**Book Review: "The Last Book Club" by Ellen Hunter**

As I began reading "The Last Book Club", I was immediately drawn to the meaty, cute opening lines that hinted at the complexities within. The author skillfully crafted characters that were both relatable and endearing, making it easy for me to become invested in their stories. As I delved deeper into the novel, I discovered layers upon layers of depth, each character's narrative weaving a rich tapestry of emotions and experiences. This book earned four stars from me, primarily due to my ambivalence towards the ending. However, I did love the characters, their story, and plot – all executed with exquisite writing.

**Book Review: "The Five-Star Weekend" by Ellen Helderbrand**

This summer's read was "The Five-Star Weekend", a book that effortlessly transported me to the picturesque island of Nantucket. The premise is ingenious: a famous cook blogger invites five friends from different phases of her life on a weekend getaway, hoping to reconnect and find solace in grief. As I devoured this story, I found myself drawn into the world of these women, each with their own unique struggles and triumphs. I was particularly fascinated by the way Ellen Helderbrand wove together the perspectives of these diverse characters, showcasing how our relationships evolve over time. While I did find some of the characters slightly annoying and the Millennial slang cringeworthy at times, I overall enjoyed this book. Unfortunately, it earned three stars from me, as I struggled to connect with the characters, who seemed older than my generation. Nevertheless, I appreciated the setting and the plot twist that kept me engaged.

**Book Club Update: August Read**

As we embarked on our next book club adventure, I excitedly shared with my fellow patrons what we'd be reading for the month of August – "Divine Rivals" by Rebecca Ross. This book has become a recent favorite of mine, and I'm thrilled to dive back into its captivating world with all of you. If you're interested in joining us on this literary journey, please check out our Patreon link, where you can discover different tiers and learn more about our book club. We'll be discussing "Divine Rivals" together, sharing our thoughts and opinions, and I look forward to hearing your voices alongside mine.

**A Shout-Out to Our Book Club Besties**

Before concluding my reading journey in July, I want to extend a special thank you to my fellow book club members. Your enthusiasm, recommendations, and camaraderie have made reading an even more enjoyable experience for me. If you're interested in joining our community, please don't hesitate to explore the Patreon link mentioned earlier. We welcome new readers with open arms, and I'm excited to see which books we'll be discussing together in August.

**Farewell for Now**

As I bid farewell to July's reading list, I hope you've enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at my literary adventures. If you have any thoughts, opinions, or book recommendations, please don't hesitate to share them with me below. Until next time, when I'll be sharing my thoughts on the August read-along, it was a pleasure connecting with all of you over our shared love of books.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign I didn't drop them oh my God I think this is the first video taking a thumbnail with so many books in my hand and I did not drop them round Applause for me thank you thank you hi guys welcome or welcome back to my channel welcome to August right nope always do this welcome to my July reading wrap up I cannot believe I say this every time I start one of these videos I'm pretty sure I cannot believe that it is the end of July I cannot believe that we are in August genuinely Warehouse the summer gone I do not understand how it's August and in a few weeks we are going to be going into the fall season like it's blowing my mind how summer goes so quick and I think it's because Summer is just fun you know we're not gonna get into the seasons but we are going to get into all of the books that I read in July obviously we're going to go through what they're about my writing my review what I thought about them if I recommend them you guys know how this goes so I've read a total of 17 books in the month of July romance fantasy Thrillers dystopian I have all of these genres here to talk to you guys about I have I don't know if I have any five stars I don't think I do which was a bummer but I do have ranging from I think three is the lowest which is a thumbs up to I think like some 4.5 so we have some good some good books in here before we do I do want to thank today's sponsor which is book of the month thank you so much book the month for sponsoring today's video you guys know how much I love book of the month they are super popular and fast growing online book service for readers their mission is to promote new and emerging authors and help readers like us find books that they love their team vets hundreds of books each month and gives their readers a choice from a curated selection of new and early release titles which is so amazing because it gives us more time to read and less time to research one of the best parts is they are risk free you can skip anytime any month you will not be charged plus they have the best price for new release hardcover fiction you can get your first book for just 9.99 with my code Sarah corolli all that information will be in the description now into the books that I got for this month so you get this wonderful blue box that shows up at your door and in here is the book that I got none of this is true Lisa Jewell's new release I love Lisa Jewels writing so much I was so excited to see this as one of the options this month this one is about a famous podcaster that interviews a stranger when they bump into each other a few times and the strangers secrets are revealed throughout and the main character gets Tangled Up in all of these secrets so that is this one I'm so excited to