 So May was kind of intense. I think I love this. Then we took a Steve dive. So it's a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I think they just like to throw things at me to see my reaction. So despite how busy I was in May and by busy I mean how obsessed and preoccupied I was in May with not reading, I was watching the trial all day every day. Didn't leave a ton of time for reading. Plus also in addition to the trial I had a lot of like things going on. Like things I had bought tickets for well in advance that all happened to be in May. So May was kind of intense. Not a lot of videos are posted by me in May and that's why. Well that's partially why I do my house. I'm just sometimes lazy. Nonetheless I ended up actually reading a pretty respectable amount. Yeah pretty much everything on my tbr and then some. There's certainly some things that were not on my tbr that I read. So I read one, two, I read 13 books considering how much of my time was spent on the trial. I don't understand how I read this many books. I genuinely do not. I don't know when this happened or how this happened but um what I did. So yes that means without the trial in June I can read 26 books right now. God no absolutely not. Anyway let's go through them shall we? The first book uh the first couple books actually um that I read in May. I have videos up for already so I won't spend too much time on them. The first is The View from the Cheap Seeds by Neil Gaiman. I read this because it was one of the few Gaimans that I have yet to I had yet to read and I was seeing one of the many things I had tickets for in May was Neil an evening with Neil Gaiman. So I was like oh I should I should read a Gaiman. Ideally one that I haven't read before. So this is a selected nonfiction. I'm obsessed with this. This is now among my favorite Neil Gaiman books. I cannot recommend this highly enough. I have an entire video gushing about it so go check that out. But suffice to say five out of five stars. Can I give it ten out of five? I would like to. Um this is amazing. It's incredible. I'm still mad. I took so long for me to pick this up. Great start to the month. Then we took a Steve dive in quality. I also have a video about this and that is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus or Garmu. Um I have a very long rat review for this up. I actually I filmed it I think the same day that I filmed The View from the Cheap Seeds video but it went up a lot later. Any Hoesies um yeah I loath and despise this book. I have a very long video talking about why so I don't want to waste your time here. Go check that out if you're interested. Um and if you're not interested in that video that I don't think you're interested in hearing me talk about it here either. So next up is a another book by an author that I love but this was a book that I had not read yet and that is Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. I had I've been reading this I guess quote unquote trilogy of memoirs he has. Um the first two were rereads for me so me and um one of my patrons have been working all the way through them. We're done now which is only three. Um so Angel's Ashes used to be my official favorite book. It's still a favorite uh so that was a reread. Tiz I like less than Angel Ashes but I still like it a lot and it was also a reread but I had never read Teacher Man before. Teacher Man is the shortest one and as the title should make clear this is about his years working as a teacher. It has all the charm you would expect from Frank McCourt and it is um a bit lighter and more upbeat than Tiz. Tiz is the it is the darkest one I think that's why I don't like it as much ironically considering my taste. Teacher Man he's got some amazing stories um as he always does he's an amazing storyteller and there were a few stories that legit had me tearing up not because they're like horribly one of them is pretty tragic. You know it's it's kind of the way that the view from the cheap seats made me tear up. There's just like a poignancy and just this sort of like real raw quality to these human experiences he's relating so I definitely recommend all of his books and I definitely recommend Teacher Man. Next episode was a book that I did not have on my TBR but my hold for the audio came in from the library so I was like yeah let's get her done. That is this Woven Kingdom by the head of Mafi. In uh what is I'm sure what I'm sure continues to be a shocking surprise to people. I really like the Shatter Me series. I have not finished it yet because I heard such terrible things about the final installment that I was like I'll get to it when I get to it. I really like Shatter Me. I didn't initially like it when I first started reading Shatter Me. I started a vlog I think um that I was like this is gonna be one of those like ranty hating vlogs and then like halfway through the vlog I'm like I'm I think I'm into this and by the end of the vlog I was like I think I love this so it's a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Anyway all that to say I was very excited to see you that the head of Mafi had a new book coming out that was a fantasy because her prose is very much not for everybody that's one of the main reasons I think Shatter Me is so polarizing. I at first was put off by her writing style but I eventually grew to really really appreciate it. I really I do like her writing style so I was excited to see because it's a quite a purply writing style and Shatter Me is more sort of the stopian sci-fi so I was excited to see her purple prose in a fantasy in a in a purple book. I well I did like this I think more than people seem to me I've been seeing a lot of lukewarm reviews for this and I think I like it better than most people seem to me but I was