 Friends, welcome back to my channel. I hope you're all good. Today we're gonna do my September wrap up, which was another great reading month for me. I had nothing below a three star in ratings. I had a lot of five stars and I read a lot. I had a great reading month in September. I just felt like I told you the second half of the year was about to be my half of the year and listen, we're right. I think I'm just special, special. So if you watch what my wrap up show now we'll do reading statistics first and then I'm gonna add a new thing where I tell you just each of the books I read with their rating, not going into them at all. A few of you have asked for that and then we'll do surprises. I almost forgot then. Surprises, hits and disappointments. This video is kindly sponsored by Shortform but we'll talk about that a little bit later in the video. So let's just get straight into the reading statistics of the month. Okay, so in September I read a total of 14 books which is the second highest I've ever read in a month ever. The highest I've ever read is 16 and then I've hit 14 I think about three times a month. So I'm really happy. I've read a lot of books. I'm making great progress on reading a lot of books this year. I don't think anymore I'm gonna get to 150 books. I feel like you're a bit crooked. Hang on, can we like straighten you out a bit? Is that better? If you watched my channel at the start of the year you'll know I did set my goal of 150 books which I've never read 150 books a year before and then this start of the year was quite tough for me. So yeah, I don't think it's gonna happen. All you want to do is not necessarily what you're gonna do. I've lowered my Goodreads reading goal to 132 which might sound like a strange number but the most I've ever read in a year is 131. So this would be making it the highest I've ever read in a year which I think is kind of all you can ask, you know? If you're improving, that's all you can ask. So I have lowered it and I'm basically on track now to read 132. So yeah, hopefully we might read a little bit more than that but I'll just be happy if I top my previous record. So 14 books definitely helped me make progress towards that. Total pages read was 4,196. I don't often hit the 4,000 so I'm pretty happy about that. My average pages per day is 140 which again I'm super happy with. That's one of the highest average pages per day that I've had in a long time. The video that I just filmed which was reading seven horror books in seven days definitely helped with that. The average book length was 300 exactly. We're not quite exact. I think it was like 299.8 something. But I did tell a bit of a lie there. I read a lot of short books if you saw the horror book video I read a lot of shorter novellas for that but I also read some longer books. I read some of the longest books on my TBR as well. So it balanced out to 300. My average rating was a 3.89 which isn't super high. I've had a higher than that this year but I think that's still higher than my average because like I said, I didn't have anything below a three and the average time a book has been on my TBR was nine months. Again, we had quite a few books this month that I had literally just bought. I bought for videos. So they were like been on my TBR for zero months and then we had some books that had been on my TBR for like 30 or something ridiculous like that. In terms of ratings, I had three five stars, one 4.5 star, three four stars, four 3.5 stars and three three stars. So three and 3.5 stars did make up half of my reading which you know, like they're kind of gonna be books that I enjoyed but there were some aspects of it that I didn't enjoy especially the three stars. But the 3.5 stars, I think a lot of them were still books that I had felt like we're gonna be five stars so we're a little bit disappointing. In terms of genre, I read one contemporary, two fantasy, one graphic novel, one historical, five horror, two mystery, one nonfiction. So it's only five horror because out of the seven horror books I only read six in September, finished six in September and one of the horror I categorized as a graphic novel but yeah, horror still makes up the vast majority of what I read this month because of that video. In terms of format, one book was audiobook only, five books were mixed media which meant I had the physical and the audiobook and eight were physical only. I've been trying to read more books just physically. I feel like actually this month I struggled to get into some audiobooks. I was just ending up enjoying books just physically which earlier this year, that hadn't been the case. Earlier when I was struggling at the start this year I needed those audiobooks. I was not reading without those audiobooks. Oh how the tables have turned. So it's just interesting to see that shift in terms of audience. I read 13 adult books and one YA. Yeah, it was a lot of adult books this month. In terms of where the books came from one was from Book of the Month, three were gifts, eight were books I bought myself, one was from Audible, one was sent to the publisher and one was from Script. In terms of series stats, three books were part way through series and 11 were stand-aligns. So no new series started this month which I'm pretty proud of myself for. I'm gonna be starting at least one more series next month. I don't think I'm gonna reach my goal because I think my goal was perhaps a bit unrealistic but we'll chat about that at the end of the