read this I again love her writing and then I got another mystery book this is called Happiness Falls by Angie Kim so her father and her brother don't return from a walk and she gets a little suspicious but then her brother comes back all battered and bruised and she's like what's going on and it says that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene who has a rare genetic condition and cannot speak this one sounds very very interesting again these are the two books that I picked if you are interested in book of the month you guys can go to book of the month.com and use my code Sarah Crowley for your first book just 9.99 again that's all in description for you guys always when starting these videos I actually forget about the books that I read at the beginning of the month and it just becomes such a blur but I just don't remember anything so just stick with me here but the first book I've been finish in July with love theoretically by Ali Hazelwood this was her newest release and I was honestly a little skeptical to read this one at first like before I saw any reviews of it because I feel like her other books aren't similar but I didn't know if I was in the mood or I wanted to read another stem romance but after seeing such good reviews and people raving about this book I was so excited to read it after reading this I was obsessed with it I gave this 4.25 Stars it was just such an amazing read what I love about ali hazelwood's characters and especially her main female character so they have such a personality like I feel like they are so unique and different from each other and I just really feel like I know them when I'm in their head and they don't feel like one-dimensional like they feel like real people and they're just so entertaining and so interesting to see their point of views this is about Elsie who's an Adjunct professor and she doesn't make a lot of money so she has another job on this app where she kind of fake dates people which is very interesting so one of her clients she works with multiple times and the brother of her client that she's with a lot Jack is the main male character so you have her fake dating this guy on an ad in front of his family but the interest is his brother which was very interesting I've never read a book like that and Jack actually the rules over the physics department at MIT kind of standing between Elsie and her dream job so there's kind of like this animosity there I will say that this had a lot of like science politics within this but I also want to say that it wasn't difficult to understand but it was a little bit too heavy for me on the science I know that's what I was gonna get while going into this but I didn't absolutely love it it was easy to understand and I got the difference between the type of physics people that the two main characters are because they're in different fields I think one's theoretical and one's experimental and they kind of have a little Feud going on between the two of them so I understood it but I just didn't absolutely love it and I'll see this character who whoever she's in front of she kind of plays a different personality in front of them because it kind of people please them but when Jack is around her like he reads her so well and she doesn't have to kind of like form a different personality in front of him and it was so amazing how he could read her I absolutely loved Jack it wasn't a five-star region get a five-star feeling there were a few things in here that I didn't absolutely love but it was a really amazing read one of my favorites by Ali Hazelwood then I read good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney I won this for her giveaway it's a signed Arc literally was so excited to read this and I also gave this 4.25 Stars so this is just told in a few point of views and it's basically about this woman who was in a supermarket with her baby in a stroller and she turns around for a second she turns back around to the stroller and her baby's gone but now it's present day 20 years later and you get another point of view of this woman who is in a nursing home her daughter put her in there and her only companion is one of the maids patients and you get all their point of views and they kind of all not connect but you're trying to see how they intertwine and how they connect between each other all of three of them are kind of thrown into the same mystery but like in different point of views within it and it's very interesting and I thought I had the whole thing figured out and I thought that I understood and kind of like connected the pieces because as it was reading it was kind of flowing into what the ending was but then there's a little plot twist that I did not see coming and I just love Alice Feeney's writing I just didn't want to put this down her writing to me flows really well and even if it like slows down a little bit I still want to know what happens this one was a little bit slow in the middle of it but I was just like I wanted to know what was gonna happen I didn't know that there was gonna be a plot twist too which I was like a little bummed about but then she got me she always gets me she knows exactly how to pull a plot twist out and it just like it was so good and then I read book Lovers by Emily Henry I actually tried to read this I don't remember when but I actually dnf'd it halfway through but I decided to give it another chance and I am so happy I did I think I understood Emily Henry's writing at this point I think after reading all of her books you kind of understand how she creates characters and worlds and like the depths between the characters and I feel like I said this in the video where I read this if you can't connect to one of her characters or all of her characters or the store or anything I feel like her writing feels very boring and very Bland but once you could connect to the story connect to the characters and like kind of understand them a little more you're just like really invested in her writing