 Hi guys, it's Julia and welcome back to my channel. And for today's video I'm going to be doing my November wrap-up talking about the books that I read in the month of November. The first book that I read this month was The Childfinder by Renee Denfeld. This is a mystery kind of suspense novel and it's about this woman named Naomi who finds these children that have gone missing and it's her job. She thinks it's her destiny. It's what she does. And she is trying to find this girl named Madison that went missing a while ago and it's really interesting and atmospheric. Sorry, I've never sat on like a spinny chair to film before. I usually sit down in my bed but since the shelves are new, I'm on a spinny chair. Yay! So sorry if I'm moving. But this book was really interesting. It's very atmospheric. If you're looking for that, I'd definitely suggest it. Her writing is absolutely stunning. I'm not surprised I read The Enchanted by her and it was really good as well. The only thing that lacked for me is it's not like an on-the-edge-of-your-seat kind of read. It's just a beautifully told tale. It kind of has a fairy tale-esque side to it as well. Like a dark fairy tale. It's definitely very wintry so it's perfect for this time of year. The only thing that I wasn't a fan of was Trigger Ones for Animal Cruelty and Pedophilia as well in this book. But I wasn't a big fan of the romance and then the only other thing that lacked for me was, again, I wasn't too invested but it was really beautifully told and I give it a lot of credit. And I will definitely be picking up whatever else Renee Denfield writes in the future. So I gave this 3.5 out of 5 stars. Enchanted by Cara Beatrice. This is a poetry collection. So this is a poetry collection about all sorts of things. Mostly about love and what poetry is usually all about. I was sent an exchange for an honest review and unfortunately I didn't enjoy it very much. I found a lot of the poems very cliche and repetitive with one another. They're definitely things that I've read before. They're basic kind of poetry, lines, basic analogies that I've seen before and heard before. And I also just thought they were really short, like too short. And it just didn't work for me. So I ended up giving this a 2 star rating. There was a few poems that I liked but I gave it 2 stars. So it's up here. I read 10 count volume 1. This is by Rihito Takaria. I tried. So this is a manga series that is a male male romance and it's about a guy who has obsessive compulsive disorder and one day he is approached by this nice looking man. And of course this man's a psychologist and he says, hey, I see you're wearing gloves. You probably are a hand washer and you probably have OCD so you should come to my office. And the guy goes, okay. And then they start seeing each other for sessions and he gives him a list of 10 things to do to cure his OCD. That's not how it works. So that bothered me. It's horrible representation for OCD. I think it's a bad image to put in people's heads that 10 steps you're done and then you're going to be with this hot man. It's like, that's not how it works. I'm going to give this 2 stars because it wasn't that bad. Like the art style was kind of okay. I'm probably going to boost this down to like a 1 or a 1.5 stars. I was really not impressed with this one unfortunately and I will not be picking up the rest. Yeah, so as you can see the reading, my reading must start off pretty rocky. So next up I picked up without merit by Colleen Hoover. This definitely did not help that streak at all. Well, it did help the streak of bad reads. But anyways, this book is about a girl named Merritt and she has a very complicated family life. She lives in a church. She, her actual mom who lives downstairs and her siblings. And basically she is in an antique store and she likes to buy trophies for herself, which at first I was like, okay, fun. And then this nice man is just eyeing her and she's like, huh, that guy's pretty hot. I'll just let him stare me down like a hawk. So then he follows her and she's just like, yes. And they start making out on the corner, but oh, oh, no, Merritt has a twin sister. Wasn't supposed to be her and she's shook. Well, she knows she has a sister, but she thought this guy was there for her, you know. Basically, I hated this book. I think there's a lot of trigger warnings for this book. I think this is going to get a lot of dislikes. There's a lot, there's a lot trigger warnings for this book and a lot of people are hating it right now, which honestly, I don't get why someone would give this five stars other than that it's a fast read. Like usually I can kind of see why people would like it, but this is so creepy to the point where no. And I personally can't explain the representation for this, but apparently it's getting called homophobic, which literally the twist in it is so inappropriate and does not make sense at all that it's really offending a lot of people. And also the, all the things that happened with Merritt, again, weren't done, dealt with right. And then there's this other guy in the book. I wrote a whole like ranty Goodreads review if you want to check it out, but I didn't like it. