 Hello hello everyone my name is Laura and this is my channel Laura's Little Library and welcome to today's video which is my May wrap up. Yeah it's gonna be a long list. I will say six of them were manga which makes it a lot easier so then I have 15 like novels to talk about this month. So I'm just gonna go ahead and get started then. First up I have Curse of the Specter Queen by Jenny Elder Moke and this I hyped up for myself so much but in the end it was only a three star. So I was super excited about this book. It's a 1920s gender swapped Indiana Jones with Celtic mythology and I love every aspect about that. I love that it's historical. I love that it's Indiana Jones type so like treasure hunt. I love that it's Celtic mythology. Like that is a huge passion that I have. I love that it's gender swapped so we the Indiana Jones character is female. Our main character is female but I ended up being very disappointed in this book and again a lot of that is because I hyped it up for myself so that is partially my fault. I still think it's a good book like it's three out of five star. I think it was good. I think it was fine. She's got another book coming out later this year Rise of the Snake Goddess and I plan on reading it because I'm hoping that as she publishes more books her writing will get better. I loved the characters. The characters I did not have an issue with our main character. Sam was really fun to read from. She's a little more introverted and not necessarily this big extroverted adventurer. That's her friend Joanna and their brother who is the love interest and so I very much enjoyed the characters. However I felt the pacing of this book was completely backwards. I felt the beginning was very slow and it kind of had a really good build up. Like I didn't mind that it was slow. It took me a little bit to get through but I just kept getting more and more excited about what was going to happen. But then the actual Indiana Jones treasure hunt like solving the clues going from place to place happened in like the last 40 pages of the book. It was super rushed. It seemed way too easy. It was not very well thought out. There was very little description. I was confused on what was going on. Like were they going somewhere? Were they not? What did the land look like? It just it was a very disappointing end and then you had your little mythological fight at the very very end which again could have been really cool but because I was already disappointed at the middle of the book what should have been the middle was actually the ending. I was just kind of done and just wanted to get the book read so I'm hoping that in her next book it'll be a little more balanced of build up to the actual contents of the book that I was excited for but and then I read Five Dark Fates, Two Dark Crowns. That's it. So I read Five Dark Fates and Two Dark Crowns by Kendari Blake. These were books three and four of the Three Dark Crowns series. So I rated Five Dark Fates or sorry that's number four. So I rated Two Dark Rains three out of five stars. I just there I didn't have much to say about it. Like I liked it. It was fine. The story continued. There's another book so I'm going to read it and the story wasn't over but I just felt like not a lot happened and it kind of had like that middle of the series book syndrome of just like it's a continuation and not much really happened but you can't continue without it and like it was fine. It was well written. You know it was a three out of five stars it was average and then the final book in the series Five Dark Fates. I also gave three out of five stars. There was Queer Rep in the fourth one which was nice to see and I thought it was a very interesting approach to it but it's like oh I would have loved that a little bit earlier in the book because it's with the character that we know for the entire series and I wish there was a little bit more in the beginning but that's just me. Nothing to knock a star off or anything dramatic like that. I just was sitting there waiting for the big ending battle to happen. Like I almost wish I could have just skipped the end to read the end of the battle see how it ends and then be done with it like the first half of the book just kind of not again not much interesting happened you know it was kind of like what happened with Siege and Storm by Lee Bardugo where the second book was just super slow super boring nothing happened until the very end it kind of felt like that kind of pacing so there there was a lot of point of view switching and it was really hard to keep track of and it just got to be too much and that was something I was struggling with in the series before it was harder to keep track of it in this fourth book it's a little bit easier in previous books but still that was just way too many POVs just way too many yeah there was just a lot it was just kind of a lot uh I still very much like this series I don't know if I'll buy the books but I the thing is that I loved the first one and the second one was good it was just third and fourth that just kind of mellowed out to be okay so we'll see what happens with that then I also read Magic Lessons this is by Alice Hoffman and it's book one in the practical magic series this felt like a prequel to something that I wasn't quite sure of but or maybe there is a prequel I'm not super sure um I rated this two out of five stars it was not necessarily one of my favorite books so it's historical fiction it takes place kind of during Salem witch trials and we do follow a witch she moves from England to the States to Salem Massachusetts this one it gave it felt very much like 10,000 doors of January which if you've been on my channel you know that I loved that book it had that similar style of storytelling but I don't think it quite pulled it off because I didn't like the story as much as I thought I would I will say I loved that there were different like recipes and meanings and educations about witchcraft in the book and that was a really fun like way to break it up and to read with but it it re explains the same thing multiple times and it does that with multiple things where it's like so here's something to know here's the mini explanation behind it and then a couple pages later here here's the same thing that I just told you and I'm gonna explain it again and it does that a couple times so it got a little repetitive in the writing and it just really took me out of the story there were these weird like history lessons within it which I wouldn't have minded but again it was repeated and so it just made me feel like I was dumb even though like that's not