What's up crusties welcome back to my
channel. So today we're gonna be doing
another addition to my series where I
wrap up all the books that I've read
from January through June. This video
specifically
will probably be mostly us dragging
Goodreads--just
kidding I'm not coming for Goodreads
neck but I will say while looking at the
books that I'm going to talk about for
today's video
I definitely did think about
the usefulness of Goodreads and just
how much we actually need a half star
rating because I noticed that a lot of
the books that I gave four stars when I
went over them
I definitely feel like I didn't even
know what the difference
between my four stars and my five stars
were...that's also
me personally because sometimes I'll
literally
think so hard on whether or not I want
to give a book four stars or five stars
and it's just so difficult
and I'm like should I even rate books if
I'm having trouble picking between four and five stars.
Then when you do four and a half
stars you're like okay is it gonna be a
five, is it gonna be a four and you're just like
freaking out but if we're being honest
it's kind of our only source
our only way to rate books and see what
other people are reading as well
unless..unless you think about apps like
The Booksloth. I've been using this app
and I really really love it. This video
is not sponsored or anything like that
I just really love this app and I want
to see more people on it.
I'm definitely not going to be
abandoning Goodreads because like I said
it's definitely all-encompassing
and it's a really good app for wanting
to look up lists and things that people have made
but if you do want to try out something
cool
something really aesthetic something
brand new and fresh
definitely check out The Booksloth.
Speaking of cool and fresh
shout out to Faecrate for sending me
this wonderful free box that I'm going
to be showing you guys in this video.
I really love that it says caution magic
inside and when you open it it's wrapped in
this black wrapping paper and it has the
really cute Faecrate logo.
So the first thing in the box was a
graphic card of
Red Rising's Darrow as Zeus and I'm
showing you guys that right here.
A Sorcery of Thorns t-shirt that says
you belong in the library as much as any
book. Then we have a lunch box from the
Midnight Lie, a Grace of Antlers necklace, an enamel pin
that says I'm Extra
and Proud, a Kalazan stamp pin, an Eragon
pin banner that you can hang up or put up
however you want. We also have a
polaroid from Throne of Glass, a graphic
card that says it's easier to stand
together than it is to struggle apart, a
Katmere academy patch, a spoiler card
and then finally we have the book which
is a super cool addition
because the actual cover itself, when you
open it it has some really cool graphics
on the inside
and I'm gonna go ahead and show you guys all of that.
So I didn't really know much
about this book until receiving it
but it follows our main character Nick
Bell who is satisfied with writing fan
fiction stories
about superheroes in his city until he
meets his biggest superhero crush
and then he decides that he wants to
become a superhero,
and he wants to be extraordinary, which
is, you know, the title...
but yeah that's basically the premise of
the book. Once I read it,
I will definitely know more but I'm
really excited because as you guys can
see it's an absolutely beautiful cover
so if you guys do decide that you want
this book and all of the other items in
this box
make sure you use my code that I will
have on the side and down below as well
so you can get 5% off of a box
order
so you can get yourself a really cute
book in a wonderful
Faecrate edition.
Anyways,  today we're going to be talking about my
four star ratings for the first half of the year. I don't know
if you guys already picked up on that
but that's what we're going to be
talking about in today's video. So the
first book I have on this list
is To All the Boys I've Loved Before,
which is a book that follows our main
character Lara Jean Song Covey who writes out these
letters to pour out her emotions to her crushes as
a way to kind of get over them and to just scream on a piece
of paper. My letters are my most secret
possessions. I write them when I have a
crush so
intense I don't know what else to do.
These letters are kind of like a diary
to Lara Jean and she writes them, writes the address
and everything but she never mails them out
until one day all of her love letters get mailed and Lara Jean
has to deal with the repercussions of
that and one of the people who receives
a letter from her is Peter Kavinsky who happens to be the
most popular guy at her school.
I really I appreciate it but it's never
gonna happen. I'm sorry what?
I really really loved
this book, I loved Lara Jean's character. I do think
because it is a YA contemporary
a lot of people might feel like oh Lara
Jean is super childish and blah blah
blah
but I really really enjoyed this book
and I really liked--this is a really
random thing--but I really liked the baking recipes at
the back of the book. I don't know how to bake so I really
appreciated that because Lara Jean bakes
a lot
throughout the book and it kind of puts
you in a baking / cooking mood
so I really enjoyed that aspect of the
book as well I personally thought that
Lara Jean's character was really well
done she was quirky, she was funny she
wasn't too much of a try-hard character
she was just someone who is very easy to
like.
