 not that diligently. June was insane. Deli is also proving insane. I shan't be telling you what I think of it. Oh, I don't think that I should be doing that. So I'm kind of mad about it. Well, it's been a minute since I last posted a video. There are several reasons for that. So let's catch up. I, last time I posted a video was a video that I had pre-recorded like two weeks before even that one went up. So I haven't like filmed any- well, that's not true. I have been diligently- not that diligently. My patrons chose the book to like for me to read and vlog for them in June to be a legacy. And I knew it would be long and it was longer even than I anticipated. One, because the book is long, so it took me a while. Two, I recorded a lot of extra footage because I just like can't be stopped. And then holiday and got sick, which are the other reasons that I've just generally not been like posting anything. And then I also was like a point of principle for me to like finish the vlog for my patrons, which became a two-parter. It was like three hours after editing, three hours. So like I had to split it up for my patrons because my computer and like yeah, because my computer wouldn't be able to handle a file, like all the files to make it all one three-hour of vlog, like because it's in- I have a 4k camera now. I mean my computer cannot handle that much. So I had to split it up for my patrons, but also until I actually like took that footage and edited it and uploaded it, like I wouldn't have room on my hard drive for anything else. So I was like, yeah, I need to finish this because I need to finish this, but also because I can't do anything else until I finish this. But also also, so there's just like so many like just perfect storm. Okay, so I was behind already and I was like, I really need to record something, I really need to record something. And then I started using a new face product, which I only learned after the fact has an adjustment period. So like my face started looking really bad. And I was like, oh no, maybe this isn't the right product for me. And I googled it and they're like, yeah, like you should like start slow, use it every other day, every third day until your skin gets used to it. Because like it's pretty typical to like your skin to like not like it at first. And I was like, oh great. So like having a 4k camera, it's not very forgiving. So I was like, okay, well luckily like I have like a video recorder is like maybe like, you know, if I give it a week, like I'll look okay again. Didn't really look great. And then I was having house guests over for the 4th of July, who were over for like majority of that week slash like I had to like clean the house and buy groceries for them and like just like, be busy with prepping for them and had them here while I was also working I had the fourth off but that was the only day I had off. So I was like working and entertaining. And so like no reading, no filming, no nothing was happening. And then while they were here, I got really, really sick. I don't, you know, I haven't pounded patient zero. I don't know exactly how I got sick, but I either got sick from their kid because it was my friend and their kid, like a little kid. And I'm told that little kids are little like germ factories. Or it's that like we went to Universal Studios on the 4th of July, which is also like a huge park with tons of people and tons of germs. So like at some point, I got really, really sick. So like, I'm now you can probably hear that I sound a little bit nasally. I'm mostly fine again. It's taken me like I started feeling sick Thursday. You don't know what today is. But anyway, so it's been like over like about a week or a little over a week since I started feeling sick. And now I'm not totally better. I'm still like coughing a lot. But otherwise, I'm like, I'm like totally like not sick anymore. I'm just like recovering from having been sick. I finished the vlog for my Patrons for Jade Legacy finally, because I had three hours of footage after editing. Now I finally was able to like clear my memory card, clear the space in my hard drive and film new things. But we are already halfway through July. And I didn't get up the TBR for July. And I now have the wrap up to also do so today, all I have to say today, we are going to do both my June wrap up and my July TBR all at once so we can just like catch up. And this also gave me time to like finish some June books. I still didn't finish my June TBR. But some of my June TBR I was finishing in July. Yeah, June was insane. July is also proving insane because like I spent a bunch of it like with guests and being sick. So I'm quite stressed by how large my July TBR stack is when I haven't really started on that because I've been finishing June and we're halfway through July. So let's go chronologically, I guess. Let's do my June wrap up and then actually won't take that long because of reasons. And then July TBR and then I'll be caught up-ish. I just have to like do all the reading then. So yeah, it's good to be back. Good to be feeling like I'm back. And sorry for being absent so long. But yeah, now you know why. And let's talk about what I did manage to rate. Okay, so the first book that I read in June was The Last Word by Taylor Adams, my book of the month club pick. Yeah, this was my like pick from the books of the month is a thriller about somebody who posts a negative review of a book. And