also surprised that the prose style is almost nothing like the prose style in Shatter Me so I don't I don't know what that means I don't know if that means that she only developed that style specifically for Shatter Me and that's not really her style per se or if she was sick of the black she got before in Shatter Me I wanted to go a different way I have no idea but it's quite different in in tone and in style. If I didn't know this was my to head of Mafi I wouldn't necessarily guess that it was my to head of Mafi but that being said like I said I enjoyed it a lot more I think than other people have been and I often at least in the last couple years have really disliked most new and hyped YA releases which is part of many reasons uh one of many reasons I why I have veered away from reading more YA just because it was letting me down so much that I was like I don't I keep getting burned you know so like why keep going back although many of my favorite books of all time are YA books they're just from a few years ago so that being the case yeah I was like I read this which I thought was pretty hyped because of who the author is and I read it you know being like oh here we go I'm hopeful but you know I haven't been doing so good with YA and I was like I actually really liked that and was surprised to learn that this hyped YA book I like it and it looks like most people are not liking it I haven't seen much like hate for it outright but I've seen a lot of people being like that wasn't it I was like this was pretty good I think it didn't blow me away it didn't knock my socks off I still like probably like Shatter Me a bit better or at least filmed more obsessed by Shatter Me I don't know if that's healthy this woven kingdom is just sort of chiller because the writing style is also chiller but I thought it was a really lush world she created the characters were good I was invested in the story I thought she was doing some interesting things with the politics and it left off in a place that I wasn't like dying for the next book but I was like yeah I would go on I would like to know what happens next yeah and it's it's a lot better than a lot of other books that I've read lately that are YA and also that have a I haven't specifically read any like Persian settings because this is a Persian setting but in Middle Eastern settings I have been excited by and then let down by a lot of books with Middle Eastern settings because that I want it I want to like it and then I pick up those books and I'm like but I don't like this book so I and I enjoyed this great deal um I don't know people's problems next up is a book that I hated it was 12 Kings and Cherokee by Bradley P Bo Bo I've never actually tried to say the author's name before Bo Leo Bradley P Bo Leo um all right anyway um I've ostensibly but I read this with um Elliott Brooks and Jesse May but Jesse de nested it and I'm not sure where L is at with it but after listening to me and Jesse rant about it I can't imagine L was in any kind of hurry to pick it up I ranted about it at length in um a vlog earlier this month when I was reading it and this is also a Middle Eastern setting and I think what this moment Kingdom is way better this book um it kind of did everything that I hate in one book I don't think the storytelling is very good the prose isn't very good the characterization sucks the world building is like info dumpy and over described and overdone and utterly unorganically woven it at the story and it's just like a bloated mess um I really did not like this and I liked it less and less as I read on and there were so many instances where I was like I really should care about what's going on there's some intense in theory intense things going on and I could not care less so I do not recommend next up is a book that I absolutely recommend that is best served coal by Joe Abercrombie this was my third third and a half time reading it because I did start it a couple years ago and then didn't end up finishing at that time and then restarted it the next time I was reading it so I've I've technically read it more than three times but like not a full four it's an amazing book I had a great time chatting about it with Bethany this was her first time reading it so we're reading it for the readalong we're hosting on the chapter three podcast so if you missed it the episode where we talk about Besser cold is up so I'll leave that link down below this is the first of the stand-alongs in the first law and it's great it's great it's amazing and my main man called shivers who is my second favorite character after sin and Glock that really gets to shine in this one which is so good next up is the book that I buddy read with my patrons for patron book club is what I'm trying to call it now and we are readalonging buddy reading we're getting together the dandelion dynasty by Ken Liu so we started with the grace of kings and why did I grab the paperback I have a hardcover this now because I liked it and I was like I want them all in hardcover but I'm looking at it right over there I have the hardcover but um anyway here's the paperback I really really enjoyed this I ended up giving it full five stars it didn't feel like it was more I guess it was sort of a 4.5 that I rounded up because I don't think it was perfect but I was like ah give it the five because you know I'm just as inclined to be generous as I am to be harsh I feel feelings just uh quite strongly in either direction so if I hate something I'll be like ugh just give it one uh it doesn't deserve even a two and if I like something I'll be like does it get a five like yeah give it five so just fives and ones all the way down so yeah I I had heard that it was slower I had heard that it was more arms length both things are