Let's talk about Peter Kavinsky...I'm not
the biggest fan of Peter
but I do think because I watched the
movie before reading the book
and how that impacted me was I
definitely thought peter's character was
better in the book as we usually assume but I thought he
was very sassy he was very snarky
but in a good and funny way as opposed
to in the movies which I didn't really
enjoy
that much like I loved the movie but I
didn't really like peter's character
that much so definitely reading the book that way
like after the movie helped me like him a lot more and I feel
like it generally helped me like the
book a lot more
even though the actress who plays Lara Jean is just chef's
kiss so good, but yeah. I'm not even
talking about the movie I'm talking
about the book but I  just wanted to add
that little tidbit in there if you're
someone who has watched a movie and
you're kind of like
I don't want to read the book because
it's not going to give me anything extra
it definitely will. Peter's character is
so much better in the book so yeah just
read the book. Okay, okay moving on to the
next book. The next book that we're going
to talk about is Frankly in Love which
follows our main character Frank
who likes a girl who is not Korean and
so
because his parents want him to date a
Korean girl and be with Korean girl he
kind of makes this pact with one of his friends
who is also dating someone who is in
Korean and they get into this fake
dating mess which is basically the entire premise of
the whole story. I really really liked
this book, I liked the discussion
that our author David Yoon brought up
about racism
about tokenism about friendships with
black people and friendships
between Black and Asian people I really
really liked the discussion
that happened in this book but I ended
up giving it four stars because even
though I felt like this book was
near perfect in my opinion, I didn't like
how there were certain tropes in the
book that i won't give away but if
you've read the book you know
I didn't like how that trope kind of
played into the end of the story
and a certain character, I feel they're
like how they were affected
from this whole thing wasn't really
explained very well but besides that i
honestly think this is probably
one of my favorite contemporaries of the
year i don't know i want to gush about
this book so much because i just really
enjoyed it and it's definitely something
i would reread quite a few times
but yeah so the next book i have on this
list is the field guide to the north
american teenager which follows our main
character
who moves from canada to the united
states and he kind of has to adjust
to life here and even though he is used
to being you know in quebec and used to
being around people that he's familiar
with he has to figure out the texan way
and from what i remember because i think
i read this very early in the year
our main character was very very
hilarious like that played into
such a high rating for this book he was
very funny
his interactions with all the characters
were very
very like entertaining and i really
loved the friendships and the romances
in this book because i thought that
it really captured what it's like to be
a teenager in high school
you know you have your friends they have
the drama and you're trying to figure
out okay
where do i fit in in all of this and it
is also really nice to see
a character moving from canada to the
united states because i feel like not a
lot of stories focus on that
so i really enjoyed that aspect of the
book as well but i can't really put my
finger on
much else except that i thought it was
just a really funny and cute
and very entertaining book i read it on
audio so i was definitely here for all
the sassy remarks and comments from our
main character
because they were definitely sassy the
amount of times have you sorted
entertaining for this book
next book that i have on here is
absolute boyfriend which is a manga
series that follows our main character
who has never had a boyfriend
and she comes upon this mysterious cell
phone and a weird salesman
who offers her the perfect boyfriend
essentially and so she puts in an order
for the perfect boyfriend thinking it's
fake
it's not gonna happen and lo and behold
the awesome
awesome perfect boyfriend shows up at
her door
and she basically has to deal with
keeping the secret of where this guy
came from
from her friends from her best friend
from her school classmates
and it's a mess it honestly is a mess
but i really really
love this manga i think i've read like
maybe the first three volumes i can't
fully remember right now
and there's also a k drama version of
this manga and you know i will be
watching that so i need to finish the
series
so i can watch a k drama but all in all
i really enjoyed it it's very funny
there are some aspects of the manga that
are definitely questionable
the way that genre of manga gets but it
is definitely a really really cute
series so so next is the angel
experiment which is the first book in
the maximum ride series
i read this because i wanted to feel
nostalgic
this is actually for a video that i was
going to do where i read books from
the past or books that made me feel kind
of nostalgic and i haven't read
anything maximum rise since i was maybe
like 11 or 12 so i was like let me start
with this
and it actually was a good start i
really enjoyed maximum write because i
thought the characters max and fang
and everybody else that i literally
cannot remember now because i read this
like
maybe february or march but all the