then they like the author of that book comes for them. Or at least they think that that's what's happening. So I was like, as soon as this was one of the choices, so many people were like, wait a minute, you have to pick that. That's like, that's about you. I was like, that's why I don't want to pick it because I'll be like, oh no, if this happens to me. But that is not a fear that I have because this book was ridiculous. And not even in like a fun campy way. I've certainly read books that are ridiculous, but are like, it's like a nebulous, like hard to define thing and it probably varies person to person. But I feel like a book needs to be like self awarely ridiculous, like it needs to lean into being ridiculous and like needs to give you the sense that like it also knows. And it's like, we know we're ridiculous. This is why I love the show Riverdale. And you can like unsubscribe right now, because you're like, my she likes Riverdale. And ironically, I cannot trust her, which you know, fair enough. But Riverdale knows what Riverdale is, like no one in Riverdale, no one writing Riverdale, no one directing Riverdale is under any illusions about what kind of show that it is. And when people I've seen like videos, people be like, this dialogue in Riverdale is so unrealistic. Like who talks like this? And I'm like, do you think that they are unaware? Do you think that Riverdale doesn't know that it's like surreal, that it's like over the top, that it is breaking the fourth wall, that it is homage and pastiche and absurdity, like it consciously is choosing to do these things stylistically. So like, I love Riverdale. And if Riverdale didn't know that Riverdale was Riverdale, okay, then fair enough, that's that's fair criticism. But it definitely knows like it's doing this on purpose with intention. Anyway, point being this book was just kind of bad. Like it wasn't like, so over the top that it's become like a satire of itself, which is kind of what I guess that's what I'm getting out of Riverdale. Riverdale is like self-saturizing. I do not recommend this is not a particularly good thriller. The premise is pretty bad. And then like the the answer to what's been going on or like the who did the doing of the done it type of thing, not very satisfying. I don't recommend. It's pretty it's pretty dumb in my opinion. So the reason this wrap up won't actually take that long it's not it's partially because I didn't finish my tbr but it's also because four of the books on it are the books that Bookhorn chose for me for our tbr swap. And we are having our like live shots about it in this coming week, I believe Wednesday and Thursday, we or Tuesday Wednesday, I think Wednesday, Thursday, and we haven't decided who's going first, but like those are the two days. So I will not be telling you like what I think about the Bookborn books here because I will be telling the world what I think of them during the live chat with Bookborn. But anyway the next book that I read was Invisible Women, a data bias and a real design for men by Caroline Criado Perez. So this is the first of the Bookborn books that I read and finished and you'll find out what I thought on Bookborn's channel in the coming week. Next was another Bookborn book and that was The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson. I shan't be telling you what I think of it. If you want to know what I think of it, you'll have to join us in the live show on Bookborn's channel. The next book I read was my other Book of the Month Club book and that was A Gentleman in Moscow by Amore Tolles. I read the Lincoln Highway end of last year, beginning of this year, was very impressed with it and decided to read all the Amore Tolles books that Book of the Month Club has. I read Rules of Civility next and after I picked it everyone was like no not that one. You're a gentleman in Moscow so this is I think the third and final book that they have. I don't know if Amore Tolles has written more than this. I think this is the only other one that Book of the Month Club has. So yeah this is a lot better than Rules of Civility. I think of the three I think Lincoln Highway might be my favorite but I did really really like Gentleman in Moscow. I'd have to think about that which I definitely had time to think about because I knew I was doing this wrap-up but I didn't think about that. So anyway very different in terms of like subject matter and setting and all that than Lincoln Highway. This takes place sort of like Soviet Russian Revolution era. It follows like an aristocrat that's under the house arrest because he's in a hotel but he's under hotel arrest for like the rest of his life because he's an aristocrat and that's like against the Bolsheviks. So but for reasons they're not going to kill him they're just going to let him live in this hotel but he cannot leave the hotel. I did see criticism not a lot. Mostly this has really positive reviews. I did see criticism and I had to like sort of think about why because I was like that should bother me because that's a good point but it didn't bother me and why is that. So like I always like want to know why I think what I think it's not like enough for me to just think a thing. I'm like why do I think that? Am I right to think that? The fact that this is like a really tumultuous time with like a lot of hardship like historically speaking like this era and this like area of the world had a lot