Hollis's Cooking Blog and Midlife Crisis

Hollis is a woman in her mid-50s who has it all - a very popular cooking blog, wealth, and a husband named Matthew, who is a surgeon. However, tragedy strikes when Hollis's husband dies in a car accident, leaving her feeling lost and unsure of what to do with her life.

She discovers the concept of the "Five Star Weekend," which involves gathering four close friends from different decades of her life for a weekend of reconnecting and bonding. The idea is to use this experience as an opportunity to reconnect with old friends and make new ones, but Hollis soon realizes that some of these friendships are more complicated than others.

For instance, there's Tatum, who was Hollis's childhood and high school BFF, and Drewan, who was her college best friend. Both Tatum and Drewan are vying for Hollis's attention, claiming to be her closest friend. Hollis is taken aback by their possessiveness and feels like she can have multiple best friends. She's learned this from her own experiences, having known that it's possible to have different friend groups in life.

As the Five Star Weekend progresses, Hollis starts to realize that not everyone is vying for her love or attention in a healthy way. There's Brooke, who was like a surrogate daughter to Hollis when she had kids, and a new character, Hannah, whom Hollis met on her blog. These women are all trying to reconnect with Hollis, but it's clear that some of them have their own issues.

The dynamics between these friends are complex, with some displaying possessiveness and jealousy towards Hollis. Hollis is caught in the middle, feeling like she can't please everyone. She's not sure if she deserves this level of attention or affection from her friends. Despite this, Hollis tries to navigate the situation, hoping that they can all find common ground and support each other.

In contrast to the complicated friendships, Hollis's own daughter is portrayed as a different story altogether. Her daughter's behavior is deemed "horrible," but no further details are provided about the nature of her problems.

Meanwhile, Hollis is drawn to another book that has been gaining attention - "Remarkably Bright Creatures" by Shelby Van Pelt. This literary novel is all about Tova, a 70-year-old woman who works at an aquarium and develops an unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus named Marcelus. The story is told from Tova's point of view, allowing the reader to see the world through her eyes.

As it turns out, Tova is a character-driven novel that explores themes of grief, loss, and connection. Despite not having a traditional plot, the book is full of emotional depth and beautifully written descriptions of the aquarium and its inhabitants. Hollis loved this book, finding herself drawn to the protagonist's story and the unique relationship she forms with Marcelus.

Throughout the month, Hollis reads several books, but "Remarkably Bright Creatures" stands out as her favorite. She highly recommends it, praising its character-driven storytelling and emotional depth. Overall, Hollis's reading experience is solid, with a mix of romance and literary fiction keeping her engaged throughout the month.

As Hollis reflects on her own life and relationships, she realizes that maybe she needs to reevaluate her priorities and focus on nurturing her friendships in healthier ways. Despite the challenges posed by her friends' behavior, Hollis remains hopeful and open-minded, always looking for new connections and experiences to enrich her life.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone my name is Heather and welcome to the channel book ofs and welcome to another monthly reading wrap up so July is over and I read surprise surprise eight books probably in the last like four or five months I will say I have read eight books it seems to me where I kind of average two books a week in s qu a books so here we are if you don't know with my wrap-ups I always start off with my least favorite book and then I work all the way up to my favorite book that I read this month and spoiler warning I did read one five star so yay first book I'm going to talk about is the all opair is it opair opare Affair by Tessa Bailey this is the sequel SL companion novel to her book that came out earlier this year called fang girl down this is kind of her Sports um romance series Fang girl down was about um golf this one is about ice hockey and I didn't love it I don't know I think maybe I'm kind of falling out of love with Tessa Bailey I just seem to not have I can't tell you the last book of hers that I really truly like loved than reborn yesterday and I'm definitely in the minority of that one a lot of people don't like that one I loved it but I just haven't loved her books recently I don't know I feel like they're kind of all kind of C copy paste but that's just me that's totally my feelings but either way this is about two characters as always it's tula and Burgess hopefully I said that right Burgess is a professional ice hockey player he also is a single dad he has like an 11-year-old daughter and he needs an OP Nanny you know what I'm saying and that where is Tula comes in Tula was the best friend of our main character in fan girl down Josephine and so she this is very much grumpy meet Sunshine again