 you guys this is serious this is really serious i don't even know where to begin my friends i hope you're all doing well today we're doing my may wrap up it's probably gonna be short because in terms of surprises and hits i don't have that many do not attack my fans bitch the shit that i've seen you don't have that many so out of this because i think this is the worst reading month i have ever had in terms of rating i've read a lot which is good but in terms of rating girl we'll get into it but i think this is the worst reading month i have ever had i have ever ever ever i'm kind of in disbelief i don't even know i don't do with myself like it's actually a bit tragic let's just chat about it anyway shall we how my reading month went in may as always we'll do my reading statistics first then we'll get into all the books i read in their ratings then we'll get into disappointments and then what can i do surprises and hits as one category at the end because i really don't have much guys let's prepare ourselves let's emotionally steady ourselves for what we're about to discuss in terms of how many books i read i read 13 books which is pretty solid i feel like 12 13 is like kind of my average my midpoint sometimes i read more sometimes i read less but like that's kind of my midpoint i would say in terms of pages i read 4294 which is pretty high like that's up there with the most i've ever read is i think the most i've read is maybe like 4700 so it's like up there with the most amount of pages i've ever read i had to read quite a few long books this month which you know against my will i'm like craving short books i feel like all of the audiobooks i've been listening to have been like 14 to 20 hours like that i've been listening to a lot of audiobooks um to get through this they've all been that kind of length and i just want a good like seven hour like nine hour like fast paced thriller mystery i don't know i'm craving short books so maybe that's what i'll read more of in june oh my god june that average is out at an average pages per day of 138 and an average book length of 330 pages so pretty high for both of them here's the thing i read two short stories this month that i'm counting they're like 30 pages each if you take that out the equation my average page per book length is like way higher than it usually is i had to read quite a few longer books my average rating everyone my average rating are we ready to talk about it i don't think i am like i actually don't want to discuss this even if you guys like can we just not my average rating for month of may was a 3.11 okay you know that's low that's probably the lowest i've had in a long long time long long time ever maybe but let's just take into account that i did have one five star this month but it was a reread and i've said before i don't feel like rereads are factored into how i feel about a month's reading you know like they're kind of separate in my brain from how i feel like reading went that month if you take that one five star out of the equation my average rating for the month of may was 2.95 i'm actually gagged 2.95 2.95 my average rating guys i actually don't know what to say this is the worst this is the worst this is the worst yeah oh my god oh my god 2.95 that is crazy crazy crazy i don't even know that was possible i didn't even know that was possible um the average time a book had spent on my tbr was only two months because so many books i read this month weren't on my tbr as we'll get into okay so in terms of genre i read five fantasy one mystery and seven thriller i feel like a big reason as to why my reading month was worse and like why you know obviously i feel shit about it because i gave my victory if you take out the reread was 2.95 but you know i always have a really wide variety in what i read and i didn't have that this month in terms of ratings i had one one star two two stars one two point five star three three stars two three point five stars three four stars and one five star at least we had you know three four stars in there girl in terms of how i read the books two were ebooks one was physical and 10 were mixture which means i had the physical and the audiobook listen i needed it this month yeah i needed the audiobooks this month as well as the physical i need everything to help me through it in terms of audience i read 12 adult books and one y a go me yay variety in terms of the format 10 were novels one was a novella and two were short stories in terms of series stats i had one that i'm classing as a companion novel which is the outsider by seven king it has been like listed as a series on goodreads the holly gipney series but i feel like that's more of a companion books and i'm not planning on reading the novella like the story this short story collection that's book two i probably will read holly that's coming out uh this year because i probably will have to read it for my goodreads video at the end of the year so i'll probably be reading it in that but i'm not classing that as a series i'm classing it more as companion books that's kind of how i view that so yeah one companion five books were part of a series four books were sandalones two books were first in series and one book was last in a series but have i actually started any series this month oh yeah so i started and finished one series this one the bill hodges trilogy which we'll talk