 pimples on my chin and it's annoying. 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 June wrap up. Eleven books and June technically isn't over but I highly doubt I'll finish my current read before the end of June. By the way my current read is a master of gin so I have decided this month that I'm going to go through the books that I read this month in order of least favorite to favorite. Another thing to point out before we really get started is that my theme for this month was like queer especially queer romance but not specifically queer romance. Not every book I read was queer just because I had like some audiobooks and other things that I just had available to me and so I wanted to read it before it became not available to me. I didn't have any one-stars or DNS which is great. So we're gonna start off I had two two-star books. So the first one was A Spindle Splintered by Alexi Harrow and I just was not a fan of this one. I thought the beginning was really cool and the initial concept was good but I don't like how the story grew. I didn't like the writing. I didn't like our characters as much as I wanted to. I think the concept was good but it was taken in a direction that didn't make sense or I didn't enjoy. So this really just missed the mark for me and I will not be continuing on with other books that may or may not be published. By this I'm still willing to give the author a chance even though I wasn't a fan of the writing. I think this book it was too short but only because the author tried to do more than what I think they could fit in this length. I think if they either allowed themselves more space or didn't try to reach for the stars it would have been a little better. So I'm still up for reading more from this author but not any in this series of any more coming out. My other two-star book was Cool for the Summer and this is by Dalia Adler. This follows our main character who is discovering that she is bisexual. She had a it's a dual timeline so we have the now which is school is starting again and her long time crush has finally asked her out. She's so excited to go on a date with him but she's also flashing back through her romance of the summer with this girl in North Carolina and she wasn't aware that she was bi before this so it kind of just made her question and I knew that I wasn't going to be a big fan of this book. Like going in I knew it was gonna be a love triangle and I knew that I was going to get frustrated with it but it was so much worse in that regard than when I thought it was going to be. It was just painful to read so much cringe so much like second hand embarrassment and like even the characters I was like what there's no point in you doing this or I don't see the logic behind it. So I knew this wasn't going to be a favorite of mine but I wanted to give it a chance and it just really kind of let me down so it was a two-stars. Moving on to three stars I had a book called Better Off Dead and this is one of the book in the Jack Reacher series. I read this as an audiobook with my dad just on the drive home from Minnesota to Michigan as it's a 10-hour drive and we both love audiobooks so it was completely unplanned by me but a book that my dad had been wanting to read. So we read it. It's basically this ex-military police guy Jack Reacher just kind of lives his life as a hobo. He doesn't carry like anything on him and he just travels wherever he wants to you know he hitchhikes he sleeps outside he only gets rid of his clothes when he needs new ones and then he just wears those until they're not good anymore like you know I just like super chill but because he's ex-military police he's like super buff and super smart and super big so he kind of goes around and helps people so yeah he's trying to solve a murder in this book and I like the idea of it I think the writing it's a little old like this book there are like 26 books in the series and they're still coming out and you don't necessarily need to read them in order but it is helpful if you at least know like the background but it was just constantly like oh I'm so big I'm so tough this would hurt a regular sized person but not me like just a lot of toxic masculinity style military stuff but and like the writing just wasn't great but it was a fun listen and again kind of like with the spy espionage novels like it's not my go-to genre it's not genre that I would choose but I read it so it's there now and then I also read one true king by so much I know me this is the final book in this school for getting evil it is book six so it's the last book oh my goodness I think there's like a prequel that's either about to come out or just came out so I'm not done with his writing in the world but I finally finished the series and I've been reading this series for a very long time it's three out of five stars again I felt that it was just long drawn out constantly just more things needed to happen like it just kept getting over over complicated and I just was kind of sick of it and just really wanted to finish the series but like it was fine I still highly recommend this series I think other people would probably enjoy the last two books more than me especially if you're like a classic fantasy reader or love middle grade yeah and one thing though that did frustrate me about this book and again is June so like my main focus were queer books but like there was I felt like there was like so much queer baiting where I was like could this character be oh wait was that a glove that no so it oh it just got into my head I was like come on but nothing was ever explicit so it's a little bummed but then the next three star book that I have is I'll