she becomes this beautiful thing so I gave this four stars not my favorite Emily Henry book but I absolutely loved it I will say the beginning is a little bit slow she's kind of like prepping the story and like building the story to where it's gonna go and I really appreciated the way that she did that the second time around so if you deny this like I just thought it was really boring I do think you should give it another chance maybe try it if you want to but if you don't know what Book Lovers is about it's about Nora who's this literary agent and she meets with Charlie who is a pup no he's an editor and they meet in like the prologue I think it is or like the very beginning and she is pitching her clients book to him and he's like no and they kind of have this little tiff between each other and then it's present day her client writes in this like small town really happy world in her books and Nora's sister is obsessed with that small town so she's like let's take a trip there let's spend however many weeks there let's get away from this life because Nora's a city girl she loves the city so we take a vacation there they take a trip there and she bumps into Charlie but it kind of reads more of a literary fiction book it doesn't really read as a romance just yet you kind of get more of Libya and Nora's relationship and the relationships between all of them I feel like she does such a good job Emily Henry of writing relationships between so many different people so many different things once you get into Charlie and Nora's story like deeper into the story their banter this is the best banter in any of her books like it's just so good I don't know how she does it I absolutely loved it I will say it was slower for me like this isn't one that I binged really I think it took me a little bit longer to get through but I loved the writing I love the story I love the way it ended it kind of went full circle and also in the beginning she was saying how like in normal small town romances like you get the main character who goes to small town and she stays there and she realizes that that's where she's meant to be but that's not Nora Nora is this shark character and she loves the city and she's like this Cutthroat literary agent and that's just how Nora is and she's not really changing herself but it was really good I really loved this book I think if you want to give it a second chance I highly recommend doing so it was really really really good and then I read the atlas six by Olivia Blake this one is a modern day fantasy about six of the most talented magicians around like the whole entire world they are chosen to go to the secret society kind of schooling to study upon things within the schooling and by the end of it only five get to enter the schooling like you kind of have to almost compete to get in so all six of these characters or all six of these magician people have different magic abilities and that's why they're chosen they have different skills and skill sets you get all their point of views and one thing I love about Olivia Blake is how she creates characters she doesn't like go right in and give you a background of the characters know she throws you right into the story and you kind of grow and realize how these characters are without her straight up telling you like word for word and you kind of grow attached to them in that way and I love the way she creates a story and characters in her writing it's just like I've never read any other writing kind of like hers like it's just so unique in her own way and all of her stories are so different this one I ended up giving 3.75 I will say it was really entertaining like I wanted to know where it was going to go and how these characters were going to connect with each other and form alliances or form differences and like enemies whatever like all the Dynamics of them are so different but them together was such an amazing kind of like almost found family like this found family reminds me so much of six of crows found family which is my favorite one ever because all of them are so different but when they come together and they kind of like grow with each other almost you could see how they interact with each other it's just so fun a diva 3.75 because I liked the premise of the story but when you got into like the politics of the magic I got a little lost I feel like she got a little bit too in-depth and a little too scientific for me like I literally just did not understand anything that she was saying at some point and it got a little bit slow in the middle of it but I loved the ending I loved the way it was set up I love the basis of this story but some parts fell flat orange got confused I will say I want to read the atlas Paradox which is the one after this so don't know when that will be but I definitely want to continue this story I loved these characters okay and then I read Belladonna by Adeline Grace this one I was so excited to read because I've heard absolutely nothing but good things like I was told if you like once upon a broken heart Jax if you like wrath from Kingdom of the wicked like this main character romantic interest gives those vibes so obviously I'm ready to eat it up it fell flat for me and I was so upset while reading it that it did fall flat this is about Cigna and everywhere she goes started from when she's a baby growing up like people around her are dying so people think she's like cursed and she can't go around people or they're gonna die and whatever so at one point her I forget who she's like being taken care of I think is her aunt I don't know who it is but she passes away and Cigna is taken away to her uncle's house I think and her uncle has a lot of money they live in a mansion this huge setting of like lots of land Mansion type feel and when she's there she discovers something within that family her family that's like a little bit iffy a little bit weird and wrong she kind of has to go through a little bit of a mystery while she's there so death