true and despite that I think that the arms lengthness of it I shouldn't say despite that so the arms lengthness of it makes it okay that all some of the character behavior and character dialogue is a little bit stilted and and inauthentic and inorganic sounding god that sounds really harsh I remember I gave it five stars but like there is a kind of like the the characterization of the dialogue is at times you're like people don't really talk like that people don't quite behave like that normally that would really bother me and I would call that out and I guess I am calling it out but like it works in this because this has almost that kind of like again arms length kind of almost fairy tale-esque myth-length telling and figures in old legends old myths fairy tales etc don't really behave like people so much so it's sort of in keeping with that narrative style so like I think bear in the night and gale by Catherine Arden or the song of Achilles like this isn't I'm actually I do believe this is retelling a specific part of history was inspired by it but it's not again like bear in the night and gale or song of Achilles where it's like a specific myth that it's retelling or anything like that but it does have this kind of like mythic arms length Tolkien-esque if you will writing style and I get even in Lord of the Rings the characters have this more like fairy tale-esque way about them they don't really act and talk like people the way that we expect nowadays in for example first law that I guess it that could be hit or miss for people and in my opinion it works due to the narrative style and I'm very much looking forward to where this goes it is it is quite impressive what he's begun here and I was already really impressed with paper menagerie so I have a lot of faith in Ken Liu um so even when it started out kind of you know I was like I think this works for me but we'll see I do think it's it's a rewarding read if you stick with it and I'm excited to read the next books plural but especially the next the second one because I've heard that's the best one yeah I think it demands a little more of you as a reader there's a lot of names and a lot of things going on it's complicated and layered and it's not an action packed rip roaring roller coaster that keeps your attention but if you're willing to go at this pace and you're willing to kind of put your brain on you know like you can't um half-assedly read it you kind of pay attention the whole time I mean if you're if you're good with that then I do absolutely recommend The Grace of Kings uh next up is a book that I don't have a physical copy of but um I was originally going to plan uh going to plan I originally planned to read it for tour.comathon didn't get around to it but my hold for the audiobook came in um so I was like yeah let's read it um and then a sorcerer of the wild deeps by Kai oh I don't have it in front of me Kai Ashanti something well presumably it's here somewhere so you can tell me and I don't think I'm smart enough I I haven't to be honest like I kind of don't understand or didn't understand what was going on most of the time and when I did understand it I was intrigued and I thought from what I could gather there were some interesting things being done by the author and I wanted to understand what was happening but it kind of just throws you in and doesn't explain things and it being a novella it doesn't have enough time for you to kind of figure it out because like you can get that a bit in like the fifth season M.K. Jemisin but by the end you know you've had enough time to gather your context clues to work out what's going on and where we're going but this is so short that I've barely begun to try to piece together what the f is going on before it's over and I didn't get it and I think it is actually a book that takes place in a world that has been established in a previous book even though this is the first in this specific series but I think this this universe has been established before somewhere else is my understanding I might be wrong about that in which case if that is if that is in fact the case then it might have been helpful if I had read the previous work that would give you your introduction to what we're doing here what what this is because just based on this first one like I kind of don't know how I mean I think I gave it three stars but it was kind of like a it averages out to a three or like I'm giving it three based on I think it's good but I can't tell because I don't know what's happening so I might try to come back to this like try to read whatever came before if there is something and and kind of work my way backwards but just based on that one book I am uh next up is the sort of truth read along installment we were at for me and that was soul of the fire by terry goodkind um bethany and I both I think feel that this is probably our least favorite it's tough because temple of the winds is like bananas and I have more like actively negative feelings about temple of the winds but I also like it was never bored by temple of the winds and I have active feelings as I'm reading it and it's it keeps your attention soul of the fire is just it's like a middle book that is also manages to be a bit annoying in things that it's doing it kind of bad and it just like doesn't have a bunch of the things that make the series good like we spend a ton of time with some new characters in this book that like aren't really relevant to like the overall story and they they're only introduced in this book and are not really going to be like main cast characters like moving on because sometimes the books introduce a new character that is now going to be part of the merry band moving forward this is not the case and there's a bunch of