year. I'll have a series video right at the end of the year and we'll see how we did. And then in terms of authors' status, seven were from authors I'd read from before and seven were new to me, so 50-50. Okay, next let's quickly just read out all the books that I read this month. So these are not in the order in which I read them. I just took a picture for the thumbnail. So yeah, they're in order of size more like but let's go through each of them individually. So I read feminism for the 99% and manifesto and I gave this four stars. I read this thing between us and I gave this three stars. Final Girls by Riley Sager, I gave this three stars. A Picture of Murder by T.E. Kinsey, I gave this 3.5 stars. Comfort Move Apples, I gave five stars. Ring Shout by Peter Jenny Clark, I gave 3.5 stars. No Feel 10, Other Lives by Krista Madalardo, I gave three stars. Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins-Reed, I gave five stars. The Final Girls Support Group by Grady Hendricks, I gave four stars. The Neighbor's Secret by L.E. Erson Hellia, I gave four stars. The Dragon Republic by R.F. Krang, I gave five stars. And The Burning God by R.F. Krang, I gave 4.5 stars. The House of Lost Horizons, a graphic novel, I gave 3.5 stars. And Then Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones, I gave 3.5 stars. Okay, but before we get into the disappointment, surprises and hits, I wanna give a quick thank you to the sponsor of today's video, which is Shortform. So Shortform is super-powered book summaries. If you've ever wanted to try out a service that gives you book summaries, Shortform is where you need to go because they're not your ordinary book summaries. They're like book summaries cranked up to maximum. They have comprehensive coverage of all the book's key ideas, but plus commentary and analysis, which is the coolest part of it for me. They have so many genres from communication, lifestyle, marketing, politics, every kind of book, non-fiction book you could want. The summaries come with interactive exercises to help you consolidate your thoughts and help you remember everything better. But one of my favorite parts is that they bring in analysis from other books based on what that book is saying. You know, particularly in non-fiction, books aren't astound alone, you know? So when, you know, there's a certain idea in a book summary that can be linked to another book or analysis can be brought out, they put that in there, which I think is so great for learning and like drawing ideas together because when you're learning about a topic, it should be like a spiderweb of thought, not just, this is what this person says, this is what this person says. You need to like contrast and compare. I think Shortform is a great way to discover books you've never heard of before, give them a go, see if you like the ideas behind them before you maybe read the whole book. That's what I have been using it for. One book that I have been reading the book summary for is The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier. This is like a political economics book that my politics teacher used to recommend a lot when I studied politics back in sixth form. And I've always wanted to read the book itself. I've never gotten around to it. It's one of the oldest books shelved all my good reads. It's been there since the beginning and I've never gotten around to it because, you know, I'm super busy but reading the book summary has been giving me an idea of some of the key ideas. It's basically about how The Bottom Billion in the world are stuck in poverty traps and will stay stuck unless governments, aid agencies, international organisations and private charities work together to craft policies that help them overcome these traps. It's basically talking about how The Bottom Billion of the population is, well, not even forgotten about, is treated terribly to the benefit of the, you know, people above them, but how that needs to stop. So I've always been really interested in reading this book and reading the book summary has been helping me learn a bit more about the topic, taking me back to my learning politics days. So to get five days of unlimited access and 20% off, get this, a 20% discount on an annual subscription, join Shortform through my special link, shortform.com forward slash meg or check the link out in the description. Okay, thank you to Shortform again. Let's get into the disappointments of the month. The Bottom Billion of the World First is No Filter and Other Lies I'm so sad, I'm so sad. That's so upsetting. Fact Chance Charlie Vega, this author's debut was one of my favorite YA contemporary romances I've ever read. I loved it, but this one I just didn't love. I didn't love. So in this we're following Kat Sanchez who loves photography, but feels very insecure. Her Instagram doesn't get a lot of followers and she sees that as like a failure of herself. One of her friends from work lets her take pictures of her photography portfolio. And one day she uploads a picture of her friend to Instagram as like a catfish and can't stop doing it essentially. And there's romance in this as well. And my biggest problem with this was that I found it cringey. I found, this is a problem I have a lot. Is there a problem I have a lot with like contemporary YA contemporary? I was so happy when I read Fact Chance Charlie Vega because I was like, I found the author who I don't find cringe. Let it be no. I was just so sad. Like there were just so many phrases