follows her around but death is an actual like person almost like a shadow within it like death has his own character and like speaks and stuff like it's legit a character in this story within the whole story like you're going along the mystery and the Mystery was very entertaining for me I was very intrigued with it it's very like paranormal-esque almost and really enjoyed the mystery part the romance fell so flat for me and I was so excited to read about this romance I just could not grasp the concept of death as like romantic interest it just did not hit for me and like right off the bat I think the writing was a little bit surface level like I wanted to go deeper I wanted to have more depth to it like I feel like it was a little bit too on the top level do you know what I mean I don't know I ended up giving this 3.5 Stars it wasn't bad it was very entertaining loved the way it ended and I feel like it didn't flow too well for me like I feel like it didn't connect the dot there was another little surprise not plot twist maybe it's a plot twist but I guess it within the first like 60 pages so that was a little bit of a bummer I just didn't connect with it I think as I wanted to when I thought I was going to it was mid but it wasn't bad it just didn't hit like I thought it was going to okay and then I started the natural series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and then throughout the month I ended up reading the second one as well so the naturals and then Killer Instinct is the second one this I do not know why I have not seen this series sooner I read The Inheritance games by her and absolutely loved it but I think that this series I love even more the characters in here the storyline that this is what I love you know why a little Series this is basically like a why a Criminal Minds if you've heard about this series that's definitely how it's been described to you but five different teenagers and they all have different skill sets that help the FBI on kind of like cases two of them are profilers one can read emotions one can lie detect one is like really statistical in her brain it's very interesting they're all so different they all have very like traumatic backgrounds but they all Bond over this in a way it's like a found family together and they're so interesting together and then you also get like the FBI agents the people around them the side characters that are just like so amazing like I'm obsessed and then obviously you get the cases the FBI world and all that mixed together with like a little bit of a romance subplot and all of these is just like so good her writing is just I've never read such fast-paced writing before like in my life like it's so so fast-paced so quick you can just binge this series if you wanted to and it's so entertaining I love all of them I think I gave this one four and this one 4.5 this one you kind of obviously get to know the characters once you finish this one and get into this one you know the characters you know their stories you know a little bit of their backgrounds and it's kind of just progressing and it just gets better and better like I loved this one so much and I'm just obsessed with this series then I read the summer broken Rules by k.l Walther so this one is a little why a romance I did read this a few years ago it was our book club book of the month so I wanted to reread it especially in the summer time it just felt like the perfect book to reread if I wanted to and it was so fast-paced I read this in a date because about Meredith who lost her sister a few years ago and she's still mourning the loss of her sister but every year her family takes a little trip to Martha's Vineyard and they haven't gone a few years because of her sister's passing but end up going this year because her cousin is getting married so the whole family goes and I'm author's veneer just think of the aesthetic of like a New England summer like they have all these houses they are on the beach it's like that summer Vibe which I think is like the perfect setting and aesthetic for like a summer read I don't know why it just hit so hard for me and when they get there they have this like family game that they play called Assassin and basically just like a water gun game when you have like a Target to get so you have like the mix of the grief and the morning of the sister still and all the family getting together again but you also have like this fun upbeat game that they're playing and the mix of that feels very weird to put together but the way that it's written I think it's very interesting and sounded like really well romance in here is very insta-lovey and it's very like ass because she's only there for a week progresses really fast and it's just again perfect summer book to binge I gave this four stars I think the first time I read it I gave it three I didn't connect with it I feel like she threw a lot of characters at you at first but reading it a second time I could connect more because I kind of knew what was happening and I just thought this story is just so sweet and then I finally finally finally read the final offer by Lauren Asher this has been on my TBR since it came out the month that it came out it's been months and every month on my TBR list I'm like guys I'm reading this and you know what I never do I never read it but I did this month this one is the final book in the Dreamland billionaire series by Lauren Asher and this is about three brothers and their point of views and their romantic interest and basically their grandfather passed away and left them all tasks to complete in the will to get like their inheritance and the grandfather kind of owned this almost Disneyland type place so all of their tasks to do kind of have something to do with that whatever so Cal's task has something to do with the house that they grew up in but living in that house is his ex-girlfriend from years ago and her daughter Cal comes back years later after they've broken up and gone through some stuff