characters that are part of the sort of main sort of core group that appear in multiple books and they're just like not even in it at all and I'm like why are we spending all this time with these characters that I that are new and that I don't like that I don't need to care about moving forward like where are the characters that I do care about so this book it just I mean you have to read it in order to read the next book because it does um where it ends sets up what's going to happen in the next book but this book itself like if there was a way to skip it I mean I guess you could just like Wikipedia the summary but if you want to hear more in-depth thoughts the chat about it was on Bethany's channel um so the replay for that is available to you if you are interested but yeah Soul of Fire it's not it next is a book that again my audio hold came in for it so I was like let's do it slash I also had previously had the net galley arc for it and I had not managed to read it yet so when the hold came in I was like yeah I should read that because I'm I'm behind and that is sense and second-degree murder by Teresa Price um this is the second in what I gather is a series um of murder mysteries that are each retellings in their own right of a Jane Austen novel and reading this I also discovered that they are in a shared universe because Jane Austen novels I mean I guess are in a shared universe and so far as they aren't fantasy books like they ostensibly take place in the real world they're just fictional characters in the real world but like the stories don't like back in the day people weren't doing like multiverses and crossovers and like you know character cameos like we do nowadays but these books seem to be doing that not a lot um it's more just like a mention of like something from Pride and Premeditation where you're like oh okay so they're like aware of each other kind of um they're not like integral to each other's plots or anything so sense and second-degree murder if the plot or if the title did not um clue you into this is a retelling of sense and sensibility and sense and sensibility was always my favorite of the Jane Austen stories I don't know if it still is I'd have to revisit them all but I did always really really love sense and sensibility so based on that I do think I like this a bit better than Pride and Premeditation and I liked Pride and Premeditation a great deal I just Pride and Prejudice I like it but it's never been my favorite my favorite in general or my favorite Austin even I definitely always preferred sense and sensibility so I mean based on that I was just sort of more inclined towards this story that this is retelling and I do think it did a good job retelling it and there's a specific change that it makes I mean it obviously has to make quite a few changes in order to have make this be a murder mystery so like it is quite different in general but the nature of one of the characters is is changed quite a bit in this and it's a change that I like a lot that improves things for me I don't know it's wouldn't I guess really be possible in the original story given how that story goes and what the actual cultural you know how how society really was back then because she takes liberties but it's a character that I actually that probably was always my favorite character sensibility but that character nevertheless had some pretty big flaws in my opinion or I mean I don't know flaws is the right word because all the characters have flaws that's what makes them characters but there's a particular thing about that character that I was always like I don't like that this is part of that character and this book I'm guessing the author felt the same way because that character is still prominently featured so I think the author likes that character but also just like me was like I don't like this part of that character so I'm gonna change it and I like that that was changed I like it a lot so yeah I really enjoyed this again even better than Pride and Premeditation so I'm very much looking forward to reading um the rest of these books that I presume are going to be a thing start to you so far and we've got plenty of more Austin to go so whatever she comes out with next I am definitely interested in picking that up whenever that happens whichever Austin that might be there's another book that I don't have a physical copy of and that is Legends and Lattes that's the book that my patrons chose for me to read and vlog for them I don't know why um because they think they know me pretty well I think they just like to throw things at me to see my reactions I can't believe that they really thought that I would like it because um spoiler alert I didn't like it I felt about it exactly the way I expected to feel about it it is just it is just not my cup of tea so I would never have picked it up on my own uh because it's just like if you like it I'm really happy for you it's just not a project that I'm particularly interested in and then also I didn't think execution of it was all that great either because there are just definitely stories where I'm like this is not I mean like Taylor Jenkins read often writes books where I'm like okay if anyone else had written this like I wouldn't have even looked at it twice but because you wrote it I will read it and I will enjoy it and I inevitably do so like you can have a book that's like not really a project I'm interested in or not really the type of story that I would normally gravitate towards and yet the strength of the writing and the quality of the execution can you know win me over and be like okay I wouldn't normally read this but that was good it was not one of those cases I thought the execution was quite mediocre and it's already a thing that I'm not that