Hey folks. I'm Owl, this is Yarn Owl
Reads and today is going to be my August
wrap-up and September plans for 2018.
I'm not feeling up to doing a full wrap-up.
I read 14 things this last month and
so here's just some of the important
ones, some of the highlights.
I read Children of Blood and Bone by
Tomi Adeyemi. I actually didn't
think I was gonna like this because I've
been feeling... I've been having a lot of
trouble with dystopian lately. I just
haven't been feeling up to them but-- and
I started reading this in April and I
had to stop for a while. I had to take a
little break from it and then I started
again right at the beginning of August...
and I finished like two days later. The
audiobook is fantastic. Once I got into
the story, once I sort of understood what
was going on and really cared about the
characters... I am so excited for the
sequel. I am so impatient for the sequel.
It ends, like... if you don't like
cliffhangers maybe wait until the next
one's almost out. I gave it four and a
half out of five stars and I'm looking
forward to my next reread. I also read
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick
Ness and I really liked it. I gave it... I
also gave it a four and a half out of
five stars and I bring it up now because
I think a lot of people who are friends
with me are also fans of Buffy and I
very much felt like this was sort of... it
was almost a contemporary story set on
the backdrop of season three of Buffy. So
if you're a fan of that I highly suggest
that book. I finished this set of the Sunstone
series, so I read volumes four and
five which is what makes up book two, and
I loved them. I highly recommend them if
you're looking for a queer BDSM graphic
novel that's just adorable. And the
second set of-- that I read was a little
bit harder. It did have a little bit more
of, like, real issues in it as opposed to
just like cute fluffy romance, but I
really liked how it went. So I highly
recommend you read that entire set.
Volumes 1 through 5 are one story so
check that out. I reread the last two
Magnus Chase books, so that's Hammer of
Thor and Ship of the Dead.
And I gave them both five stars I think...
Hammer of Thor 4.5 and Ship of the Dead
5. Alright, well, I gave them very high
ratings. And yeah, just in case anybody
was at all wondering Alex Fierro still
owns my heart. I finally finished Ruin of
Stars by Linsey Miller. This is the
second book in the Mask of Shadows
duology. Mask of Shadows, right here, place
of honor on my queer bookshelf. It was so
good. I am going to post a full reading
vlog of that at some point when I finish
editing it. But it was very good I gave
it 4 out of 5 stars.
Just... if you're looking for a good, like
sort of fantasy adventure quest with
assassins and morally grey characters
and some magic and a gender-fluid main
character, like that's... that is this
series all wrapped up for you, please
read it. I also read-- I reread-- so I read
this once in high school... I read this
many times in high school, let's be fair.
I reread Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and
I liked it a lot better than I thought I
would. I gave it three stars and I was
expecting to give it like a 1. It was a
really fun nostalgic silly read. Like,
obviously there's like, unhealthy
relationship dynamics and some
possessive behaviors and it's like toxic
masculinity up the waz-- there's lots of
toskic... toxic masculinity but I was able
to, there like... that didn't make me hate
the book. I was like, oh yep no that's
crummy but this is still fun to read. I
will note that since then, since September has
started I have read New Moon and half of
Eclipse and oh boy, I am not liking those.
I can't deal with like all of the crap
that is being written in those. It's
really just lots and lots of... ableism and
other issues but that's a really big
one. I'll talk about that later. All of
the other books that I read in August
were for class and at some point I
think I'm going to do a blog post, sort
of like
Destiny over at Howling Libraries did a
blog post about her assigned readings. I
think I'm gonna end up doing that at
some point, but in case you're interested
they were The Graveyard Book by Neil
Gaiman, four out of five-- or four
point five out of five stars.
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, four out of
five stars.
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, 4.5 stars. We Are
Okay by Nina LaCour, four stars. And Last
Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña,
four point five out of five
stars. So those are my class reads so far.
You may notice I'm not putting the
covers up for this video. I might not do
that for a little while. I am in grad
school again. I am stressed. I have very
little time, so the editing on these is
probably gonna be not quite as nice as
the editing has been to this point. I
still want to make the videos even if I
can't put that level of time and energy
into them, so this is also why you're
getting an abbreviated wrap-up and sort
of a plan all in one video. Alright, so
that was my August. As far as my plan
went I did finish Children of Blood and Bone.
I didn't read Dread Nation. I did my
class readings, yay! I finished reading Ruin of
Stars and I didn't finish Strangers on
the Phone. If you're interested in what that is
check out my plan video from the
beginning of Oct-- nope, I keep saying
October I mean August. Check out my plan
video from the beginning of August that
I released in the middle of August.
It's a Clexa fanfiction that was
published. The author is somebody I know
from being on the internet and reading a
lot of Clexa fanfiction and so she
sent me an ARC of her published book and
it's... I got about halfway... I don't know,
I read some of it. It was a fun before
bedtime read and then I started reading
other fanfiction before bed so that's
where that ended up.