and they grew up together so it's kind of like childhood friends to lovers they broke up he's back she's like why are you back and you kind of get glimpses of what happened back in the day between them and you get them slowly like being in each other's space again and this one was my favorite out of the three of them I think because one it has my favorite tropes in it but this one had so much depth to it so much character development so much emotion to it I gave this one 4.25 Stars I was obsessed with Cal with Lana with a daughter like even the daughter was just so cute and all of them together I just feel like they had such this family aspect it was so sweet to see but them separately they had their own things like that they had to go through like Cal especially just seeing his point of view and seeing the struggles he's been through and kind of just getting that point of view it just had so much depth to do it this book is so long and that was like one of the main reasons I was putting it off but then once you understand the story and what they have to go through to get to the end it's like you can't just have a 300 page book like you need all this information and all this character development and grow throughout the story and it was just I loved this so so so much this is my favorite out of three so good I'm so happy I finally read it okay and then on my Kindle I've read a freedom McFadden book called word d I think this was her most recent release I think she's coming out another one I'm not too sure but I ended up giving this one 3.75 Stars kind of just started it and read it for the 24 hour readathon and I binged it and I feel like if you ever need a mystery thriller versus a book to absolutely binge and just kind of like be on the edge of your seat Freedom McFadden's books are perfect for that it doesn't matter if the story is not like the best story in the world like her writing just gets right into it which I appreciate so much like you don't get any backstory you get right into the story you get right into the characters right into the problem right into like the suspense and like weirdness that's going on Ward D is basically about this woman who I think she's studying to become a doctor but she has to spend the night in a ward with like psychiatric patients she has to spend over a night in there with a doctor all the patients and she kind of do this like study we're almost like I don't really know why she's in there I forgot but like that's what she has to do so and you get that timeline and they get a past timeline of her in high school and like her and her best friend and like things that happened back then and it kind of all connects in a way it wasn't my favorite from her I think there were some things that were kind of off with it but again it was so fast-paced so entertaining the plot twist got me that's all I needed from it that's what I wanted to get out of it I wanted a fast-paced book that I could just read in a few hours and finish and she delivered with that but again she's not my favorite by her okay and then I read the grace year by Kim legit not too sure but it's when I gave three stars and I want to say just because I give a book three stars doesn't mean it's a bad book I just didn't live up to either the expectations I had for it it was kind of like a mid book I kind of like didn't connect to it but it wasn't bad you know what I mean it's just mid whatever but this one is a dystopian novel and I appreciated someone much this was actually a standalone so I didn't have to get into a series but about this world and Society where when girls turn I think it's 16 for their 16th year they're kind of banished from the county that they live in and they're either courted to be married when they come back or not and once all of them go off to wherever they take them for that year you may not make it back so you get in the main character's point of view her year there and like what's going on and all this like weird stuff I don't know there's like this message between about like women in the society and like there's definitely like deeper meanings throughout this story and I do think that it was a little bit weird getting into because the men look at women in this book as objects and it's just like so icky to read about but it's just not my favorite book I don't know if it's a story or the writing or like the pacing of it it just like fell flat for me and there's like this one plot change like halfway through or a little bit over halfway through that I was just like so I don't know I didn't connect with it I guess it was definitely an entertaining story I've never read a book like this and the ending I will say I really enjoyed it like that's where like the main like message kind of came through a little bit that's all I'm gonna say it was entertaining it was definitely a book like never read before but just not my favorite book then I read throttled by Lauren Asher another Lauren Asher book this month this one is the dirty air series and I feel like I'm so late to this Series game like I don't know why I feel like I've never really had an interest in F1 in race car or anything like that so I never really wanted to read this series but I've heard great things about this series I like Lauren Asher's writing and I've had this on my bookshelf for so long so I needed to give it a chance eventually this is basically about Maya whose brother is just not promoted but he's like put on like this higher F1 team and his new teammate is Noah and Noah's like one of the best F1 Racers ever and they kind of have this animosity between each other Noah and Maya's brother but you have Maya and Noah kind of interacting with each other having this like physical attraction to each other but they can't really do much about it because again Noah is Maya's brother's teammate and Maya is actually this influencer so she's going around with them on tour like with all their race tour dates and whatever like kind of vlogging it and she kind