like the first one Burgess is very grumpy focuses on his work Tula brings out the light in him it's overall cute it's just nothing new or like really amazing that I read about um it does talk a lot about previous trauma in tula's case um so I did appreciate for that but overall I would give it a 2 and a half out of five it like wasn't horrible writing horrible romance or anything I just feel like I read a thousand times before maybe I'm kind of growing out of a romance phase I'm not quite sure it is what it is those are just my personal feelings Po in the mouth moving on to cross the line by Simone Sultan I believe this is her debut novel if I'm not mistaken this is another Sports R this is another Sports romance only this time it's about Formula 1 racing which I've never read a book about I'm not really interested in the whole racing aspect but it was interesting reading about the Team Dynamics about scoring placing how scary it is with crashing and things like that so I did appreciate it for that again this book follows two characters Dev and Willow and they've known each other since children because Willow's brother I forget his name is dev's best friend and they've always kind of had this yearning Crush for each other and then one year ago they kissed but they've never talked about it since now Willow is kind of back in the fold because she's looking for an opportunity to be into the Sports Marketing world and dev's like my person images on social media is really flailing right now so can I hire you and help me and so of course when that happens feelings start emerging they've had this like unrequited love for each other for years and it finally comes to fruition and again it was okay again I don't know maybe just romance isn't doing it for me right now I I don't know maybe I'm in a romance Funk there hasn't been a ton of romances like lately that I've just loved and devoured that could be that could be a case of it's not you it's me you know this was overall cute three out of five I would recommend it especially if you want to learn more about Formula 1 racing and things like that because it was interesting in that regard to you guess another romance maybe I just need to try a different genre for a while I don't know the match by Sarah Adams so this is actually her very first published novel and she has been picked up since and she's kind of releasing I believe I forget what series this is called I want to say like it happened in Charleston I want to say um but it got picked up and so she re-releasing and extending her previous books and this is her first one in that that got released and this is about you guessed it two characters Eevee and Jacob this one I did like I give it a three and a half out of five I just love Sarah Adams it's clean romance it's super cute it's just like kind of a piece of candy that you just want to keep eating it's just so sugary sweet that is the best way to describe her books but Evee um has epilepsy if you don't know about epilepsy um a lot of times people pass out and have seizures and they there's nothing you to control it it just happens there's probably science behind it and things like that but Eevee has that and she also has a service dog who she loves named Charlie and so she really loves the service dog industry so she actually works for this place called Southern Pauls or something and so her whole job it's like a nonprofit thing to match um people with disabilities to a service dog and in comes in Jacob whose daughter unbeknown to him applies for one of these dogs and Eevee meets her and Jacob kind of have a very tumultuous first meeting but eventually the whole book is about kind of Eevee training and getting another dog I think her name is Daisy and that's little cute ready for Jacob's daughter who also has epilepsy and it's just really great talks about epilepsy talks really about the love of service dogs I as a dog lover I also love service dogs they provide so much and they are so smart like before Evee would have a seizure or pass out her dog could sense it and made sure that she was in a safe space he made sure she had a water bottle he made sure there's this button to press that would call somebody so she wouldn't be alone it's just phenomenal what they can do so I love the fact that it touched on the service dog industry of how important and how valuable they are and how much greatness and it doesn't have to be just a physical disability like epilepsy I've seen a lot of um autistic kids even have service dogs I think that's amazing you know you have dogs that are trained with PTSD things like that they're just amazing so I think the reason why I love this so much is because it was kind of a love letter to service dogs which I really love and appreciate it so if you want that and if you just want a lot of dogs in your books because hello me this is a great one for you we have business casual by BK Boris and this is the fourth and final book supposedly in the love light farm series which is one of my favorite small town Series this one um is all about Nova and Charlie and are both siblings of previous characters in other books so Charlie is the sister of Stella who was our main character in the very first book and Nova is the sister of Becket who was our main character in the second book that I still