That's where we are for now. If I ever do
finish it I will mention it on here.
Alright, and then as far as plans go for
September I am mostly reading things for
class. There are a couple things that I
have that aren't for class. I can't, I'm
not gonna guarantee that I'm gonna read
these but I have them in case I need
something other than that. I have Solaris by
Stani-slaw Lem... Stanisław Lem I think
it's how you say that. This is the
S'more Sci-fi Book of the month. It's
short, it's sci-fi, and I've been feeling
in a super-- I've been feeling in a very
sci-fi mood, in a very sort of a spooky
mood because in my brain it is now
fall and therefore I want to read spooky
things. It seems spooky, it's sci-fi-ey
and I really like listening to those
podcasts so I might get to that. My
library also does this really cool
program where they do their own book box
of the month. So there's a program, it's
a readers advisory program where you
can get a book of the month picked for
you by the acquisitions library and just
based on your tastes. The acquisitions--
acquisitions librarian also happens to
be a really good friend of mine and so
like she's giving me a book
recommendation every month but they come
in these boxes that have little goodies
in them all surrounded a theme. Like this
month's theme was the... it's honeybee
month apparently and so we got a
bookmark that looks like a honeybee and
like honey sticks and a tea and yeah... and
my book for this month was The Stars Now
Unclaimed by Drew Williams. I just picked
this up and I haven't read anything
about it, and I don't think I'm going to
because all I really need is this blurb
on the cover which says "Come for the
exploding spaceships, stay for the
intriguing universe." Becky Chambers,
author of The Long Way to a Small Angry
Planet. I still haven't gotten to Closed
and Common Orbit yet and I'm actually
saving most of my sci-fi, especially the
sci-fi that I know is queer, for
something special that you all will hear
about hopefully soon... I may be planning a
thing, keep an eye on my social media for
more. But anyway The Stars Now Unclaimed
just, it-- it's, it is long so I don't know
if I'm gonna get through it this month
with all the other things I have to do
but I'm excited about it nonetheless.
I'm really hoping I'll get through it.
I'm also reading all the school books
and now that I actually have my class
list I can tell you more about the
school books I'm gonna be reading. So the
next two weeks are all picture books and
we're focusing on illustrators so I am
reading books by Jon Klassen, I think
it's pronounced Rick (*Chris, sorry!) Raschka. I'm going
to look all of
that up if I discuss it in my wrap-up.
And Sophie Blackall. Those are authors that,
I think two of them I'm comparing and
contrasting them and one of them I'm
just doing an in-depth author analysis.
So yeah that's what I'm doing for the
next couple of weeks and then... let's look
at the rest of my schedule for
September. Oh, nope, and then we're going
to October. There we go.
Apparently all my class readings for
September are picture books. That's
exciting and lovely. Cool, okay, so that's
what I'm reading. I'm probably not gonna
read a whole lot outside of class books
and the two I showed you, the two sci-fi.
One) because I am saving my queer sci-fi
for a special event and then two) I have
been feeling a lot of fanfiction lately,
So audiobooks get me through. Audiobooks
are a total lifesaver for me. I'm not sure
what I would do without them. I know I
would read significantly less. This last
month... let's see, what are my stats. Of the 14
books I read, ten of them were audiobooks,
two of them were graphic novels, and one
was a picture book... perfect... that does
not add up to fourteen, what's the other
one... oh and one was an eARC. So
everything that I could listen to on
audiobooks, like three were totally
graphic based, I couldn't listen to the
audiobook, one was an eARC, I couldn't have
the audiobook. Everything else I read
last month was on audiobook, and I
actually discovered audiobooks through
fanfiction. So on Archive of our Own you
can search for podfics and there is a
whole community of people that records
fan fictions and puts them up on
Archive of our Own or Tumblr or
fanfiction.net or wherever you find your
fanfiction... I don't actually know that
fanfiction.net has it, to be
fair, because I haven't used that. But I
have a couple of, like old favorites that
I just absolutely adore and so right now
I'm listening to one of those and it's
like, just the series by itself, not
including all the spin-offs the author did,
I think is like 12 to 15 hours... 18 hours?
Something like that. It's a lot of hours
and that's making me feel good right now,
so I think I might just be listening to
fanfiction. So at the end of the month
you might get a class wrap-up and a
fanfiction wrap up. We'll see how that goes.
But anyway, that's all I've got for you
right now. If you want to find me on
other social media, I am on Goodreads,
Instagram, Twitter, and WordPress all as
Yarn Owl Reads. If you have any questions
or comments you know where to put them.
And other than that, thanks for watching
and I hope you have a great day. Bye!