of grows with that little audience so you got that little side plot which is really interesting and really kind of entertaining to read I really love Lauren Asher's writing it was really fast paced it was kind of just like a no-brainer little romance but it wasn't my favorite I ended up giving this three stars because I feel like this was more of like a physical attraction and they were just very much like sexually attracted to each other there wasn't really much like deeper things into the relationship and I feel like my favorite types of relationships are where they grow together emotionally they connect where they like talk and get deep I don't know things like that I like when all the physicalness comes after do I make any sense right now I'm not sure but they're just not my favorite like romantic couple in a book I didn't love the F1 stuff I will say that I don't know if it's because I don't like F1 I've never been like really into the F1 world maybe this will open up the doors to F1 but F1 is such a big can I say F1 again why do I keep saying that racing is such a big plot in this and it was just like sometimes I would have to skim over like the racing of I don't know I didn't really care about the racing that's all and it wasn't my favorite romantic couple I do want to continue the series I want to read all of them because I've heard I think the fourth one is everyone's favorite so I want to get to that eventually and I just want to read the whole series it wasn't bad it was just like a mid little romance book so this point in the month is where I saw a tick tock that recommended this fantasy enemy still lover series and I wasn't in a slump I just didn't know what I wanted to read next and nothing on my like TBR that I had really called my name and I really wanted to read on my Kindle so I'm a Kindle mood so I saw this Tick Tock and usually when I see tick tocks like that sometimes I'll download it but I don't like end up reading it right away like I'll download it think about it but that one she really got me she was like really persuasive so I downloaded it started the first one and it's called the Lachlan Feud series they're all in Kindle unlimited there's four books so throughout the month not back to back actually I don't really remember but I ended up reading the three of them which is crazy because when I start a series I don't get through the books but this one I like wanted to read I have the fourth one that I want to read in August so that's completing a whole series for me and that is that doesn't happen but basically the first one is Scarlet princess and it's about this princess of Lachlan and she and her cousin are going through whatever to pick up something and Jay get caught in another territory I think it's so Karen is like the little part of the country that they're stuck in and that's like their Rivals and they get caught there and she's kind of like captured by one of the courts there and she's stuck in like a cell there and she's like I'm a princess and they're like well we can't do anything about this you will legally trespassed into our area and she's kind of held captive there now so in order to like get back to wherever they she has to go in front of the whole Council of all of the little courts there and they have to decide like what they're going to do with her so you kind of get the journey throughout that and you get her connecting with her captor get her at the summit which is where they have to go to all talk about what's gonna happen to her now it was so good what I loved so much about it is the chapters are so short you don't get backstory right away it gets right into the story like right when you start the book she's getting captured into the other enemies like territory like the World building that does happen it happens like gradually as you're reading the story and you get more background as you go and that's what I love about some fantasy books is when you could just read them get into another world and it's just like it was good so after the first one I did go right into the second one I think which is called tarnished crown and this one was like so so good because a character that you don't like in the first one kind of becomes a prevalent character in the second one and the storyline like completely changes and it was just like not what I expected like it first one ended on such a cliffhanger and I was so excited and the second one was so good first one I gave four stars second one I gave 4.5 and then the third one I read most recently this is called Crimson Kingdom which I thought was gonna be my favorite and I was so excited because the way that the second one ends you get so much like build up and tension and Slow Burn throughout the whole second book so when I got to this one I was like okay now we're getting somewhere but this one kind of just felt like an extended epilogue of the second one and I was very bummed about this I feel like this one and the fourth one I'm gonna read probably could be into one book you know what I mean like this one just felt very dragged out and like the last 50 pages of this though gave me what I wanted ate up absolutely every single last few pages of this book is what I wanted throughout the whole book it just like took so long to get there I don't know the chapters are short it was very entertaining it's bingeable little series and yeah again they're all Kindle unlimited I want to read the fourth one in August and I'm so excited to do so I want to see how this all ends and how this all I don't know like wraps up I've never heard anyone really talk about this it's by two authors Robin D Maul and L Madison they're also so beautiful look at these covers I love so much then I read Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez this is the third and final book in the friend zone little Trilogy you can read them all as standalones you can read this definitely as a standalone but the main guy character in here is cousins with the main guy in the