haven't read I've read the first and third one and now the fourth um did I do them out of order absolutely but it is what it is either way this one was super cute Nova is a tattoo artist and she's opening up her own tattoo parlor in um I forget what the PL Englewood englew um it's a very small town very Stars Hol s they have a phone tree where they gossip they have a bakery they have a Christmas Farm it's just like let me move in there and stay forever um but she's opening up her and she's getting very kind of tied down by things she's also very closed off to love and then Charlie comes into the picture Charlie's very fun and has a good time and he's very attracted to novah she's attracted to him so they decide to maybe like test out those feelings one night and just write it off but of course of course it's never that that easy you can guess what happens feelings come merg but this if you just want a fallish um kind of small town romance series that you will love I highly recommend this one I will say this one was on the shorter side because her F her second and third ones were freaking Beast of novels so I appreciate this one that it was like a pretty reasonable um it was a pretty reasonable size I enjoyed it I would give it a four out of five um I still think my favorite in this series is all Light Farms just because of the Christmas Vibes it has it's just stunning but this they're all really really good maybe I'll do a whole series review when I read the second moving on next up we have the lost story by Meg schaer so if you don't know this was one of my most anticipated reads of the entire year because the wish and game by the same author was my favorite book of last year so this one is her sophomore novel and she has kind of put it in the trajectory that she's going to write kind of classic stories with the twist or like kind of a homage to them so the wishing game was kind of an homage to Royal dolls Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the Lost stories an homage to the lion wit in the wardrobe by CS Lewis I do not have a physical copy yet so please forgive me we follow a multitude of characters will I butcher this absolutely I do have a review of it so I'll link that up here but basically we have many many years ago like 15 20 years ago two teenage boys got lost in the shann andoa national park or Woods of West Virginia which is a a very important feature West Virginia is very prominent in this story so if you want a book about West Virginia check this one out but they get lost and 3 months later they like appear out of nowhere and no one knows exactly where they've been it's kind of a big mystery and then we pick up many moons later when they are all grown up Jeremy is now like uh expert at finding like missing girls that like go missing either they've passed away or they've been lost he's just kind of has this gift and him and Rafe Raph don't talk anymore and another comes the picture she was adopted her adoption mother died and she just learned that she had a half sister that she never knew about and she also learns that her half sister also went missing like 20 something years ago in the Shannon DOA Park H so they all three get together to go back in the woods and go to this magical place and you get it's very much you can tell where it's going to go but I give it a four out of five it didn't have the same feelings for me as the wishing game I like the first half much more than the second half but it was a good sophomore novel Le wishan game just had more like just ump to me I connected with it more I feel like but this was a good one I just wanted to love it more but didn't but nevertheless I would recommend it especially her writing is very beautiful Vivid um imagery and settings amazing next up we're going to go with it had to be You by Elijah Jane berier this is a mystery Soler that I fell in love with I also gave it a four out of five this is a Mr and Mrs Smith see me version so basically we follow two characters um Eva and Jonathan they meet in the sleeper train and they hook up and then you think that's it you learn that they are both assassins neither of them knew this when they hooked up now six months later Eva gets an assignment and what's your assignment oh to off Jonathan but first she's got to do some Recon first to discover him and so she does that while she's doing that what do you know he gets a job and it's off her and so the whole book is a will they or won't they kill each other or hook up it's just it's a lot more steamier than I was expecting in fact I would say if they took the steam part out I would dare give this book a five out of five that's just me personally and I just didn't love it for that I think it was just a little too much but I love the fact that they were both assassins they both were like I want you but I kind of want to kill you but I still want you it was just a fun time if you just want a fun Thriller time to not read much into it but just a kind of constant Twist and Turn game of two assassins I I would highly recommend checking this one out again there's a lot of see times in it if you want to skip over it wouldn't blame you we have my very first ever Ellen hilderbrand novel The Five Star weekend and I gave this one a four out of five not five star sorry really good I enjoyed it