in this that just sounded like stilted and not like what any human would say. I don't know, just a strange tone of voice. And I found it really hard to get past that. For me, the writing is always the most important part of a book. If I don't vibrate the writing for whatever reason I find it really hard to just enjoy the book full stop. That annoyed me and also the whole, you know conflict surrounding the catfish Instagram did not need to happen. Like once she realized this was a bad idea she could have stopped it. There was like a hundred pages at the end where she knew I should just delete the Instagram and she just didn't. And the Instagram wasn't really mentioned. If she kind of made it, use it for a while realize she shouldn't then stop using it. It's not mentioned for a hundred pages and then guess what happens, you know what I mean? If I'm being honest, I'm a bit pissed off about it. Order that to say I didn't love it and I don't know if I'm gonna pick up Crystal Madalena's next one. For me, she was an author who I was gonna get every book from and now I just don't know. Oh, I will say there were elements obviously that I enjoyed about it because I gave it three stars. I loved the friendships in this and my favorite part was her relationship with her grandparents and exploring a difficult relationship she had with her parents who left her with her grandparents when she was young but took her brother and they lived down the street and have raised her brother but her grandparents have raised her and she only goes around there one night a week for dinner and that to me was the most interesting part of the book. I think the discussions around that was so well handled. So, you know, there were elements that I did enjoy. I also read Final Girls by Riley Sager. This was for my patron book club and I gave this three stars as well. This was not what I wanted it to be but we're following the perspective of one final girl who is living her normal life. Another final girl dies and then a third final girl meets up with our protagonist and is trying to get her to remember her past which she's kind of like shoved down inside herself. This is probably my least favorite Riley Sager in terms of reading experience. I can recognize it's a better book than Survived the Night which I gave two stars but I had fun reading Survived the Night. I like hate read it but I enjoyed that experience whereas this was just boring. If I speak I am in big trouble. In big trouble. It was just like nothing interesting, exciting, insightful, imaginative happened. Something that a lot of my patrons had an issue with was the descriptions of sex in this. There's a lot of it and the reasons people have sex and like it's just, it's such man writing woman. Like I really, I have this problem often with Riley Sager and how he writes his female protagonist I often find is a bit not great but especially how sex was discussed in this I was just like, girl, Riley, Riley, come on. I didn't like the kind of reveal at the end. Riley Sager often has this issue where there's only like two suspects throughout the whole of the book or three max for who the kind of big bad could be. Once he like eliminates some of them via some clues it's either so obvious who it is or it's totally not satisfying who it is. I feel like he needs a few more. For me, I love like six characters, five to suspect, do you know what I mean? And I always feel like he doesn't quite have enough. Okay, surprises. One that I want to give a quick mention is the final girl support group by Grady Hendrix. I gave this four stars and it's just a surprise because so many of you told me you hated it and I liked it. I'm an acquired taste. You don't like me, acquire some taste. So obviously it's another final girls book I wrote to this month but this is more what I wanted from it, right? We have this support group of like six women who were final girls back in the 70s, 80s and 90s and now someone it seems is trying to make their way around the group and kill them all off. Things I enjoyed about this, much more campy fun, like quick, high stakes, crazy stuff happening. Two movie references are a big part of this. I really love the mixed media elements. All of the women like films have been made about what happened to them, like kind of slashes. After every chapter, there's some element of mixed media and it often relates to the films. If you're gonna write a book about final girls, I feel like Riley Sager's one was too serious whereas this is like ridiculous mirroring the energy of like slasher films and I loved that element of it. The second half of this or the last third, I didn't love as much. I just think it dragged a bit so that was why it was a four star but I really enjoyed this. Now I can see why people wouldn't like it because it is ridiculous. Like by the end, you're like, no one should be alive. This should have ended like 100 pages ago with everyone dead. Like this is ridiculous. But I don't mind that sometimes. I honestly don't. And then my other surprise this month, this is one of my three five stars I gave out this month was Comfort Me With Apples by Catherine M. Vellent. I didn't know what to expect from this. I honestly didn't even live the plot going into this and I loved it. I have to be very careful with how I pitch this because it is only 100 pages and I don't wanna spoil anything. But we basically meet our protagonist who believes she was made for her husband, how she is perfect for him, how her life is