Be the One and this is by Lila Lee and this is about an plus-sized Korean American who auditions on the show as a singer and a dancer to try and become the next K-pop star this I love the premise of it and I loved the characters and I gotta say I loved the romance so much it did not have that third act break up it did not follow those tropes which made me so happy like I loved it so much however I still think this could have been much better than it was like our character just seemed a little out of whack in terms of her like priorities and the competition aspect was so like like we never got anything about her figuring out how to choose songs or memorize in choreo or like like she just kind of went through the competition like like it was a breeze and it just it just seemed like she didn't really have to work with anything she just had to put up with all the hate for her being a plus-sized dancer which is not a bad thing because we need that representation there are amazing plus sized dancers in our world and they need to be represented and know that they're loved and valued but I wish that other elements of the competition was still there and the story and that it just didn't feel too easy and like the whole thing will like if you win you go to Korea will she barely mention the fact that she wants to go to Korea and like things like that but I did love the aspect of Korean American and Korean culture sprinkled in here it was really cool and I would still very much recommend this book but it was kind of only a three stars for me for these reasons next we get to move on to the four stars so the first one is oh I'm not even saying sexuality our main character in here is bisexual and so are some of the other characters which was really cool and really fun to read for me because I'm bisexual so I enjoyed it then the next book that I read is the Kindred and we have we got a lot of queer rep in that book let me let me just open up my notes to make sure I get everything so one character is bi another is gay another has non-binary another is non-binary and we have body image issues rep so there was a lot going on in this book but it was four stars it was really good it's science fiction which is again not one of my top genres but like I enjoy it so basically the premise is that the on this alien planet or system really and it does deal with colonization too a little bit two people are basically kind of paired at birth and they are kindred they could be best friends they could be soul mates they could like they have some deep connection but it's not always romantic but one of our main characters because it's dual perspective and the audio book actually had two narrators which was kind of cool but one is a duke who's like fifth in line for the throne he's kind of more of a party boy kind of does what he wants and the other is a very very poor girl who lives in the poor area of the poorest planet etc. and so forth so everyone's like oh my word I cannot believe that they were the kindred but also okay I guess but then when the royal family is killed he has to go into hiding and he finally takes his kindred with him so that they can meet each other in person and not be split up or in danger and they go to earth they got to figure out how to get home prove their innocence but also survive on earth which is kind of fun I really I loved the characters I think they were one of my favorite parts like the world building was cool I kind of wish we had gotten a little more description about the physical things in the alien world but I liked the concept again of the kindred and the characters were really the main points of the story it was also very 2022 like COVID was mentioned and lots of modern references so if you want to read this I would say read it now before everything kind of grows old I mean it probably won't for another like five to ten years but still books that have modern references are always just like great that's great now but it's not always gonna stay great they debut in this genre I don't know if it was a debut for the author at least now but I think it could have been and it was and it's just seemed like that where there are some areas where I was like that could have been a better sentence or that plot point company and a little better just like with more like lacking of experience kind of so I look forward to reading more by this author but you know it wasn't perfect it was a four star I also wish we had gotten more the villain because I feel like that could have been a really cool villain that could have been really complex and I could have felt for but there was barely anything to it it was just like this person did it the end for what it was it was four stars and then I've got the henna wars most of these books also will be in my June vlog that will be up sometime around this so just keep that in mind there are quite a few overlap but you get more review here anyway the head of war is by a deep project you're not our main character is a lesbian and she is also Muslim she's been she's Bengali living in Ireland and she needs to figure out a business for one of her classes and then she develops a crush on Flavia who is a Brazilian Irish and they end up opening rival henna businesses and there's a lot of deep things beware trigger warnings in terms of someone being outed and like cultural appropriation and bling and things like that so just be aware of that before you go in but I love to this book so four out of five star I think this would have been a five star if I didn't read honey and issues guide to fake dating first because I think I like that book just a little bit more and I saw a lot of the aspects from that