so we follow a slew of main characters but at the heart of it is Hollis Hollis is in her mid-50s she has this very popular cooking blog like cooking with Hollis she's very rich she's married to a surgeon named Matthew and then her husband dies tragically in a car accident and she doesn't really know what to do with her life so she hears about this thing called the five star weekend where you picked like four of your like friends from different Decades of your life and bring them together for a weekend of just kind of re bonding and reconnecting and things like that over a loss and so it's all about her picking these friends and so we have many of her friends we have Tatum who was her like childhood and high school BFF then we have drewan who was her college best friend then we have I forget named Brooke who is um like her when she had kids their kids were best friends so they became kind of best friends and then we have a brand new girl that she met on um her blog and so they all come together I tell you what man these women were caddy they were All vying for hollis's Love Like especially Tatum and drewan they were like I'm her best friend no I'm her best friend I'm her best friend I'm like you all all I'm like you are all in your 50s you can have multiple best friends you have multiple friend groups that's how it goes I have amazing friends I have some church friends that are like my sisters I have some childhood friends that I've known since I was 15 I have some work friends that I known from work I have them in different pools much like everyone else does in life you don't you know what I'm saying you can't hold a best friend hostage just be like you can have no other best friends it's me and me it's me and you and that's it forever like it's just I feel like they should know that in their 50s I'm in my 30s and learn that in my early 30s like that's the one thing I didn't love about it because they were all like like really just vying for her love and I'm like does she deserve this I mean I don't think anybody like you know what I'm saying doesn't make sense also holl's daughter's horrible there's another character named Brooke that poor girl she just wanted to be loved by someone she was like I just want someone to be my best friend I don't care who I just want someone to love me and I was like this is me she just wanted the she just wanted to be accepted and felt like she was an outsider and I was like hi hello it's me I'm the problem um but overall I did really enjoy it there was twists and turns and you know she's called the queen of beach reads for a reason I will say that four out of five the last book I want to talk about was my favorite of the month and that is remarkably bright creatures by Shelby Van Pelt I finally read this book and I am so glad I did so this is a literary book mainly about characters if you're looking for a book with a lot of plot this is not it this is all about a character I forget her name Tova who is 70 and she works kind of overnight in the local aquarium near the poot pugent pungent pugent sound sorry um and she basically just like mops the floors every night cleans the trash cans all that kind of stuff she's always talking to the fish and then she you know starts talking to the giant Pacific octopus named marcelus who can coincidentally Escape his enclosure and go around the aquarium because octop o octopu ey somebody pronounced that correctly in my on last video are insanely intelligent in fact you get his point of view in this book as he develops this relationship with TOA and notices things that she doesn't notice it is all about her with she's lost her husband she lost her son at a young age and it's just a beautiful character exploration I loved it so much I would highly recommend it if you want to love an octopus like goodness me like they are just so intelligent and so amazing and you'll just fall in love with every character in this book hands down no secret about it but again it doesn't have a lot of plot it's more of a character exploration and things like that but five out of five for me I loved and adored it you have the eight books I read in the month of July overall pretty solid reading month maybe in August I'll switch it up and read some different genres because romance I don't know it just is I don't know what it is right now maybe it's me I don't know probably it as always thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next video byehello everyone my name is Heather and welcome to the channel book ofs and welcome to another monthly reading wrap up so July is over and I read surprise surprise eight books probably in the last like four or five months I will say I have read eight books it seems to me where I kind of average two books a week in s qu a books so here we are if you don't know with my wrap-ups I always start off with my least favorite book and then I work all the way up to my favorite book that I read this month and spoiler warning I did read one five star so yay first book I'm going to talk about is the all opair is it opair opare Affair by Tessa Bailey this is the sequel SL companion novel to her book that came out earlier this year called fang girl down this is kind of her Sports um romance series Fang girl down was about um golf this one is about ice hockey and I didn't love