about later and then the other book i'm we don't need to talk about it yet if you watch the vlog you know i started a series i'm not going to continue in terms of where the books were from one was from a book box eight from the library i actually used my library guys i joined the library again growing up i only used the library i didn't really own books we weren't super like you know we were like fine we weren't super well off as a kid so i bit i didn't really own many books um so we used the library pretty much exclusively i can't remember owning many books especially like during my like childhood like you know once i'm not a baby maybe i had baby books i don't remember really buying books i exclusively used my library growing up and then when i've been in this phase of my life and i've always had like a tbr that's like you know start off with 60 books i think when i started my channel and now it's like 200 books and i do yeah i just haven't used my library because i'm like i basically have a library at home like i have 200 unread books but for one of the videos i was doing this month i was like i'm not buying all these books i'm getting these from the library uh two books i bought myself and two were online in terms of the author status i read two debuts six from authors i've read from before and five authors that were new to me and i think that is all of our stats okay yeah let's get into all the books i read this month and their ratings so first as part of a reread i was doing over on my patreon of the wayward children series i read where the young girls go by shin moguire and gave this five stars this is my one five star of the month but we won't be putting this in hits because i don't class rereads as something that can qualify to go in those sections there we go i then read two short stories from the wayward children series i read in mercy rain which i gave four stars and i read a skeleton song which i gave three stars i then began the reading for the goodreads video where i read all of the winners of the mystery thriller category and the goodreads awards you know this is part of what contributed this month but let it be known the two books we're going to chat about them later but the two books that i read outside of that vlog this month um that weren't rereads or part of the wayward children series or whatever are more egregious than whatever the goodreads video did to me if we're going into that i just feel so sorry i know but like honestly we're in this we're all deceived but i read the last thing he told me by laura dave which i gave 3.5 stars then i took a break to read the book for my book club which was water wicked things by francesca may and i gave this one star okay then i read the rest of the books for the goodreads video so i read mr misades by seven king which i gave four stars finders keepers by seven king which i gave three stars end of watch by seven king which i gave four stars smoking 17 by janette avanovich which i gave two stars gone girl by jillian fin which i gave three stars the outsider by seven king which i gave 3.5 stars and into the water by paula hawkins which i gave two stars i think i gave us a 2.5 in the vlog but like it's a two moving on and then finally if you've seen the wrapped up vlog which i do every month where i wrap one book and read it in a vlog if you saw the wrapped up vlog for me which just went out this week because by the way click off if you don't want to know i read dorge of the moon goddess by sulyan tan and i gave this 2.5 stars what a great reading month everyone okay disappointments i mean the whole month was a disappointment i don't really have surprises and hints we're gonna try and you know reach at the end but most of these books are disappointments and i don't know which ones to talk about do we need to talk about the ones here's the thing right let's talk about these briefly first there is of course the books that i rated low from the goodries choice for this video but most of these books i went in with like no expectations so can they be classes disappointments this is what i want to know so of course we have smoking 17 and into the water which i gave two stars but this i went in with zero expectations this is like almost like a humorous thriller it's like jokie and it's like a love triangle and it's like a 40 book series now whatever okay and when i read this i already dnf the girl on the train by paula hawkins and you know i read it and i feel like i i mean this book is so forgetful for me but i read it with very low expectations because i didn't like the girl on the train i went in kind of thinking this probably isn't gonna be for me guess what it wasn't for me this one's about this like river where many women and girls have drowned over the years and there's been a death recently in the river and it's like did she do that herself or was it a murder like what's the truth here but i don't really see this as a disappointment now one that we could see as a bit of a disappointment was actually a three star from that vlog and that was gong girl i went into this probably with the highest expectations i have any book in the vlog and i didn't love it i found it boring i found it overly long so many of you know this story it's about a woman who goes missing and it seems that her husband may have something to do with it he seems very suspicious there's these diary entries