at all what it was going for um yeah it just kind of had like a slice of life style which wasn't bad but again there was just kind of no plot nothing really for me to follow I wasn't super intrigued on what was happening with our characters and it kind of it went from one generation to the other but it was still focused on the first generation but it wasn't super clear and yeah it just it was not my cup of tea uh two out of five stars you know I might not recommend it but it is what it is I also read Six Crimes and Cranes by Elizabeth Lim this is weird I need to hold it on this side of me I don't know why uh and I loved this one this was a five out of five stars I loved Elizabeth Lim's other duology and I love this one so far the second one the dragon's promise will be coming out soon which is super exciting um it's nice and fast paced I really liked the main character a lot I loved how she used her magic I love her personality I love the way the plot affected our main character so this is based off of Chinese mythology but oh I just love how just how it all played out how the mythology played into things but how it was not modernized because it's still like it's a fantasy world but I just I loved it so much I love the magic system I love like the mystery the twists and turns that happen like you're adventuring and then something happens and you're like oh crap now what are you gonna do oh it's so good the twist ending I'm so ready for the second book I swear though if it's a love triangle I am going to be very upset but only the second book will tell but oh well like it had a it had a good cliffhanger ending and so I cannot wait for the next book to come out the writing was beautiful the characters were amazing the world building was great there's just so much goodness and richness here and it was all beautiful like it matches the beauty of the color then shortly after I read the girl who fell beneath the sea by axi oh and this is a story based off of Korean mythology where our main character sacrifices herself so that her brother's girlfriend doesn't have to be sacrificed to the sea god to try and wake him to stop all the terrible storms that are happening on at her village and her land and whatnot low and behold only to find out that the sea god is not angry but that he is actually asleep so she must travel through the spirit world to figure out how to wake him up and I enjoyed this book again I'm like 3.5 4 out of 5 stars like I didn't I didn't love it as much as I thought I would and as much as maybe other people are loving it but it's still a very good book like it's still probably 4 out of 5 stars for me I just think like it got my emotions going a little bit um but I felt like there was a little bit of a disconnect between the author and me as a reader like it's it's beautiful but the story doesn't just doesn't quite flow in the way that I I thought it would just with the beautiful writing but then I would sit there and it'd be like but that doesn't quite make sense how are you connecting this and this together like like I just didn't it didn't flow as easily and it wasn't quite as easy for me to read not because it was artistic but just like we'd be in one place and then all of a sudden we're at another or maybe it's the same place just called something different I don't know I just had a couple struggle moments and it does feel a little watered down I don't know if that pun was intended I could not tell you if the pun was intended or not but like it's it's just not quite as rich as it could be and not that it was slow but just that it could have been a little better I also will say sometimes the scene we just kind of fade to the end even though it didn't feel like it was the end of a scene like it would just drop once we had the information we needed it would be cut off and we'd just be done rather than like a kind of final wrapping up or a transition into the next scene because then you know the next scene would just start and it would was it a different day different people like it just once you got the information needed you kind of moved on and so I think that was another issue I had and why it didn't flow but I will say I loved the romance the characters were pretty good I liked them but the romance was probably one of the best parts and that was just saying and that says a lot considering the romance got really confusing at the end yeah the romance got confusing but because you know there's a lot of back and forth and it wasn't necessarily a love triangle in the traditional sense like I didn't hate that per se but it was just a little weird in my opinion but again still a four star I still highly recommend this book just because I had these few issues with it doesn't mean that it's not a good book or I think other people won't enjoy it like I still very much recommend it just I was expecting it to be a five star read and it wasn't but it's a four star read which is still very good I also read volumes six through 11 of Silver Spoon I am currently holding up volume 15 because I have volumes 12 13 14 15 of this and that this is the end like once I finished the batch that I have I have finished this manga which is awesome it'll be the first manga I have ever finished I am borrowing them from a friend so yes I read six more volumes of Silver Spoon it's wonderful still kind of waiting for the big thing to happen like the big realization that the main character is supposed to have but I also know I'm almost there so it will happen at some point but it's still a fun story and beautiful to read I think the volumes have gotten better and I like them a lot so now we get to move on to all the books that I read over audio and that was a lot I read a crystal of time by Soma and Chainani this is book number five in the school for good and evil series there are six books unless you divide them up between the two trilogies that they are then it's book two in the Camelot years and I rated it 3.5 out of five stars I thought it was very long and it could have been split up and it would have been a little more enjoyable and then we would have been able I mean the scenes were very much delved into as they should be but like I don't know I think it would have just been easier to go through as two separate books and there was even a natural stopping point where I was like is this the end of the book because I would be very happy it makes perfect sense you know it seems like the end of the book and it wasn't it was only like halfway through the book so by the fact that there was that long I kind of wish that had been split up however I will say I do not think that anything