there are just so many moments where I was laughing so many moments that I was like Oh, this is so cute. Like, you know, it's manga. It's adorable So I would highly encourage you to pick that up whether or not you're a manga reader and Plus Mako you could just zip right through it and I'm really behind on my goodreads goal There's a bonus there And then the last book that I have finished and we'll be talking about in this recent read is Fat Chance Charlie Vega and this is by Crystal Manda. No, Manda Lona Such a hard time saying so this book. I also rated five out of five stars I know so many five star reads in this recent reads. It's it's amazing This book definitely also wasn't perfect like I had a hard time finding an overarching Plot so Fat Chance Charlie Vega is about a girl who is half Puerto Rican half white who is also fat she is plus size and She and her mom lost her father quite recently and her mom has taken it has used that as kind of a kickstarter to her mom losing a bunch of weight and Charlie is best friends with Amelia who is the beautiful popular skinny girl and so there's a lot of talk about Charlie and her being comfortable and her body and her journey of acceptance and Honestly, all she wants is to find love because she is a romance writer. She loves to write which was so cool to see and She just She wants to find love for herself and it's really hard to do and people don't accept the way you look No one not her mom. No one at school the boy. She has a crush on No one it's it's really it's really sad to just sit here and think about So it's the kind of book where there are a few lolls Like I'll have this event that the book is leading up to and then once that event happens It'll drop for a bit and I'm not quite sure what the plot is and then it kind of picked up a little bit And it just was very much a contemporary of like slice of life rather than like From the beginning there's this thing that's gonna carry us through to the end. I didn't find too much of that Which I didn't mind too much. I'm still very motivated to keep listening to it to keep reading it because I just I enjoyed it. I loved Charlie. She was such a great character. I Loved some of the other characters were pretty great But not all of them in my opinion, but I don't want to say too much about that because I will not spoil these books for you But there but there is also a lot of queer rep in this book, which was fantastic her best friend is Pan and One of the other characters is raised by a lesbian couple and they are just the sweetest And so I okay this month like obviously June was like prime month and most of these recent reads are from June a little bit end of May But I actually read a lot more queer books than I thought I was and that surprised me in such a positive way So yeah, I highly encourage Anyone and everyone to pick up this book as so many books in this recent reads like I did not read a bad book which is So nice and refreshing The fun thing is now that we've reached the end of the video is that there is going to be Quite a bit. I am in the middle of reading like Four books right now. I think I'm listening Yeah, I am in the middle of reading like four books right now And I am in such a good reading pattern that I may have to film one of these again pretty soon And Also, I'm doing the Olympic Games readathon if you didn't know that go ahead and check out my TBR down below as well And so hopefully now that I'm in such a good reading mood I can read through those books pretty quickly and enjoy them Hopefully and I will have another recent reads up soon ish maybe in a month or two Anyway, that is the end of this video I will say though I am about to do a bunch of pre-filming as I will be going on some trips soon So let me know if you have any video requests or ideas. I might do some reading blogs. I might do some topic ones Whatever I can think of or whatever you guys want So comment that down below and like I said hit the subscribes button So that if I do a video that you suggest you can see it and I will post on every Thursday But until I see you all in the next video. I wish you a happy reading