that she wrote throughout their years together that kind of hint at something going wrong in their relationship i knew the twist going into this okay i knew this crazy twist everyone says it's like the best twist ever exists i don't think the type of thriller that this is and that this spawned is for me i don't like domestic thrillers really i don't like you know dynamics between husbands and wives the dynamics that i feel like these thrillers play on again and again and again is boring to me now this did come out 11 years ago and i think what it did for the genre was pretty revolutionary and i think it had a big influence and i think that's undeniable and i think it changed you know it gave women access to thrillers for the first time the only reason that we can see in mysteries and thrillers that are coming out today that i'm interested in are because of this because you look at the thriller genre before this it was very masculine it was for men only it was like such a different space and so i do think this has to be credited with giving women access to the genre and having books be written that women are interested in in the genre all that to say this wasn't for me the domestic thriller that spawned or was popular afterwards isn't for me but i think the books that are now for me in the mystery thriller space are perhaps a direct result of the impact that this book had now my other two disappointments are much more disappointing you know that they were books i actually thought i'd enjoy books i bought myself and i didn't love first we have got one wicked things which i gave one star this was the book club pick for my book club in april i always tend to read them the month after because i read them right for the live show and girls honestly i mean this book i have kind of blurred it from my brain because one star basically basically we got this island where there's maybe witches are following these different characters in the 1920s who are maybe witches and have magical powers um there's mysterious things going on it's kind of a sapphic relationship guys if you ever join my patreon go back and watch the discussion live show for this because we all just spent the whole hour going we actually don't know what happened like we kept reminding ourselves of different various plot points in this book and we were like what that actually happened i forgot that i forgot that it's a mess it's a mess it's a mess it's a mess i hated everything about this i didn't like the characters i didn't like the writing like i said the plot is probably the most egregious it's a fucking mess it is i don't know how to describe it to you other without spoiling anything other than it's a mess there's so many plot points that don't go anywhere there's so many like nonsensical actions the characters are all annoying this was a one star and you know at first i was going to give it two because it's a debut i don't want to be too harsh right but then i thought to myself did i enjoy this the same amount as i enjoyed the murder game by tom hendall which i gave one star this year and i thought no i enjoyed it less i enjoyed it less this was just so bad for me it promised me witchy vibes it promised me historical vibes it's like it wants to be a great gatsby rip off like at the beginning there's certain parallels like there's a purple light from across the lake and like you can see with all of our main characters the characters that they mirror in the great gatsby but i kind of went like to the wayside i don't understand how the second half of this book was linked to that oh my god i'm just like trying to think of what happened in this book we kept like remembering things on the live show but like no that didn't happen and then we'd find out like yeah actually did happen it was a mess i feel like no one in the book club liked this everyone hated it it's too long it's boring there we go i'm sad because it's a debut and i don't want to be mean but i want to give you my honest opinion so and then my other big big big big big disappointment this month i don't even know the wound is still fresh i'm going to be honest with you i finished the book this morning i'm going to be honest with you and um i haven't processed this yet but if you've watched wrapped up which came out a couple days ago you'll know that i gave daughter of the moon goddess 2.5 stars and that maybe is even generous i'm gonna be honest i did not like this one bit this is a five star prediction for me this is the most gorgeous book i own i've been so excited to read this for so long yeah no just need a bit of space it's not so kind yeah we're following this character who is the daughter of the moon goddess and her and her mother get separated and she kind of ends up being like best friends with the emperor's son and the emperor's the one who locked her mum away and she's like determined to save her mum there's like war there's a love triangle which i hated my biggest problem with this was the writing we spoke and i'm a broken record right we've spoken about this so many times different people prioritize different things and when i say for me we've talked about as many times there's writing plot characters right that's my ranking everyone ranks us in different ways i'm not saying actually that like writing is like i uh how do i explain this writing weren't necessarily the impact for like a three or four