of people going through a lot and suffering a lot. Certainly more so than an aristocrat who's like gone from generally just being a rich aristocratic dude to living in a really posh hotel for the rest of his life. So it's like who cares? Like there's so many people that went through so much more and whose stories I guess would be more interesting because they've gone through more. So like who cares about this guy? Like even like okay it sucks to like have to lay a stand hotel for the rest of your life but like you know. So like who cares about this guy and also how interesting could that possibly be when he literally can't leave a hotel? Like the reason this is a hardship for him is because like his knife is going to be a whole bunch of like monotony from now on. So like who cares? So the reason this doesn't, I mean I think that's fair in terms of like you know who are we focusing our narrative on? Who are we going to like not platform but you know like give our attention to like certainly there are more worthy stories but I don't think every book needs to be worthy. You know what I mean? And it's not like there aren't books that and movies and shows that like cover this era of history and do show you those hardships. So if like there if this was like a completely unknown era, an unknown hardship you know that we were like bringing to people's attention this era then I'd be like okay probably don't focus on the aristocrat that like was in a hotel. But there are a lot of stories about this already so like to center the story on this character who's like a little bit out of touch already because they're an aristocrat and is even more out of touch because they literally cannot be in touch with what's going on outside because they cannot go outside. Like he cannot go and like participate in like what's going on in his country because he literally cannot do that. So I really enjoyed the way that this like presented this kind of like tiny little microcosm and this person's day to day life is like focused on his day to day life. It's like the people who work at the hotel and like he himself like what's he going to do to spend his time and like people who visit the hotel that he like becomes friendly with and becomes interested in and becomes like they become big parts of his life. So it's like all these like little kind of mundane you know the Downton Abbey of the Russian Revolution you know like just like just people in this big hotel going about their business and interacting with him and he's kind of a quirky guy. But the way that telling this story like having the lens be focused on this aristocrat the way that like in the periphery like you observe the changes that are happening in Russia without that being the focus of the narrative. So it's like you absorb the revolution and the political upheaval and everything biosmosis because even in this like isolated like little like the narrow scope and narrow view of this character you still witness the changes that are happening in this country without even meaning to. Like the way that you don't have to be paying attention to it. You don't have to be like focusing your narrative on those changes to see them manifest in like even in this like hotel that is like this dude living this like isolated life in this hotel. You see the changes like even without meaning to and then he himself like I think it's like it's kind of like reading like Name of the Wind or like Looks Like That where it's like okay it's like the day-to-day stuff but it's like written really compellingly with like really good character work. So like I found the main character like charming and it's not to say like I'm defending the aristocracy or anything like that but like you know he's a human being like it's you know you don't dehumanize the poor neither should you dehumanize the aristocracy like um he's an individual person who made individual choices having been born into the aristocracy as he was like it's not his fault that he was born an aristocrat and he like has interesting views some of which are like that's like a you know a good way to think and be a person and other stuff that's like you're clearly an aristocrat but like not the worst version of that and he's just like an interesting person with an interesting perspective on things and that people he interacts with are interesting people with interesting perspectives on things and it was just like it was a lush and and good time that like it wasn't like propulsive or like this thrilling horrifying historical epic or anything like that but it was in how mundane everything was that it really like felt like lived in and I really felt like I had like spent all these years with this man and kind of gotten to know him and like gotten to know this hotel and just kind of like vibed and there's like there's genuine like there's heartwarming things there's tragedy there's I think it was really beautiful and I think it's fine to tell a story like this you know what I mean like I you don't have to tell focus your story like find the absolute worst possible situation in any historical time period and like that has to be the story you tell if someone had it better than that person then you can't tell their story you have to tell the worst story like I don't think that that's like a fair metric so anyway if you're interested in anything that I just described like I would highly recommend this next up for the