it I don't know I think maybe I'm kind of falling out of love with Tessa Bailey I just seem to not have I can't tell you the last book of hers that I really truly like loved than reborn yesterday and I'm definitely in the minority of that one a lot of people don't like that one I loved it but I just haven't loved her books recently I don't know I feel like they're kind of all kind of C copy paste but that's just me that's totally my feelings but either way this is about two characters as always it's tula and Burgess hopefully I said that right Burgess is a professional ice hockey player he also is a single dad he has like an 11-year-old daughter and he needs an OP Nanny you know what I'm saying and that where is Tula comes in Tula was the best friend of our main character in fan girl down Josephine and so she this is very much grumpy meet Sunshine again like the first one Burgess is very grumpy focuses on his work Tula brings out the light in him it's overall cute it's just nothing new or like really amazing that I read about um it does talk a lot about previous trauma in tula's case um so I did appreciate for that but overall I would give it a 2 and a half out of five it like wasn't horrible writing horrible romance or anything I just feel like I read a thousand times before maybe I'm kind of growing out of a romance phase I'm not quite sure it is what it is those are just my personal feelings Po in the mouth moving on to cross the line by Simone Sultan I believe this is her debut novel if I'm not mistaken this is another Sports R this is another Sports romance only this time it's about Formula 1 racing which I've never read a book about I'm not really interested in the whole racing aspect but it was interesting reading about the Team Dynamics about scoring placing how scary it is with crashing and things like that so I did appreciate it for that again this book follows two characters Dev and Willow and they've known each other since children because Willow's brother I forget his name is dev's best friend and they've always kind of had this yearning Crush for each other and then one year ago they kissed but they've never talked about it since now Willow is kind of back in the fold because she's looking for an opportunity to be into the Sports Marketing world and dev's like my person images on social media is really flailing right now so can I hire you and help me and so of course when that happens feelings start emerging they've had this like unrequited love for each other for years and it finally comes to fruition and again it was okay again I don't know maybe just romance isn't doing it for me right now I I don't know maybe I'm in a romance Funk there hasn't been a ton of romances like lately that I've just loved and devoured that could be that could be a case of it's not you it's me you know this was overall cute three out of five I would recommend it especially if you want to learn more about Formula 1 racing and things like that because it was interesting in that regard to you guess another romance maybe I just need to try a different genre for a while I don't know the match by Sarah Adams so this is actually her very first published novel and she has been picked up since and she's kind of releasing I believe I forget what series this is called I want to say like it happened in Charleston I want to say um but it got picked up and so she re-releasing and extending her previous books and this is her first one in that that got released and this is about you guessed it two characters Eevee and Jacob this one I did like I give it a three and a half out of five I just love Sarah Adams it's clean romance it's super cute it's just like kind of a piece of candy that you just want to keep eating it's just so sugary sweet that is the best way to describe her books but Evee um has epilepsy if you don't know about epilepsy um a lot of times people pass out and have seizures and they there's nothing you to control it it just happens there's probably science behind it and things like that but Eevee has that and she also has a service dog who she loves named Charlie and so she really loves the service dog industry so she actually works for this place called Southern Pauls or something and so her whole job it's like a nonprofit thing to match um people with disabilities to a service dog and in comes in Jacob whose daughter unbeknown to him applies for one of these dogs and Eevee meets her and Jacob kind of have a very tumultuous first meeting but eventually the whole book is about kind of Eevee training and getting another dog I think her name is Daisy and that's little cute ready for Jacob's daughter who also has epilepsy and it's just really great talks about epilepsy talks really about the love of service dogs I as a dog lover I also love service dogs they provide so much and they are so smart like before Evee would have a seizure or pass out her dog could sense it and made sure that she was in a safe space he made sure she had a water bottle he made sure there's this button to press that would call somebody so she wouldn't be alone it's just phenomenal what they can do so I love the fact that it touched on the service dog industry of how important and how valuable they are and how much greatness and it doesn't have to be just a physical disability like