star right because and plotting characters will have more impact for me with a three or four star and enjoyment but in order for me to give a book five stars i have to love the writing but more so writing for me is the first hurdle if i don't like your writing style i can't get into any of the rest of the book like i can't begin to think about whether i really like the plot or like the characters because if i if i have friction with the writing style like i can't read a book right and i hated hated this i hated the writing style in this hated it with a burning passion it was over is overwrought the right way like it was over the top in not a good way i love camp i love a bit over the topness but not not this wasn't good this wasn't good everything was just so over the top there's so many metaphors and similarities everything was described in this language that was just so exaggerated and exhausting i was like how many metaphors can one person have for like their hearts thinking or rising like i swear that happened like 50 times i did not like the love triangle i usually don't like love triangles because i feel like they're always so obvious who the main galley is you know what i mean like in twilight you know it's edward jake doesn't have a chance do you know i mean like no chance ever if it's unequal what's the point if you're gonna give me a love triangle make it an equal love triangle like actually keep me guessing because i was never guessing i don't i'm so sad right i'm i don't know i don't actually have to talk to you about this because i'm so sad this was a five star prediction i thought i was gonna love this and i didn't i'm probably not even ready to talk about this yet like i probably should have like read this at the start of a month and maybe by the end of the month i could have processed my feelings but here we are i finished it this morning and i never want to read another book again because i have trust issues i've decided to combine surprises and hits this month because there's only two books that i can really talk about and that i would say is the first and last book in the bill hodge's trilogy by steven king the middle one finders keepers i gave three stars so this didn't really do it for me but these two were two of my four stars this month i would say the biggest surprise for me of that goodreads video and of the month was that i actually don't hate steven king's modern stuff and here's the thing i said in the video this is the first steven king i've ever read right and i can see how if you're someone who's read all of steven king like from the beginning maybe this stuff isn't that great like but it was fun it was a fun time you know i had a fun time especially with mr misades i'd say this is the standout end of watch was different and i enjoyed the aspect of it being different and like the ending got me like the ending may be a bit emotional so i ended up giving it a 4 but maybe it's a 3.5 essentially so let's just talk about mr misades we're following bill hodge's who is a recently retired policeman and he gets a letter from someone proclaiming to be mr misades who was this killer who drove a car through a crowd and killed many people killed a baby and it's like him gloating because it was one of bill hodge's cases and bill hodge's obviously never found out who it was and it's kind of this mouse game between these two people and i really enjoyed it i thought it was a fun time i thought it was really enjoyable i enjoyed the pacing that steven king's writing had i feel like this was definitely the standout like goodreads video for me my god that video was rough it was rough my caveat like i said in this video was i really enjoy the characters of jorome and holly in this who are kind of bill hodge's sidekicks but i'm not entirely comfortable with how either of their marginalizations have been read about jorome is black holly is neurodivergent and i'm not sure that those were handled with complete care i like them as characters i'm just not sure that their representations are entirely you know without flaws and without valid criticism but on the whole i thought the cat and mouse game between these characters was really fun i was actually fearful many times like it felt like the stakes were very high and no one was safe and anything could happen so i really enjoyed this and i'm intrigued to read more steven king in the future the floodgates have opened i have made it this far in my life i've made it 23 years without reading steven king so now one day i guess i'm open to reading more steven king again so there we have it i'm actually shocked at this video as long as it is considering that i hated all the books i read and like i felt like i didn't have much to talk about but somehow i managed to talk to you so yeah let me know how your reading went in may let me know if you've read any of these books and have different opinions to me i know many of you probably have read daughter of the moon goddess and loved it and i'm just the outlier but please let me know what you thought if you got into the end of the video comment a sad face moji because i'm very sad um this has to pick up in june because i'm not having another month with like a sub essentially a sub three standard rating and i think that's ever happened to me in my life before so anyways i hope you enjoyed the video and i'll see you very soon another one bye