year of gayman I read a noncy voice by Neil Gaiman which was a reread this was my first time listening to it on audiobook and I do recommend the audiobook it's one of the few gayman audiobooks that's not read by Neil Gaiman which is probably to its benefit because like there's a lot of like accents that I I'm sure Neil Gaiman would struggle to do um where that he would be like oh I don't think that I should be doing that and the narrator is very very very good and yeah it's been it had been a minute since I had read this and it was I had it was interesting to me like the things that I definitely remembered the things like I didn't before even picking it up that I was like if you asked me what happened to the noncy boys like that those were the things that I remembered and other things that are like pretty like significant that I just completely forgot so it was like weirdly like reading a book for the first time because there was so much that I had forgotten but also familiar so yeah I owe you a couple gayman videos um but you know they're they're coming next up for the witcher readalong we read baptism of fire by Andres Apkowski and the chat for it was on chapter three podcast as they all are if you missed it I'll leave a link down below we had a great chat I told Bethany this is like the farewell tour for Geralt because the focus like after this point really shifts away from Geralt so I love this book I loved it the first time I loved it this time and it was a great time talking about it so yeah check it out if you missed it next to I'll just do it once because I'm not gonna tell you I shan't be telling you what I think of them and the bookborn books are stories of your life and others by Ted Chang and a song for the void by Andrew C. Piazza and um yeah if you want to know what I think about these books you're gonna have to watch the live on Bookborn's channel now these next two I finished in July which was barely jay legacy by Fondali I did it I finished the green bone saga um I feel like I've lived through something I really really do what a ride what a ride so much happens in these books so much time passes in these books in particular the last one yeah Fondali man she is uh very talented so yeah I finally finally did it and last but not least is the my patrons and I are the buddy read for us um is they read along of the daughter of smoke and fountain trilogy which is a reread for me as everything this year is I'm just rereading everything days of letting starlight by Laini Taylor which is the second book in the daughter of smoke and fountain trilogy and yeah I there was something really really big in this that I had totally forgotten and when I was reading it I was like how did I forget this oh boy if you've never read these books before I recommend them so I'm re-reading them but um trigger warnings I mean I told I remembered this one being really really dark and being without doubt the darkest one in the trilogy but most of what I remembered of the darkness was like the war side of darkness because there's a lot of that in this but there is also so I had forgotten that and I was when I was reading this was like oh I'm glad I warned everybody that this is the darkest one because I totally forgot about this whoo like reading the whole of this book but in particular of this thing that I forgot I'm just like how is this YA is that allowed this is really really dark but really really excellent so I'm excited to read the third and final book this month those are all the books that I read in June typically I would say like and subscribe blah blah blah but nope we're doing July TBR so all these books I have to read before the end of the month which is like very very soon oh no oh no first up I have The Cask by Freeman Wills Croft this is for Blades and Bodice Rippers because of course in July we have Blades and Bodice Rippers and I have no time the live show for this will be on Mars channel this year as with everything we are dressing up with all of our live shows for Blades and Bodice Rippers so since this is like a it's also og23 if you have forgotten so we were trying to read like genre progenitor type of things so this is like a classic I believe a detective store I mean it has this fun emblem so presumably I could rely on that but yeah this is like a classic um detective story so we're all dressing up as something adjacent to that either like from this era or generally detectives or whatever the voice is giving out I don't know if I can keep going I can do this I can do this so yeah I'm looking forward to reading this my patrons and I are buddy reading just because it's not like the official buddy reader anything um Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov this is mostly my fault I think because I won't shut up about Blade Runner 2049 and Blade Runner 2049 frequently references Pale Fire so I got my interest up for reading Pale Fire and I got everyone else's well not everyone but some people's interest up so I think they've my patrons have already read this I think they read it while I was sick so I need to catch up but I'm quite excited to read it and then probably rewatch 2049 again then my patrons and I now that we're done with Book of the New Sun we've decided to do another sci-fi series to read as well not as the official buddy read but also to like chat about extensively so the Hyperion Cantos is what we're tackling next I read the first two