perfect. She lives in this perfect society and then you know, it becomes clear that's not the case. This was just such a creepy haunting book and what I really enjoyed about it was that in a chapter, there'd be stuff happening that made you feel a bit unsettled. You'd be like, um, anyways. And then at the end of the chapter, something crazy would happen, like something gory or gross, whatever. And you'd be like, um, the rest of the chapter would somewhat mirror the rules of reality. And then something happened at the end that just is so absurd that you're like, I'm gonna collapse. No, I don't. I feel faint. So I really enjoyed that. I loved the writing and my favorite part of this is the ending. I think the ending was really, really great. I don't want to say anything, but I loved the themes that it went and explored and I really was not expecting it to go that way. Okay, time for the hits, which are my final two of five stars. We have Carrie Soto's back by Taylor Jenkins-Rood. I read this on holiday. If you wanna go watch my holiday vlog to hear more in-depth thoughts about it. I read like the first 90 pages one day or maybe 80 pages. And then I read the whole rest of the book on the beach one day, which was just the best reading experience. And I loved this. I loved it so much. So we're following Carrie Soto, who is the best tennis player the world has ever seen. Also, it seems when she's watching years after retirement, watching this other tennis player equal her record for slams and she decides to come back to playing. And there's just something about Taylor Jenkins-Reed's writing that I just find very comforting. Like, I don't think I could dislike one of her books. Now it's gotten to that point. This is my fourth five star that I've given to her. I've given all of her big name books, you know, the recent ones, five stars. I loved seeing Carrie Soto grow in this book because we saw her in Mother Be Rising and she wasn't my favorite. So I loved getting to love her and getting to know her. I loved the exploration of personal determination and, you know, seeing how this all rested on her. I spoke about how in that video, I watch a lot of sport, but mostly like football that is group based. Whereas in tennis, it's all on you. It's all on her to like pull it out of the bag and be great. And I found that really interesting. And one of my favorite parts of the book was her relationship with her father. Her father is her coach and the journey that they go on throughout the book and what they learn about themselves alone and together is really, really beautiful. So I loved this. It was fun. I had a great time on the beach reading it. I lived my best life. I sipped some strawberries, I ate some pizza. You're that bitch. It was amazing. But it was a great reading experience. So yeah, I can't wait to see what Miss Taylor brings out next. I need her to announce it today, honestly. I need to know. And then finally, my other five star this month was the Dragon Republic by I.F. Quang. So I obviously said I gave the Burning God 4.5 stars. The Burning God, I'll just go back quickly, was interesting because it has one of my least favorite sections in the whole trilogy, which is like the middle section of the Burning God. I just found it boring. But the ending of the Burning God is one of my favorite sections of the whole trilogy, the ending, along with the beginning of the Poppy War. The bookends of the series are my favorite parts. But I didn't give the Poppy War all the Burning God five stars, whereas I gave this five stars because for me, this was great throughout. It was like solid throughout. So I can't say much about this because obviously it's the sequel, but in the Poppy War series where he followed Rin, she comes from poverty, she goes to the elite training warrior school and gets embroiled in war. It's probably just a case of the Mondays. And this one's a lot about military tactics. We see relationships grow between her and Noja and Kite. Kite is my favorite, one of my favorite characters ever. Like I love him, I wish I could die for him. I want to protect him with every fiber of my being. I adore him. I feel like he was great in this book. I didn't feel like his character was as great in the Burning God. I feel like he got a bit lost, whereas I loved his character in this book. Are of Quang's writing is incredible. Like she could do no wrong in my eyes. I'm so excited to read Babel next month. I just loved this and I'm finding it difficult to talk about it without spoiling anything. So go watch the vlog because I did a much better job of doing it in the moment, I think. But yeah, the ending of this also killed me. I sobbed. I just love her. I love her of Quang. I love everything about her. I love everything she does. So there we have it friends. That was my September wrap up. Let me know how your reading went in September. Tell me your disappointment, surprises and hits. Tell me any of your reading statistics. I would love to know. Again, make sure you check out Shortform down below. Even if it's just to try out the five day free trial, I would 100% recommend it. I've had so much fun learning more through it, discovering more through it. So yeah, go to shortform.com forward slash Meg. Go check it out. If you got into the end of the video, comment the heart of hands emoji down below if you got into the end of this video. I love you guys so much. Thank you for watching to the end and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.