characters were very very
cute i was like oh my gosh these are
like little siblings
having their fun i didn't remember how
young everyone was
because when i read it i was like the
same age or younger than
everyone so when i was reading it i was
like these are literally
little children sometimes you go back
and you read books from your past and
you're just like oh my god this is
problematic or this is what like what
how did i
really enjoy this what is going on here
but i didn't really get that from
maximum ride
i genuinely thought that this was
definitely a very good
reread and i had a fun time that's all i
can say i had a fun time will i be
reading the rest of the series
probably not but i did get that
nostalgic feeling that i wanted and
that's enough for me
so the next book on this list is little
fires everywhere which follows a
mother and her young daughter who moved
to this town called shaker heights
in the midst of a custody case battle
going on between one of the affluent
families
in this town and a chinese immigrant
woman who is trying to fight
for the rights to have her child back i
really really enjoyed this book because
i thought it did a really good job on
discussing racism
i'm discussing picture-perfect societies
and because i watched the tv show
immediately after reading the book
i can only picture mia and her daughter
as specific people because in the book
when you're reading it they are very
racially ambiguous but it's very clear
that they come from a background that is
very much looked down upon in society
so i think that's why they were casted
the way they were casted for the tv show
if you've watched it because a lot of
the things from the book will make sense
but i really really loved this book i
thought it was just so well done but i
will say
that the reason didn't get a five stars
from me was because i felt like
some parts of the ending were just not
that wrapped up because i did definitely
expect a lot more from the ending of
this book
but i'll say that the entire time you're
reading the book your heart is going to
be pumping
you're going to be very confused about
what side you're on because it's
definitely something that questions
morality and society and a lot of things
you'll be questioning
your beliefs a lot and i really like
that about this book so i definitely
think i'm going to be reading more from
this author i don't want to say too much
because i feel like
it's going to be spoilers if i say
anything
more but i will say the main family and
the sami the richardsons are
an interesting bunch celestine
definitely did a good job capturing this
family and capturing the subtlety
of their racism and the subtlety of how
they viewed
people that they think are less than so
i think that's
just wow if you read this book or if
you've read this book please also watch
the tv show because wreaths witherspoon
acted this part way too well so she
scares me
well shout out to that queen because she
acted it too well i hated her so much
but that's besides the point let's move
on to the next book the next book is
eight perfect murders which is a
thriller novel that follows a man who
is a what's the one i want to use he's a
blogger essentially and he also owns a
bookstore
but a murder happens and he starts
digging into
his eight perfect murders article and he
tries to figure out
what the murder was and etc etc i
really liked this because i had up until
this point not read anything like it and
i still don't think i have
but i will say that if you're gonna read
this book be careful about
spoilers because the eight perfect
murders that the book focuses on
are from different mysteries so the book
is going to give you a lot of spoilers
on very popular mystery books that have
come out so if you have not read a lot
of mystery books like for example the
abc murders by agatha christie
that book gave me all the spoilers for
the abc murders so when i went back and
read the abc readers last month
it was not as exciting as it could have
been so definitely make sure you look up
what the seven or eight books i don't
know if it was seven or eight books
because i think the eighth murder
is the one that the book is centered
around but just make sure you kind of
look up
what books are in that book if you get
what i'm saying
because you definitely don't want to be
spoiled for a mystery slash earlier
because there's nothing worse than that
the twist in this book definitely shook
me up i was like
jinkies what but then when i was like
talking to other friends who read the
book they were just kind of like eh it's
okay
but maybe that's just because i've read
so many bad thrillers as you guys have
seen because i literally just randomly
picked them up on
hoopla or libby so maybe it's because i
had so many bad experiences that i was
shook up all in all i thought it was a
really good
mystery novel i really enjoyed my time
reading i listened to it on audiobook
which is what i typically do
because i don't see the point for me
owning mystery books or thriller books
because i won't end up rereading them
because once that twist is done and gone
that's it for me speaking of thrillers
the next book that i'm going to talk
about is lock every door which follows
our main character who
is struggling financially and so she
decides to take a job where she is
apartment sitting in a luxurious
apartment
in an infamous building this book
was just wow i don't even have any
words for what i want to say because
this book was a
roller coaster the thing that i have