last year I think or the two years ago how long has it been it might have been two years ago anyway my patrons actually chose Hyperion the first book for me to read and vlog for them at some point and then I myself then read the second one but I never finished the third and fourth ones so we're going to do them all over again so the first and second ones will be rereads for me kind of like a book of the new sun where I had read some of them but not all of them so we're reading all four every other month so next month I'm not reading um Fall of Hyperion that will be September but anyway I'm looking forward to it because I really did enjoy Hyperion. Next is the book that my patrons have chosen for me to read and vlog for them so now that I've just finished the Jade Legacy vlog I need to like immediately dive into vlogging again and then it's A Natural History of Dragons a memoir by Lady Trent now I'm kind of bad because I used to own this in hardcover I used to own this whole well I don't know if it was a whole series like whatever without at the time so it was like three or four books I owned them all in hardcover and then I like didn't read them for forever and I was like am I ever going to read these probably not so I got rid of them now the hard covers are out of print and my patrons chose it for me so I had to go and buy a stupid paper bag so I'm kind of mad about it I wish I could go into my past self and be like nope don't don't do it you're gonna need this because this like I mean I'm finally getting better about like you don't need to keep this you're not going to use this you're never going to read this just get rid of it and now the fact that this has happened it's gonna like set me back in my like mental health now everything I'm just gonna be like no but what if that happens again maybe I do need it you never can tell anyway at least it's a lot shorter than jade legacy so there's that next up for the year of gaming is I think the only book by gaming in my year of gaming that I have never read before I'm pretty sure that's true it's not true fragile things short fictions and wonders by Neil Gaiman um I've read trigger warning and smoke and mirrors so I've read those short story collections this I think is the only short story collection of his that exists that I have not read I was really looking forward to it I mean I still generally am um because I remember the both times that I saw him speak he read a story from fragile things which made me go oh I really need to read that collection because that was a great story and also it's like you know new game in which is like not a thing regularly for me like I've read most of Gaiman already my patrons already started reading it or finished it and they're not too hot about this collection they're like that's not as good as trigger warning or smoke and mirrors so I'm like this is probably my favorite cover for all of the short story collections just because I like bees a lot I don't even know if that's a bee is it a bee possibly I don't know but I like that kind of thing and it's orange objects will do the best color I'll probably do with this what I did with smoke and mirrors um which is to vlog where I tell you my thoughts as I finish each story I don't know where I will find the time to do that but that is my intention next because I didn't read it in June um we pushed the live show to July although it's coming up fast his dark age um for the red rising readalong the live show will be on my channel I need to read it I've read this one most recently from all the ones that were rereading which is all the whole series I read this like a year or two ago year or two ago for Alan's readalong so this is pretty fresh in my brain but I would like to reread it although it is really really dark but anyway looking forward to chatting about this book and making Alex cry about all my accurate theories next is a book that um I haven't read in a long time but I loved it the first time I read it and I sort of talked my patrons into reading it as well because the sequel um which this was originally a standalone but there's a sequel coming out this month or next month I don't know but I want to read the sequel so I wanted to read the first one again and that is house of salt and sorrows by Aaron A Craig when this came out I got a lot of buzz I feel pretty like not I don't feel much excitement for a lot of white fantasy this is like probably like five years ago probably but yeah it's copy assigned is it cool no it's no I have an octopus on it that's cool it goes I have a cool boomerkin here but the game of thrones quote on it who knew I didn't publication date that's what I was checking 2019 no I thought it was a little older than that but that's still yeah that's oh my god that is almost five years this is a retelling which I don't really like usually fairytale retelling so I'm like no really retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses which is not a fairytale that people retell very often it's always Cinderella Beauty and the Beast well usually those two sometimes sleeping beauty sometimes snow white it's never the 12 Dancing Princesses I was so surprised by how moody and atmospheric this book was the ending like let me down a little bit but otherwise like I like devoured it I was like I think the first time I read it it was like around Halloween time and I had been reading books that I thought would be kind of