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you liked it, you do you. And if you did give this book five stars, explain to me why in the comments, because I don't know why you'd give it five stars. But you do you, I don't know. Next up here I have The Virgin Suicide by Geoffrey Genides, and of course I was having a very bad spree of reads, other than The Child Founder, which was pretty good, but the other three, no. So I decided let's pick a book I know I'll love. So this is my fifth or sixth, fourth, fifth, I don't know, reread of this book. Basically if you don't know I talk about it all the time, but it is about the five Lisbon daughters who all commit suicides, and it's about these boys who live across from, who live across the street from them, and they kind of are very fascinated with them and what happened to them and their lives, and that's what this story is about. And it's amazing, I love it. Five stars, I don't say that often, but five stars. I wouldn't have reread it this many times if I didn't like it. Definitely I've had better times rereading it than this time, just because I wish I read it with my annotations because I'm like, no I want to read a new book, like one with no notes, but then I was like, I wanted to read my notes too because I drew pictures in there and it's just fun, but I love it. I love it. If you haven't read this yet, please do. Here I have Murder on the Orange Express by Agatha Christie. This I talked about a ton already on my channel. I did a whole book review for it, so I'll link that up on the screen and then the description box at the end of the video, you know the drill. This is about a man who gets murdered on the Orange Express and the detective on this train has to figure out who it is, who did it, that sort of story. So there's interviews with all the people, it's very organized, this book, which was something I liked about it. The only thing is that for you isn't why I only gave this three stars is because it was good. Don't get me wrong, it was good. I do like Agatha Christie's writing, but like you're there, like I'm there for the mystery. Like if I catch it early or if it doesn't impress, well that sounds kind of cocky, but if it's not like an amazing reveal, then it lacks for me. Like it's one of those books where like the last 50 pages really decides my rating kind of thing, because it's written like good, but it's simple, but like you're there because of the mystery, because of the suspense, you're waiting for this reveal. And though it was shocking, like and then there were none a lot more, weirdly enough, so I gave this one three stars. It was still good. I would suggest it for a Christie novel. It was really interesting and check out my review if you want to know more, but I definitely prefer then there were none. Then I decided to finish off one of my new favorite series, which is along the series, and that is Deathman Wonderland. So I finished volumes 13, this is not 13, 11, 12, and 13. So I read these three, and these are so good. I love this series basically, it's about a boy named Ganta who gets accused of killing his whole class, and because he's the only one there, he's the only one who lives, and his whole class gets assassinated, and they send him to the Deadman Wonderland prison, which is very like a carnival amusement park type of prison. They, the prisoners do like, they make the prisoners play these games that are like life to death kind of games, and it's about him and the people he meets in there and stuff like that, but these are, this is the last volume 13. So I liked it. I gave four stars, four stars, and then like I think a five or a 4.5. The series is so good, so good, so good. So here I have a book that I actually ended up DNF-ing, so for that I have a lethal marriage, and this is by Nick Prome. This is the A True Crime book about, A True Crime book about Paul Bernardo and Carla Hamulca. This is a really twisted case, that Canadian case, and it involves a spree of rapes and murders, and like the, not Toronto-ish, but like it's around Toronto just for people who don't know Ontario very well, but I had to DNF it. Honestly, it literally says on the back, this book contains graphic descriptions, and you guys know me, like I don't get grossed out by stuff, but this is so close to home for me, and it is so descriptive. Like I can't sit there and read like so in detail rapes, and it's like I know that have happened, and like I know people who have kind of had connections with these people or the case, and I'm like, it's too close to home for me, like I can't read it. And I read like over 100 pages and I got as much detail as I needed for my essay through like this, and then articles and stuff, but like I can't finish this book. Like it's so much, and it's kind of terrifying. So I ended up DNFing it. I ended up reading Hunting Prince Dracula. This is by Carrie Menescalco. This is the sequel, the second book to Stalking Drop the Ripper, and these are historical fiction crime, mister, not crime, well they're thriller, crime thrillers, historical fiction. Basically our main character, the female in the story. This, since it is set so far back in the past, she actually portrays a really good feminist, there's a really good feminist component to this story. And that she is interested in forensic science and all that sort of stuff. So this book just follows another case from book one, but it does, you do have to read both because it does start off with like how the first book affected her, and then it's about this new case that's happening right now. And this is really fun. It's a YA series. Book one, I only gave about three stars. It was okay. Book two, I listened to this on audiobook. It was so good. I loved it a lot. Yeah, I'm so excited for the next book. Honestly, this book was so much fun. I love the main characters. I love the dude. I