interested in so sorry. Next up I have my book of the month club book or one of the yeah my other book of the month club book and then is Kai Kei by Vaishnavi Patel and I feel kind of mixed about it because at first I was like oh I don't like this I don't think I'm gonna like this oh god and it's pretty long as it went on it won me over a bit the story won me over a bit I don't think the writing is very good and I continued to feel that way throughout so I continued to be quite irritated with the writing itself but the story the setup of who is who and what is what and what the situation is there in and the reactions that people like not how that reaction is described necessarily but the fact of that reaction the fact of that interaction the fact of the interplay of those relationships the fact of the political situation did eventually get my interest and buy in although I continued to be again pretty irritated with the writing style so I ended up I think I gave it a three because I was like on the whole I ended up driving some enjoyment from this and wanting to kind of see where things would go and how they would end and and that part of things I was like positive on but I just thought the execution of it was like was just not not how I would like to see it done for many reasons partly is just kind of like I think this is a debut am I wrong about that I think it is so some of it is just kind of like amateurish like the way things are described the way that world building is info dumped like these are things I complain about all of the time so it was quite amateurish in that sense where it just kind of like clunky in how it introduces descriptions how it introduces you to lore how it introduces you to like who and what a character is it's just very clunky about that so that's not great and then also there's quite a bit of kind of like messaging in the book and the I complain about this all the time as well I'm like your story already has these messages in it you don't have to belabor the point but laboring the point takes away from the power of that message in my opinion like you'd have to be dumb not to pick up on some of these points but the book kind of goes out of its way to kind of like circle and highlight those points and to double down on them in ways that are extremely on the nose and feel like they're yelling at the reader where I'm like you really didn't need to do that the story itself the way that it is it has this message in it already and that you're clunky info dumps of world building aside it is woven in there already by virtue of who and what the story is and how it's unfolding and the way that it keeps coming back to those points to really like hammer them in and to really bash you over the head with them it's just insulting to me as a reader like that's one of the main reasons I don't like like I don't think it's a good way to write I don't think it's good writing but it's also you know it's like uh I mean just you know in terms of human interaction you know if you like tell somebody what to think they're going to be like well now I don't think that don't tell me what to think you have to like lead somebody to that conclusion so they feel it's like inception you know you have to lead them to believe they came to that conclusion themselves and a better book does that it just sort of presents you the situation to where the only really natural conclusion that you can draw from this is the one that they want you to draw but if you say this is the conclusion did you get it then you're like how dare you don't don't tell me what to do don't tell me what to think it makes it makes it less impactful and less uh it doesn't work as well so I'm just when I see that I'm like especially if it's a point that I do generally agree with because I'm irritated with it regardless it doesn't matter if I agree but if it's a point that I generally agree with and I'm like I don't want to see that point get ruined by you making it too on the nose and aggressive you know what I mean it's like I mean this is quite feminist the vein of other myth retellings that I'm aimed to be quite feminist but I mean like these are always compared to like Madeline Miller for you know marketing reasons but Cersei by Madeline Miller does thread that needle better where you can't help but walk away from that book feeling like you received the feminist message that she was serving but at no point does she like smack you in the face with her like this is my message you're like if she did then I personally as a reader would be insulted by the obviousness of that and be like don't tell me what to think but you led me there and I and you know I got to the end point that you wanted and I you know I'm picking up what you're throwing down so like it's done with more subtlety and nuance and it allows you to draw that conclusion yourself which is better in my opinion so Kaikay has has the potential in there to be a really great book but the writing is amateurish and it's too on the nose with its message so it it irritated me as much as it entertained me so it's not awful but it's far from great and the last book that I read was a book at the month club backlist book which I tried to like squeeze into my tbrs whenever I have extra room to like get through them this is a book that I put off reading for quite some time and I am mad that I put off reading this for so long because this is a new favorite maybe not you know top 10 of all time or anything like that but so good this is the second time I've read a book by this author and this is the second time that I've read a book by this author because I got it from book of the month so anyway the book in question is a ladder to the sky by John Boyne the previous book that I got from book of the month