epilepsy I've seen a lot of um autistic kids even have service dogs I think that's amazing you know you have dogs that are trained with PTSD things like that they're just amazing so I think the reason why I love this so much is because it was kind of a love letter to service dogs which I really love and appreciate it so if you want that and if you just want a lot of dogs in your books because hello me this is a great one for you we have business casual by BK Boris and this is the fourth and final book supposedly in the love light farm series which is one of my favorite small town Series this one um is all about Nova and Charlie and are both siblings of previous characters in other books so Charlie is the sister of Stella who was our main character in the very first book and Nova is the sister of Becket who was our main character in the second book that I still haven't read I've read the first and third one and now the fourth um did I do them out of order absolutely but it is what it is either way this one was super cute Nova is a tattoo artist and she's opening up her own tattoo parlor in um I forget what the PL Englewood englew um it's a very small town very Stars Hol s they have a phone tree where they gossip they have a bakery they have a Christmas Farm it's just like let me move in there and stay forever um but she's opening up her and she's getting very kind of tied down by things she's also very closed off to love and then Charlie comes into the picture Charlie's very fun and has a good time and he's very attracted to novah she's attracted to him so they decide to maybe like test out those feelings one night and just write it off but of course of course it's never that that easy you can guess what happens feelings come merg but this if you just want a fallish um kind of small town romance series that you will love I highly recommend this one I will say this one was on the shorter side because her F her second and third ones were freaking Beast of novels so I appreciate this one that it was like a pretty reasonable um it was a pretty reasonable size I enjoyed it I would give it a four out of five um I still think my favorite in this series is all Light Farms just because of the Christmas Vibes it has it's just stunning but this they're all really really good maybe I'll do a whole series review when I read the second moving on next up we have the lost story by Meg schaer so if you don't know this was one of my most anticipated reads of the entire year because the wish and game by the same author was my favorite book of last year so this one is her sophomore novel and she has kind of put it in the trajectory that she's going to write kind of classic stories with the twist or like kind of a homage to them so the wishing game was kind of an homage to Royal dolls Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the Lost stories an homage to the lion wit in the wardrobe by CS Lewis I do not have a physical copy yet so please forgive me we follow a multitude of characters will I butcher this absolutely I do have a review of it so I'll link that up here but basically we have many many years ago like 15 20 years ago two teenage boys got lost in the shann andoa national park or Woods of West Virginia which is a a very important feature West Virginia is very prominent in this story so if you want a book about West Virginia check this one out but they get lost and 3 months later they like appear out of nowhere and no one knows exactly where they've been it's kind of a big mystery and then we pick up many moons later when they are all grown up Jeremy is now like uh expert at finding like missing girls that like go missing either they've passed away or they've been lost he's just kind of has this gift and him and Rafe Raph don't talk anymore and another comes the picture she was adopted her adoption mother died and she just learned that she had a half sister that she never knew about and she also learns that her half sister also went missing like 20 something years ago in the Shannon DOA Park H so they all three get together to go back in the woods and go to this magical place and you get it's very much you can tell where it's going to go but I give it a four out of five it didn't have the same feelings for me as the wishing game I like the first half much more than the second half but it was a good sophomore novel Le wishan game just had more like just ump to me I connected with it more I feel like but this was a good one I just wanted to love it more but didn't but nevertheless I would recommend it especially her writing is very beautiful Vivid um imagery and settings amazing next up we're going to go with it had to be You by Elijah Jane berier this is a mystery Soler that I fell in love with I also gave it a four out of five this is a Mr and Mrs Smith see me version so basically we follow two characters um Eva and Jonathan they meet in the sleeper train and they hook up and then you think that's it you learn that they are both assassins neither of them knew this when they hooked up now six months later Eva gets an assignment and what's your assignment oh to off Jonathan but first she's got to do some Recon first to discover him and so she does that while she's doing that what do you know he gets a job and it's off her and so the whole book is a will they or