heard and noticed with this author's
works is that when you're reading it you
feel like you're reading something
paranormal for the entire time you're
reading it
but then there's this giant twist that
happens that suddenly makes everything
make sense
and you're just sitting there like shook
and you're like
why did i think this was literally gonna
be a paranormal book but then it's not
but then
you're like but everything still makes
sense so
uh yeah i was definitely very shaken up
when i read this book because this is
100 something that could really happen
in real life
i will say it would have received a
perfect five stars for me if i had not
already guessed
immediately like once it was obvious
that it wasn't a paranormal book
the person who was doing all the crimes
and committing all the murders and
whatever
was very very obvious to me and so i
just felt like it wasn't a five-star
read because at the point where it was
like oh
these things are actually real i was
like oh okay i know who it is
and then when i was like i know who it
is it ended up exactly being that person
but it was definitely not for the reason
that i thought
and so i still thought this book was
absolutely amazing but yeah i am really
excited to continue reading this
author's works because they are super
super popular
and i have heard things about their work
so we'll see how it goes for me but i
really enjoyed this one and i definitely
think
if you like paranormal vibes or
something that's going to give you a
massive twist
then you should check out this book
because this is the only book i can
vouch for so maybe check out this book
but maybe check out their other works as
well
but yeah the next book i'm going to talk
about is clap when you land
oh if you guys did not know
elizabeth acevedo is one of my favorite
authors ever i have read all of her
books and they've all been four and five
star reads because
chef's kids she is a legend okay
clapping land follows two sisters one in
the dominican republic and the other one
in new york city
who are brought together by the death of
their father when he was on his way to
the dominican republic
this book is so heart-wrenching and so
difficult
in certain points if you are somebody
who has a close relationship with your
father or even
a difficult relationship with your
father in certain ways you are
definitely going to be sobbing your eyes
out while reading this book
because the entire time i was reading it
i was just so overwhelmed
and overcome with emotions because
there's just a way that elizabeth writes
especially because this is a novel in
verse which two of her books are
but because of that you just are
said literally fed with so much
emotion and so much pain and so much
grief i
felt like the entire time i was reading
this elizabeth just went
at my heart and tossed it across the
ocean and i was like elizabeth
please let me breathe and she was like
no honey you're not gonna get a chance
to breathe
at all and i was like okay well i guess
i'll just read this and cry which is
exactly what i did
i thought about this book for so long
after reading it and the fact that i
read
half of it while i was on a plane is a
choice
but it was a good choice because i
really really loved it my only critique
with this book is i wish
it had done a lot more with the ending
because ending just didn't give me what
i wanted i wanted to see where the
sisters would go
beyond meeting in the dr and beyond
figuring out what their lives were going
to look like i wanted to see what that
would be like maybe just for a few more
months i wanted to see
what their family would look like now
that all of this is happening and now
that they are having to figure out
how to build a relationship between the
children i just wish we had got more
but regardless i was fed well and
elizabeth acevedo will probably never
disappoint me i don't want to say never
but she probably will never disappoint
me
we'll see but yes if you have not read
clappingyland or if you have not read
any of elizabeth acevedo's works
this is your sign to do that please
give her the cloud she deserves so the
next book is on the fence which is a
book that follows our main character
who is dealing with a lot of family
issues and she
and her best friend who live next door
to each other kind of meet at a fence
that separates the two of them and every
night they share secrets and emotions
and feelings like how do i talk about
this author casey west is one of my
favorite authors
ever and i absolutely adore her white
contemporary books because they are so
easy to read
they are so engaging and she has very
very likable main characters
i feel like every time i read a casey
west book i automatically want to keep
reading more books she definitely is a
perfect author for if you are in a
reading club literally just pick up an
audiobook
i highly recommend listening to your
heart i also recommend ps i still like
you p.s i like you
it's one of those titles i have the
picture up here and i also recommend on
the fence
those three are really good ones to
start out with i just absolutely adore
her writing and
i can't see anything bad about what she
writes except that we need more
diversity
just just a little just a little crumble
just a little crumble of diversity just
a little
just give us a little bit because you
know there's a lot of connors in these
books and just give us a little bit of a
taste of diversity
but aside from that i really loved this
book i think this might have been the
very last one i read before i read