and read and loved was hearts invisible furies obviously also by John Boyne this is considerably shorter than hearts invisible furies and a very different book but it's storytelling like there's something quintessentially same about his storytelling which I very much works for me especially coming off of Kai Kei and picking this up I mean he is a more experienced writer not a nowhere near a debut it kind of felt like going from like watching like a school sports team or your school play and then afterwards going to like a professional sports game or to a professional theater and you're like okay so this is how the experts do it so this is a really interesting book on for many many reasons but basically I don't even know how to describe it how does it describe itself so I guess you could say it's the life story of a writer but that doesn't feel true even though it absolutely is like if you read it you cannot disagree that that is what it's about but so if you've ever read which I think is unlikely but if you've ever read Beast of Extraordinary Circumstance that's a unusual book because it tells the life story of a man but it's told through the perspectives of the various people that he needs in his life never his own perspective which is an interesting project so this is a bit like that I not entirely like that because we do actually end up getting the main character's perspective at one point so it's not never like the other one is and I don't think this book's like intention was quite the intention of that other book but it's kind of doing that where it's to do multiple different perspectives of people who have come to have an effect on this writer's life and you see him through those various eyes and then only later you get to see his own perspective and a lot of the brilliance of this book is quite spoilery I knew almost nothing going into it except whatever the vague description of it being about a writer and I was like it's by John Boyne and it sounds pretty good so I don't I don't want to ruin it because it unfolds in a way that is unexpected unless you know about it the better I think but it's it's about very um it's very morally gray and again this is why I think this is quite masterful because it's not worried about you thinking that the author thinks this is fine if that makes sense kind of like Joe Abercrombie you know he writes characters that do and think terrible things and he's not going on his way to signal to the reader but like this is bad though like it just lets these characters be kind of bad and kind of awful and it just like here's what they're doing and thinking and it's not like outright condemning it as much as I don't know like as other authors might feel they need to but it's quite clear that they're doing some very questionable things and it's slow like it's not um we're on page one you know they're killing children or something like it's uh it's a slow realization of like oh I'm a little uncomfortable with what you're thinking and feeling and doing and that happens multiple times and there's multiple times also where I mean it's never a mystery outright it's never like uh you know a whodunit or something or a thriller even where you know you're on the edge of your seat to like find out the mystery secret it's nothing like that there's a kind of element to it that's like that there are secrets there are dirty laundry there are skeletons in various closets it's just well done character work is great the writing itself I really like John Boyne's writing style um based on parts invisible theories and this you know I haven't read anything else by him but those two are phenomenal there is a lot of dry wit and it's not again it's not heavy handed it's not like jokes there's just a lot of times when there are there's commentary made either by characters themselves or just in the narration but the narration is often from the perspective of a character so arguably it is that character making the snide comment there's just the sort of the meta narrative to like the commentary on people that is present by virtue of depicting them in this way you know what I mean like the author is commenting on this person or this type of person by depicting them in this way I just think it's very very well done I the more I picked it up it's like all right let's read this and then the longer it went on I was like this is really good this is just really good like it's um I always use food metaphors but it's like if you order something off a menu because you're like that sounds pretty good like I think I'll like this and then you get it and like from your first bite you're like okay yeah I made the right choice that's pretty good and then the more you eat it you're just like I want to just savor and make every bite last as long as I possibly can because god this is good so that's why I felt reading this I was like oh my god this is so good this is so good and when I finished it I was like damn that was amazing it was really really good I don't know how I'm going to explain this to anyone but that was so good so anyway ladder to the sky by John Boyd highly recommend and the audiobook is read by multiple different narrators as I said in this story is kind of told from the perspectives of different people that have known this person so each one each of those perspectives is read by a different narrator which I think is a great choice it really works and um yeah I definitely definitely recommend this those are all the books that I read in May let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about my thoughts and feelings whatever you let me know I post videos on Saturdays other random times we log out on Saturdays so I can subscribe join my patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you