love the romance. It's just so much fun. So I definitely suggest it. Next up here, I've read Note to Self by Conor Franta. This book is Conor's autobiography. Biography, that sort of thing. It's his second book that he came out with and is just full of pictures and just stories and poetry. And it's absolutely stunning inside and out. I loved it so much. I was surprised about how much I enjoyed this. I think his writing is beautiful. I think he really, like he's the one, he's like the one person who writes, like he's the one YouTuber who like writes a book and it's not shitty, very shitty writing. So I really loved this. It's not because I'm a huge Conor Franta fan, which I am a fan, but I'm not like a Die Hard fan. I definitely was there in the O2L days a lot. Now I just watched some of his videos for enjoyment, of course, but I just love this guy's personality and the way he views the world. And I love these photos and this is really inspiring. So I definitely recommend this. I adored it. I could not put it down. It was amazing. I gave it five stars, which is really weird, but I gave it five stars. Like I had a great butt. Like other than the shitty ratings, I gave some good ratings. So five stars to note this up. Here I have the smell of other people's houses by Bonnie Sue Hitchcock. A little bit on the back, just like the little thingy. So this is four different lives are about to become entangled. Ruth wants to be remembered. Dora Whis is she were invisible. Alice came from herself to leave. Hank is running away. They live in Alaska on the cold edge of America, where each one must find the strength, courage and heart to survive. So this, oh, no one texts me. Why now? Christian book. I listened to the audio book of it and I ended up really liking it. I think it's very, like something very special. It's a very hard hitting story. You definitely got to pay attention and then when it intertwines and all that, it's beautiful. So it's, it's worth the read. If you're looking for a nice little short read, I definitely recommend it. Who's tweeting me? Yeah. I gave this four stars. For another review copy, so I wrote the beat on Ruby Street. This is a historical fiction book. This book is set in 1958 and we follow our main character who's named Ruby. She is 11 years old and she gets caught apparently stealing a piece of fruit from a grocery store. So she is brought to the station and her home life is investigated and she has to go to a children's home and it's kind of though to her. She's kind of reckless. She doesn't really know what to do. She's just trying to get back to her family sort of thing. This book was just kind of F for me, unfortunately. I thought it would be much better than it was. I definitely think the plot is better and I don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. The story just felt really one-dimensional and just not real. They were just flat to me. So the character Ruby, at parts I liked her but a lot of the time she was really annoying and made a lot of stupid decisions which is kind of normal. For a 11 year old, she's very naive because she is young but just some things that she says it's not addressed later. I talk about it in my good reviews. The writing was overall not the greatest. It was kind of messy and it was written really messy but I couldn't stop reading it. That's the thing. It was interesting enough for me to finish and kind of see where this story was going and to see how it would end and there was just entertainment value of it for me. It was definitely an easy read. There were some things in this book that I wasn't happy with. For example, Ruby is hiding in this room away and she's yelling for help because she can't get out. And so a man tries to help her and he's trying to open the door and I think he says something to her and she goes, oh my god, he's a pervert. Like he's a guy. It's like, literally it's, I hear the door banging like he's trying to break down the door. This makes me think he really is a pervert. What? So I ended up giving it two stars. Last and final book I read this month was Warcross by Marie Liu. I loved this so much. This is a sci-fi, Julia liked sci-fi. Dang, this is a sci-fi young adult novel and it's about this virtual reality, this game. It's amazing. I would highly recommend it. I'm hoping to do a review on this so I want to talk about it more there. But this was incredible to me. The writing was amazing. The plot, the premise, it felt like I was there. I just fell in love with this book instantly, almost, which is really weird because usually I can't get into these books. But this book, the writing, the characters, the romance, everything about it was perfect to me, which is really weird. And it's definitely my top five this year. Like how did that happen? I don't know. But I'm honestly in love and I was like holding this for like four hours after I finished it. I was just like, don't touch me. So I gave this five stars. I'm not over it. Those were the books that I read the month of November. Let me know your thoughts on these books. Hopefully I didn't offend anybody. I did give some low ratings. Again, what can you do? I didn't like them. Sucks. Definitely let me know your thoughts down below. And if you want to follow me on any other social medias, I have my Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Goodreads, I'll link down below in the description box. And let me know if you guys are excited for the daily videos and all that sort of stuff. I'll see you all soon with a new video. Bye.