all her books no just kidding there's a
different one that i read but yeah aside
from her needing
more diversity in her books honestly
flawless
the next book i have is parental
guidance which is
the first book in the ice night series
which is a series that follows these
hockey players and their romances
so if you love hawking you love romance
i highly recommend this one it follows
our main characters
who get into a fake dating situation
i really loved this book because the
main love interest was just very funny
and weird he was like kind of awkward
but not
i don't know i really loved this one and
didn't like the second one so
maybe because i didn't like the second
one i love this one way more than i
originally would have if i hadn't hated
the second one if that makes any sense
to you at all
but i barely remember this except the
fake dating aspect
and the fact that our main character's
mom was absolutely hilarious and the
main girl in the story was also
very well characterized very well done i
really enjoyed her character
so yeah four stars the next book on my
list is the housekeeper which is
a thriller novel that follows this woman
who
has kind of fallen off the bench since
finishing high school
and she sees one of her ex high school
classmates
and decides that she is going to become
a housekeeper
in order to take over her classmate's
husband that's all i can remember from
the book i think i really
didn't enjoy it too much when i was
reading it for the first like 20
but as we got closer and we got to the
plot with
honey i was like oh my god what
like the plot twist was really something
like the whole time you think
that our main character is you know like
imagining things
or she's over doing it or you think
she's overreacting because you're like
no it can't really be that her classmate
is evil and doing all these things to
her
her classmate can't really be this while
what
but then when the plot twist happens
you're like i didn't even see that
coming and i really didn't even see that
coming and i didn't think i would like
this book at all it was another random
cooper pick up especially
i think i read it after having a bad
experience i was just kind of like all
right well just one just read it
but it was really good and i really
loved the whole
artist part from what i remember you
know sometimes you read a book
and you're like four stars five stars
and then you go back and think about it
and you're like
was that a good book i didn't really do
that with this yeah so do without what
you will but i did
really really love the plot just in this
book and so i felt like it deserved a
four stars so i had to
stop for a moment but we're back we're
back in action they can't stop us who
does apple think they are
i don't know who they think they are
okay let's start talking before i ran
out of space again okay
anyways the next book that i had on this
list was don't read the comments which
is a book that follows two main
characters who are super into gaming
and they basically connect on the main
character's
main gaming platform our main character
is a popular
youtube gamer and she is trying to
figure out how to maintain her
anonymity as well as keep her mother
safe and herself safe
while dealing with hate comments from
guys on the internet
i thought this book was so good because
i have a lot of friends who
game or who do twitch and all of that
and they are constantly talking about
how people view them as women in the
gaming space
and i thought that this book really
sounded almost exactly like the
complaints that my friends always have
and i really liked the friendship and
the romance that formed between our main
character
and her love interest i really loved the
family dynamics i really loved the
friendship dynamics
i just thought the book was very very
interesting and our main character was
extremely extremely likable like
honestly
her character was just so good and even
not as someone who does gaming or
anything like that
but if you are somebody who is a
youtuber a blogger just anyone
that does anything on the internet or
makes any sort of
creative content online you will
probably really enjoy this because
you're going to understand a lot of
things that div complains about and
you're going to relate a lot so i
definitely recommend that to anybody who
is like that
and the final book on my list is binti
which is a book that follows our main
character binti who is the first
of her tribe to be admitted into this
prestigious
college i loved this book because it
is very afro-centric it is very science
fiction
i really loved our main character and
the use of the clay i think there was
some sort of orange clay
that was part of binti's tribe and i
just really adored the commentary on
racism and the commentary
on how black people are viewed in
society i thought the book did really
well in making it
kind of relevant to our world and also
relevant to the world in the book
it's a novella so it's really really
short and i felt like i didn't get that
much
out of the story but i do want to read
more
of the series because i think there's
like three books i want to read more of
it because i really really enjoyed it
but yes that is the final book on my
list so thank you guys so much for
watching this video i'm gonna try and
talk fast before my phone runs out of
storage again but thank you so much for
watching don't forget to like comment
and subscribe
and if you watch the entire video
throughout make sure you leave
a flower emoji any kind of flower emoji
thanks for watching
bye
