 this is Julia and welcome back to my channel and for today's video I'm going to be doing my January 2018 wrap-up talking about all the books that I read in the month of January so the new intro just played do you like it are you feeling it you'll probably get used to it if you're subscribed you'll get used to it I'm so excited about it I love the new intro but aside from I thought I would share some stats with you guys because I used to do this in my wrap-ups and then I just stopped because I was trying not to focus on numbers but like now I think I'm at a point where like I'm cool with reading whatever because I used to read like 27 books a month so let's not talk about that but this month I read a total of 12 books I did manage to finish I read everything on my TBR I managed to read a classic of the month and a king of the month which was my goal and out of the 12 I read seven novels four poetry collections and one manga for the genres of the novels I read two contemporary two sci-fi two thriller-ish reads and then a classic so let's jump right into it starting with none of the above by I.W. Greg Oro this book does a trick warnings for PTSD mentions depression bullying and sexual assault so keep that in mind before picking this book up so this book is about a main character who discovers that she's intersex and it's just told through her point of view of her discovering this and her learning what that is and how she's going to proceed and it's just so informative and thought-provoking and there was some things I really liked about it like there was some like I love how therapy was encouraged and that we got to see that in a book because sometimes therapy skimmed over even in mental health related books and this was just so informative I feel like I learned a lot from it and I could really like sympathize with the main character um she was getting bullied and she was just going through a lot so I just felt really bad and yeah the only reason why I gave this one a bit of a lower rating was due to the fact that it just had a few iffy lines and the ending was a little bit abrupt but I still really liked it and I gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars so here I have elegedonic by R.H. Sin this is new poetry collection that came out in January and this one was just not my favorite of his like it's still like a solid collection just compared to his other stuff which I usually give five stars this was just not up to par in my opinion this one is more about like a relationship ending the heartbreak it's it's like like I don't know how to explain it it's black and then it's white and it's it's cool I don't know in the ending like the last poem usually always like packs a punch and this one just didn't and they're just I just didn't love it as much as as his other collections so I gave this one a 3.5 but it was still like solid next up here I have blue exorcist volume 18 this is the 18th volume of the blue exorcist series obviously and the series is about a boy named Rin who is the son of Satan and is training to become an exorcist and goes to a special school for it so 18 volumes in and the series still is so good and I love it so much I just love it so much and I love when there's like a bit of humor put in to each volume and there's just a balance of so many different things and I just love it so much so I ended up giving this one a 4.25 out of 5 next up here I read Misery by Stephen King which this is about a man named Paul Sheldon who is an author and after he gets into a car accident a girl comes to his rescue kind of but not really woman's name is Annie and she's his biggest fan and he wakes up in her home basically health captive so that's what this story is about I made a whole review on it so I'll link it up on the screen to hear all my thoughts I really loved it I buddy read this with a bunch of people and I love this so much it talked about so many things and it really dealt with like addiction and it had a lot to do with addiction and alcoholism and it had to do with like insanity and violence and a manic depressive kind of state of mind and writing and like what how much you can accomplish through writing or like how much of an escape it is and how much words have power like I just love this so much and I ended up giving this a 4.5 out of 5 stars but like check out my review if you want to know more methods next up I read a disappointing one and that is flux and this is by oren keller carlotto carlotto I don't know so this does have trigger points for abuse and self-harm so keep that in mind before picking this up this was just I was so excited for this collection and it was just so unoriginal and like nothing new and I'm like why have I been seeing it around and it's just like a lot of the poems like rub me the wrong way they were like really gross like about like like I don't know like one of them was like I'll shove my hand down your corpse I'm just like oh my god no I'll pass next up here I listened to an audiobook that I really enjoyed and that is jebina by Amy Kauffman and Jay Kristoff this is a sci-fi YA series that is sci-fi I don't know just read it so basically Illuminae I read last year I actually really liked I think I gave that one around at 3.75 or so but this book I like just really enjoyed the audiobook it was my first full cast audiobook so it was really cool and it had all the sci-fi effects and it was so cool so if you're gonna read this one I'd suggest listening to the audiobook but like maybe do both so then you could see the cool thingies in the book basically I really liked this and the audiobook was amazing it's just I