book in this book to just like bad friends and various other issues I think this would have been a five star if I read this before honey and issues guide but oh well what can you do I still very highly recommend this even if it wasn't a full five star for me it just kind of came down to like the nitty gritty but it was like so cute but I have me crying I stayed up so late to finish reading this book because I was like oh I've got like two hours left in this book but it's like nine o'clock and I need to go to bed but I need to finish the book so I stayed up really late and finished the book and it was worth it but it was hard but it was worth it so getting close to the end so the next one is a four point five star rating and it was kind of surprising that it's a four point five star rating because I feel like this book was really hyped up on Instagram but not really anywhere else and that is the grim rose girls by Laura pole and this is a like sapphic queer dark academia which was really cool but it was a four point five stars it was very heavily based off of fairy tales without being a retelling or anything like that it was really interesting and there's another book that takes place after this and I really want to pick that up soon so this is just good all I can say about it really is that there is like queer dark academia and it was amazing it was so good and I've got another book like that and I'm really excited to read that soon as well and now we're on to the five stars I have three five-star books this month the first one is a graphic novel the prince and the dressmaker and this is by Jen Wang and this is like so cute but basically our main character is a seamstress and she is super talented and this prince kind of discovers her in a way and he tries to employ her secretly to like make him dresses because he likes dressing up he kind of it's kind of like a drag situation like it's more than just the dresses he also puts on a wig and comes up with a new name and just kind of really just is who he wants to be and he goes out and he has fun and she goes out with him and it's really fun and things like that but he's the prince so we don't know how people would react to him like cross dressing like that so yeah super cute I read it so quick good art oh my goodness like highly highly recommend if you're looking for a quick read that deals with like fashion or royalty or yeah next up I read a book called anatomy and this was like a gothic romance it is not queer so don't don't think that it is but basically it's like 1800s Scotland there are certain elements of science that don't exist as science in our world like they kind of talk about bringing things back to life at the very beginning of the book but that is a topic that is like dropped for a majority of the book which was super disappointing I thought I think I was told it was kind of like a frankenstein inspired gothic romance and I liked the romance but I think frankenstein just didn't make it quite as much in there as I was hoping but it was just well written the audiobook was great I love the characters the ending was not an ending I thought I would like but I ended up being perfectly okay with which was kind of cool so yeah I know a lot of people have been like picking it up and reading it and then like not talking about it so yeah I thought it's a five out of five stars I just I was gripped throughout the whole way I kept like going on I would go for a walk and listen to it and come home and be like oh there's more book to listen to I'll go on another walk uh just because I wanted to keep reading it and then the final book that I have that I'm going to talk about is dial a for aunties by jesse keysu tanto I have been wanting to read this ever since it came out it's been on my radar for quite a while the second book actually like just came out and I loved it like I knew I was gonna love it and I was really worried that the hype was going to make it like I was worried it was going to be over hyped but I don't think it was so we've got our main character who has four well she's got her mom and then three aunties and they are uh Chinese Indonesian and they run a wedding business so like one does the pastries and one the entertainment and the other is hair and makeup and the other does she does the floral arrangements and then our main character is the photographer and so there's this really like important wedding in the Indonesian American community and they're really excited to be doing it and then our main character accidentally kills somebody oops so now they have to cover it up while also putting on a wedding and let me tell you things get crazy they get out of control they're hilarious it's wonderful and I loved her main character like it was slightly thinly done when it's killing it but with a very different main character and just a very different background like it's like it's they have one thing in common but otherwise like it's completely different and oh I loved it so much easy five stars yeah those are all the books that I read in June all 11 books thank you all so much for watching if you liked this video let me know by giving a thumbs up feel free to subscribe down below I make videos on Sundays and Wednesdays I took a little bit of a break in June just because life decided to get super busy and I got sick and just various other things but I hope to return to a normalish posting schedule Sundays and Wednesdays in July and I'm really excited for it um comment down below some of the books that you read if you have any queer recommendations I will keep reading queer books obviously yeah until I see you all in the next video I wish you happy reading