friend zone which is the first book so they all kind of connect with each other which is very very fun I love when that happens and you get the couples from the first one in here in a little scene but this is about a Vanessa who quit her job from traveling the globe like she was a world traveler to take care of her niece her sister kind of left her niece on her doorstep and she's a newborn and now she's kind of thrown into this world of parenting and she is a like travel vlogger like she is a YouTuber and that's like her job but she had to kind of quit doing that for a little bit because of taking care of her niece and then her neighbor Adrian sees that she's struggling and kind of comes to help her and they kind of just like platonically hang out and he kind of just helps her out a little bit I loved their build up of friendship in this before you got into anything romantically like it was just so nice to see them generally wanting to help each other out and like being there for each other it was so nice Adrian King like top tier he's amazing I say this every time I talk about Abby Jimenez her writing is so fast-paced if you need a Roman this book to just sit and binge and just get through really quick like it's just dialogue heavy it gets right into the story which I always say I love so much when books just get right into the plot and like don't give too much background at first and hers is always like you start out with this like meat cute which I always appreciate and it's always like pretty cute then you get to know the characters and there's always something deeper to them I really enjoyed this one I gave this one four stars I didn't love the ending of it I will say but it was good loved it loved the characters love their story and loved the plot loved the writing four stars then the last book I read in July was the five star weekend by Ellen helderbrand this one is basically about this woman who lost her husband recently he got into a car accident around Christmas time so she's grieving her husband and she is this famous cook blogger food blogger she basically makes recipes and has this blog and like she's very famous like she has a lot of subscribers on there she's pretty well known she moved away from Nantucket but she grew up on Nantucket so she saw somewhere that this woman had a five-star weekend where she invited five friends from different phases in her life and she was like this is a great idea like I need to connect again like she's grieving so she invites a best friend from her childhood she invites a best friend from her high school I think and then her college and then her like now present day best friend and then also this woman that she met online on her blog she's never met her before but she invented her to the weekend and now you have all these women through all different phases of her life that don't really know each other I mean some of them know each other but like none of them are really friends all thrown into this Nantucket weekend girls weekend together and they're also different you get all their point of views and you get all like the problems in their lives and what they're going through but then you all get all of them together and it's like you kind of see what they're all struggling with and it's very interesting to see like as you grow up you meet all these different people and all these different friends you can see yourself in different phases of your life when you look back on it like I loved the premise of the story you also get her daughter's point of view and her daughter is a film student I think and her and her mother haven't had a great relationship after her father passed so she tells her daughter to come back and film it the weekend for them so it's like this whole thing whole weekend I ended up giving this one three stars though because I just couldn't connect to the characters I just feel like they were so much older than me and just like the problems that they were going through and like they were talking about and connecting on I just like literally couldn't connect to them they were just all 50 year old women kind of just like going through it and I don't know couldn't connect to them and I feel like some of the characters were just like a little Annoying I don't know I just didn't absolutely love it it's not my favorite Ellen Hunter Run book it's definitely a good one I've heard this on the beach when I was a white and like reading it on the beach was a great setting Germany because obviously it takes place on Nantucket and it's like a summer weekend but yeah there's also a little plot twisty thing that's going on in here and you're kind of waiting for that to kind of blow up in everyone's faces but I feel like Ellen also put a lot of kind of tick tock remarks and like Millennial sayings that were just like so cringy and I just don't love reading that in books I don't know it's again it's not my favorite from her but it was good I don't know three stars okay so those are all of the books that I read in July I do want to shout out the book club and and let you guys know what we're reading for the month of August together if you guys want to join the patreon link is in the description come join our book club there's different tiers you'll see on there if you want to try it out whatever you want to do if you're interested but we are reading Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross this month this is a five star read of mine most recently I'm obsessed with it I'm so excited if you want to read this with us come join us the link is in the description Shout Out book club besties and yeah those are all the books that I read in the month of July let me know if you've read any of these let me know your thoughts your opinions if you have any books you want me to read for August let me know literally anything you want down below that's all for me thank you guys for watching I hope you guys enjoyed let me know if you did and I will see you hopefully in the next one bye\n"