was really up and down with this book like sometimes I was super into it and then sometimes I like didn't give a fuck and I was like can I leave so um the last 200 pages though were absolutely incredible so just because I was like kind of all over the place but like I was just all over the place a lot and then like the ending made up for a lot of it for me um but I get it I give this a 3.5 and I would suggest it to sci-fi lovers. So here I read Fan Girl by Rainbow Rowell which I've recently made a video on so you check that out if you want more thoughts but this is a book about a girl named Kath who is going to college for the first time and it's about her experiences there and the people she meets and relationships and all that sort of jazz. The mental health trigger warning so I will state that now that it does have trigger warnings for anxiety so keep that in mind um but yes I was really disappointed in this I thought the mental health representation was like it was nice seeing anxiety shown in a book but it just wasn't enough and I also just feel like it made fun of so many other mental health issues and so many other mental illnesses and it was so disappointing to me um how much flaws and how much issues how many issues I had with this book specifically so watch my review if you want to hear all my thoughts but I give this 2 out of 5 stars. Next up here I read another poetry collection and that is Sea of Strangers by Longleaf. I've read everything by her and when this one came out I was really excited to pick it up. It was a really solid collection and I really liked how this one had a focus and like a symbolic meaning behind like the sea and water and I just really liked that about it. I like I liked how it had that prominent theme in the book. I ended up giving this one a 3.75 out of 5. Next up I don't have this one with me but this is Take Me With You and this is another poetry collection. I read it in line at the Zina signing when I was really bored and I was like I'll just read this it's right here and I read it and I really didn't like it. Basically it has trigger warnings for probably everything that you can have a trigger warning for and I just felt like this collection was really messy I thought it was poorly written and I just really didn't enjoy it at all so yeah. Next up here I have The Long Walk by Stephen King which I haven't talked about at all like on my channel so this will except for in my reading blog. Okay but this book is about about a competition actually and I never knew what this was about before I picked it up but this is about a competition between a hundred boys who have to walk a long time and it's about and basically whoever wins, whoever the last to live gets whatever they want basically shh they get whatever they want so it's about that and we follow our main character who is a 16 year old boy. If you're like each person in the walk it's three warnings and like you'll get killed basically and it's about the walk and I just really I really liked it like the audiobook I listened to the audiobook this one it was okay the audiobook but this was super interesting it wasn't what I expected it's not my favorite king out there like I thought it had a really cool premise but it just didn't I don't know I just didn't love it I don't know like it was good but I just don't have too much to say about it I guess but I gave this one a I ended up giving this one a 3.5 out of 5. Next up here I have Xenith by Sasha Ellsberg and Lindsey Cummings so this book is a YA sci-fi book that deals with space pirates and it's about a female crew going on a ship and their missions and their shenanigans and all that sort of stuff so I did actually end up enjoying this book which I've gotten requests for reviews so I might do one because I did tap some things but this book the first like I think I've seen a lot of mixed reviews but I've been recently seeing more negative reviews but like the first quarter of this book I think a lot of people DNF because it's not great um the first quarter I feel like it doesn't pull you in and it's kind of slow and it's just it's not great the first quarter so like I had some issues with that part as well like it took me a while to really get into it but the last like 100 pages I was so into it um but I do get that it's kind of a hard book to get into and like there was some aspects that I didn't really like about it towards the beginning and like at the end though I don't think it's like and I'm like the best book out there I did really like I had fun reading it which was something that is awesome obviously and the ending was cool like I'm going to be picking up book too but yeah just I think the ending and like the last hundred pages make up for a lot of this book because it is like a 500 page book even though it looks tiny so it was good it just wasn't amazing you know so I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 lastly here I have beauty and the beast by Gabrielle Suzanne Barbote de Villeneuve so basically this is the original Beauty and the Beast story I wasn't a fan at all like this edition if I could rate this edition five stars best and most beautiful edition ever but the book as a whole was just it just really locked for me and I just didn't care and I didn't really like the writing style it felt really like Jane Austen need to me and I don't know it just wasn't my thing I didn't like the original story I give it two stars so there you guys have it those are all the books that I read in the month of January let me know what you read down below and your thoughts and I'll see you all very soon with a new video bye