spooky and they were just like doing nothing for me and then I picked this up randomly and this was like quite spooky and I was like okay this was not like my Halloween read but like dang this is way more atmospheric and giving me like way more chills than anything that I thought would and since then she came out with a different book not the sequel to this completely unrelated called small favors it was also really atmospheric and interesting and I was like I think this is an autobiography for me that one also had an ending to kind of let me down so I was like this is what I've come to know about this author is that like I really like her work I like the atmosphere her endings like leave something to be desired but that's fine the journey is worth it so she's written a sequel to this House of Roots and Ruin which comes out like very soon so hence rereading House of Salt and Sorrows another YA book I'm reading with my patrons I think they already started slash finished it that is the third in the Jane Austen mysteries that I've been enjoying manslaughter park by tears of price um the first were um pride and premeditation and sense and second degree murder I enjoyed both very much and I like mansfield park which I know a lot of people don't um so I'm quite interested to see what she does with mansfield park to make it murdery um I mean I just have a really good time with these when I read them so I expect this to be no different and then even though I didn't actually manage to finish before they are hanged in June last argument of games in July I'll finish before they are hanged like I'm not too like worried about it I've read it a few times before they are hanged is my favorite in the trilogy so I probably will make enough effort to finish it and then also last argument of kings so you know when I get to it oh because because Mara's reading them so at some point we will chat about them I don't know when I don't know anything in the witcher readalong continues with tower of swallows um which I remember the first time I read the series this was where things went downhill for me I'm hoping that because I'm going in prepared for that this time that I kind of like um this like was like with feast for crows like I remember the first time I read the game of throne series or a song of ice and fire I was really let down my feast for crows but ready rereading it going and kind of knowing what it would be and what it wouldn't be I actually really loved the second time so I'm hoping the tower of swallows now that like I do know what this is and what it isn't that I will enjoy it a lot more the second time but we shall see this is 100 000 the best cover in these new hard covers like stunning 10 out of 10 no notes next up is mickey seven by um edward ashton and just getting this book was kind of a saga this is the uk hardcover I could had been kind of interested in this book and then been like oh I'll get it whenever and then I saw a sequel come out to it and I was like oh yeah and then I went to look and blackwell supposedly had one copy left of the hardcover of the first one and then obviously the new one had just come out so they had that hardcover and I was like oh cool like just in time so I ordered both the hardcover of this and the sequel and then like a month later blackwells was like whoopsie dubsy sorry we don't actually have that book so here's your refund and I was like what I have the hardcover now of the sequel they must match so I found on amazon uk um this copy from a third party seller which like cost twice as much as the copy that I had ordered from blackwells but I was like this has become a thing now I must have this because the uk cover is as always superior to the american cover it's a sci-fi story and um I've talked to my patrons or some of them into reading it as well so there's no like reason for this this isn't a read along this isn't anything like that it's just because then um I skipped book of the month club um in I usually read like the previous month's books in the subsequent month so like I didn't pick anything for um June right okay whatever yeah I didn't pick a June book but I did have a book last year from book of the month club book uh book of the month that I didn't actually read um that was like leftover so I was like well since I skipped then I'll slap this in and that's other birds by Sarah Addison Ellen but of course July is like a crazy busy month so if there's anything that I can bump off it's probably this so I probably still won't get to this but it's short I would like to get it done and count it towards my reading challenge on book of the month but anyway that's what this is and last but not least is the aforementioned conclusion to the daughter's book and bone trilogy dreams of gods and monsters by Leni Taylor this is the thickest and in my opinion the weakest in the trilogy at least the first time I read it I think it still will be because it was like a pacing thing it wasn't yeah the story is fine it's the pacing but I'm still looking forward to it and those are all the books that I read and will read in June and July and why I haven't been around so let me know in the comments down below if you missed me don't let me know if you didn't miss me or whatever you only know I post videos on saturdays other random times as well but only saturdays so like and subscribe for my patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you bye