needed to be shorter I liked everything that was there I loved there was a pov change with a new character and I loved that they did that I'm not going to spoil anything obviously but I'm just saying there there was that little thing there I really like the continued exploration of the world like normally when you get to book five you feel like either you've explored the world completely and now you're just trying to solve the plot or the world is just never ending and you kind of get sick and tired and you want to just move forward with the plot but in this book I did not feel either of those things I liked that we are still exploring because we didn't explore something new like in the world every book so I liked that it's a little more spread out and it still makes sense and it kind of ties back to things that were earlier in the book so it's not just out of the blue but yeah I really much enjoyed the continued exploration the character growth was fair because it it was acknowledged that it needs to be there but it wasn't just like an immediate growth like we get with a lot of books which is good because that's not necessarily how humans grow in our character but I'm also just ready for the growth to be done like again we're on book five I'm ready for this boy to be grown as a human being but I've also found that it was starting to get kind of boring and repetitive like especially with the character Sophie the continued doubt of her and the continue of will she won't she like it's book five and this has been a plot point in every single book so the fifth time I'm getting a little a little bored and I mentioned this when I talked about reading the fourth book where I was like I'm not bored with this but if it happens again I'm gonna be annoyed it happened again so I'm a little annoyed so you know like it was long but it was good but it didn't feel very unique and I'm just kind of ready and there's just so much happening um but I think some of it could have just been taken out but I mean not really so yeah that review did not make a lot of sense but those are my feelings sometimes my feelings don't make sense next up I read the late of secrets by Trisha Levinseller and this I also gave five out of five stars I absolutely loved and it follows our main character who is a bladesmith but she also has anxiety and she ends up creating this weapon the late of secrets it's way too powerful for this warlord who wants it just she's like no we're gonna run away so she takes her sister and they meet up with a couple other people and they kind of run away with the sword to make sure that the evil warlord doesn't get it and I I also have anxiety and to read a fantasy book with a main character that has anxiety was so nice and refreshing like I just could not believe it it made me so happy it made me felt seen it made me feel like I can still be a main character of my own story even though I have anxiety even though I have no idea how to talk to people and I rerun scenarios in my head of how it could have been better and how I messed up and like I was I was really able to relate to the main character and everybody's anxiety is different and there were a few areas where I was like okay I don't quite relate to that by understand like that is still a struggle so I very much enjoyed the characters and I liked your sister and the love interest and like I like how all that panned out it is the first book in a duology master of iron is coming out this summer I'm very excited to pick that up I loved the magic system how it all works magic is outlawed but she has it so like oops and just like what she does with blades and family and I I very much loved this book and I very much recommend it and then the final book that I am going to talk about is the henna artist by alka joshi um this is a 1950s historical fiction taking place in j port India and I rated it 3.5 out of 5 stars I liked it again it's a little more slice of life kind of I'm using these longer terms but um for this historical fiction I was really excited to read it it was not like anything I have read before but just know that there are some triggers going into it specifically abortion and things of that nature so just if you're interested in it just know that that is a thing and be cautious it really kind of remind me a little bit of called the midwife which is a tv show that I watch with my mom and we both adore and my aunt adores it so called the midwife it's about midwifery in the 1950s but in England um so it was really fun to read about the same time period but in India it was just so much fun it's a little slow it's very interesting and I was very fascinated to read it but it was a very slow moving and there were some interesting family dynamics in there and I loved the woman empowerment in it too where she is a working woman and she's going to build herself the house of her dreams that she wants so I really admired that aspect of it and especially because it was probably not easy in those times to be a non-married independent woman it was just a beautiful story it was well written and beautiful even if it was slow and I didn't feel like a lot of things were really happening um it took me a while to adjust to the cast just because there were quite a few cast members a lot of characters and that would just kind of pop in here and there but in the end I was very like happy that I read it and it was it was a good book so I obviously have not talked about 21 books but the thing is is that all the rest of the books that I read in May are my Disney twisted tales because I am currently filming that vlog I'm almost done I'm on the last book it's super exciting um so I'm not going to talk about those books here especially because I've read so many books that this video is going to be ridiculously long if I did talk about all of them but I will talk about all of them in the vlog so make sure you subscribe and hit the bell to be notified because that vlog will be going up fairly soon hopefully in the next week or two depending on how long it takes me to read the final book um but I do have all of them and I had read some before the vlog so but I will talk about all of them in the vlog so like I said make sure you subscribe so you don't miss that otherwise give this video a like a thumbs up if you liked it comment down below if you read any of these books or what your favorite book was in May that you read um I have bookish social medias linked down below that you can follow me there and keep up to date with me a little bit more and I think that is everything so until I see you all in the next video I wish you happy reading