won't they kill each other or hook up it's just it's a lot more steamier than I was expecting in fact I would say if they took the steam part out I would dare give this book a five out of five that's just me personally and I just didn't love it for that I think it was just a little too much but I love the fact that they were both assassins they both were like I want you but I kind of want to kill you but I still want you it was just a fun time if you just want a fun Thriller time to not read much into it but just a kind of constant Twist and Turn game of two assassins I I would highly recommend checking this one out again there's a lot of see times in it if you want to skip over it wouldn't blame you we have my very first ever Ellen hilderbrand novel The Five Star weekend and I gave this one a four out of five not five star sorry really good I enjoyed it so we follow a slew of main characters but at the heart of it is Hollis Hollis is in her mid-50s she has this very popular cooking blog like cooking with Hollis she's very rich she's married to a surgeon named Matthew and then her husband dies tragically in a car accident and she doesn't really know what to do with her life so she hears about this thing called the five star weekend where you picked like four of your like friends from different Decades of your life and bring them together for a weekend of just kind of re bonding and reconnecting and things like that over a loss and so it's all about her picking these friends and so we have many of her friends we have Tatum who was her like childhood and high school BFF then we have drewan who was her college best friend then we have I forget named Brooke who is um like her when she had kids their kids were best friends so they became kind of best friends and then we have a brand new girl that she met on um her blog and so they all come together I tell you what man these women were caddy they were All vying for hollis's Love Like especially Tatum and drewan they were like I'm her best friend no I'm her best friend I'm her best friend I'm like you all all I'm like you are all in your 50s you can have multiple best friends you have multiple friend groups that's how it goes I have amazing friends I have some church friends that are like my sisters I have some childhood friends that I've known since I was 15 I have some work friends that I known from work I have them in different pools much like everyone else does in life you don't you know what I'm saying you can't hold a best friend hostage just be like you can have no other best friends it's me and me it's me and you and that's it forever like it's just I feel like they should know that in their 50s I'm in my 30s and learn that in my early 30s like that's the one thing I didn't love about it because they were all like like really just vying for her love and I'm like does she deserve this I mean I don't think anybody like you know what I'm saying doesn't make sense also holl's daughter's horrible there's another character named Brooke that poor girl she just wanted to be loved by someone she was like I just want someone to be my best friend I don't care who I just want someone to love me and I was like this is me she just wanted the she just wanted to be accepted and felt like she was an outsider and I was like hi hello it's me I'm the problem um but overall I did really enjoy it there was twists and turns and you know she's called the queen of beach reads for a reason I will say that four out of five the last book I want to talk about was my favorite of the month and that is remarkably bright creatures by Shelby Van Pelt I finally read this book and I am so glad I did so this is a literary book mainly about characters if you're looking for a book with a lot of plot this is not it this is all about a character I forget her name Tova who is 70 and she works kind of overnight in the local aquarium near the poot pugent pungent pugent sound sorry um and she basically just like mops the floors every night cleans the trash cans all that kind of stuff she's always talking to the fish and then she you know starts talking to the giant Pacific octopus named marcelus who can coincidentally Escape his enclosure and go around the aquarium because octop o octopu ey somebody pronounced that correctly in my on last video are insanely intelligent in fact you get his point of view in this book as he develops this relationship with TOA and notices things that she doesn't notice it is all about her with she's lost her husband she lost her son at a young age and it's just a beautiful character exploration I loved it so much I would highly recommend it if you want to love an octopus like goodness me like they are just so intelligent and so amazing and you'll just fall in love with every character in this book hands down no secret about it but again it doesn't have a lot of plot it's more of a character exploration and things like that but five out of five for me I loved and adored it you have the eight books I read in the month of July overall pretty solid reading month maybe in August I'll switch it up and read some different genres because romance I don't know it just is I don't know what it is right now maybe it's me I don't know probably it as always thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next video bye\n"