**A Book Lover's Review: Recent Reads and Thoughts**

As a book lover and YouTube enthusiast, I'm always excited to share my thoughts on the latest reads. In this video, I'll be discussing three recent books that have caught my attention, including "The Wedding Date" by Jasmine Gilroy, which was a disappointment for me, but didn't completely ruin my enjoyment of the story.

**A Slow Burn Romance**

One book that I absolutely loved is "Wicked Fox" by Kat Cho. Unfortunately, it's not available yet and will be released on September 10th. However, I'll let you know about this one quickly since it was a Book Expo pick for our Bookmarks group. When I read the synopsis, I thought it sounded super cool, but ultimately, what I got didn't feel like what I signed up for. In our live show, we went into great detail to break down the book point by point and share our disappointment with its execution.

**Stargazing by Jen Wang: A Surprising Twist**

Next up is "Stargazing" by Jen Wang, a graphic novel that I hadn't read in a long time. I was excited to dive back into this medium and enjoy the story. Unfortunately, I didn't know much about the plot beforehand, but that didn't stop me from being surprised by the twists and turns that occurred during my reading experience. The twist at the end really took me by surprise, and I ended up loving it. With that said, this is definitely a graphic novel worth checking out, especially since it's coming out soon.

**Not My Cup of Tea: Stargazing**

Overall, while "Stargazing" was a great read for me, I can see how some readers might not have enjoyed it as much. As someone who doesn't usually read graphic novels, I was happy to discover that this one was well-written and engaging. The artwork was also lovely.

**A Letdown: Stargazing**

In contrast, my recent reads "Wicked Fox" by Kat Cho and "The Wedding Date" by Jasmine Gilroy were not as enjoyable for me. "Wicked Fox" just didn't live up to its promises in terms of the plot and characters, which was disappointing.

**A Forgettable Romance: The Wedding Date**

"The Wedding Date" was another letdown for me. I'll be honest, it wasn't the most engaging book to read. It was all about a girl who agrees to be the wedding date for her ex's new girlfriend, only to find herself caught up in their complicated relationships. Unfortunately, the characters didn't really resonate with me, and the romance was just too slow-burning for my taste.

**Back to Hogwarts: A Reread**

On a more positive note, I've been enjoying re-reading the Harry Potter series again. My current read is "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", which has been great to revisit. The third book in the series really holds up well even after multiple readings.

**A Reread: Harry Potter**

Rereading the series always brings me back home to Hogwarts, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to experience the story all over again. Each time I read a book in the series, it's like coming back to an old friend – familiar yet still exciting and engaging.

**The Verdict**

Overall, while "Wicked Fox" by Kat Cho was not my favorite book, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a unique twist on the typical fantasy novel. "Stargazing" by Jen Wang is also worth checking out, especially if you're in the mood for something new and different. On the other hand, "The Wedding Date" by Jasmine Gilroy wasn't really my cup of tea.

**Final Thoughts**

I hope this video was helpful in giving you an idea of what to expect from each book. If you have any thoughts on these books or would like to discuss them further, please let me know in the comments below! Don't forget to subscribe and enable notifications so you can stay up-to-date with my latest videos.

**Social Media Links**

If you enjoyed this video, be sure to check out my social media accounts for more book reviews, reading vlogs, and other content. You can find me on:

* Twitter: @booklover

* Instagram: @booklover

* YouTube: [Book Lover's Channel]

Thanks again for watching!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone its Haley and today I'm going to be talking about some of the books that I have read recently so it has been a hot second since I've done a recent reads video so I have a ton of books to talk about today there's something I'm going to go into more than others because some I have more to say than others so I hope that's okay with you guys but I kind of went through a spell where I wasn't really reading a lot so it didn't make sense to do a recent reads video and then I just never actually filmed one once I had read a lot so now I have like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 books to talk about so I'm going to try and keep this as short and sweet as possible I do thankfully have an iced coffee to get me through or else I would die not to be dramatic or anything but let's just get into some spoiler-free thoughts about the books that I have read recently so the first book I have to talk about today is one that I can't say a lot about and that's because it's a sequel what I actually read a sequel I continued with a series that I had been meaning to for forever yes yes I did character development so I finally picked up Thunderhead by Neil Schusterman yay I've had this book for a very long time and I've been meaning to read it for a very long time and then we read size 4 bookmarked I don't even know what month it was like I have 3 bookmarked books on this list so they're all starting to blur together especially because I haven't talked about them but after finishing sighs my love for that book was renewed and then Hannah had read this and she was like you need to read it so then I was like yes I need to read it I already knew I did need to do it I don't know what happened in that sentence but I knew that I had to read it so she gave me like the final push that I needed to pick it up and I'm so glad that I did it was wild like I knew that it was going to be good because I've like a lot of people read it and liked it but then when Thunder had came out I feel like everyone was talking about the series way more than they had been before so that's when like the series really got hyped up and I had heard so many things about the sequel and it's not very often where a sequel is more hyped up than the first book so I was intrigued to say the least and so many things happened in here like the last like hundred or so pages I was like what what is going on like what I hope you enjoyed that dramatic reenactment but like I was so confused I couldn't predict anything that happened in this and to me that is the mark of a great sequel even though I never predict anything I like really it was left field like I was just like slapped across the face with it Wow where did that come from so it was super enjoyable I give it a four point five out of five stars and if you haven't checked out this series you should definitely do so and the final I don't know if it's actually the final question mark book is coming out and fall so now is the time to pick this series up whoo speaking of book marks the next book is Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare we read this in an unknown month like I said it all blurs together I think it was May it was made yes this was our May book of the month and it was a reread for all of us and unfortunately for me I didn't enjoy it as much as the first time around which makes me really sad but I will leave a link for the live show down below for you guys so you can hear more of our in-depth thoughts about it but it gives you aren't familiar with it which would be kind of surprising but this is the first book in the Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare which is a prequel to The Mortal Instruments series and I'm not like a huge Cassandra Clare fan but I do really enjoy the Infernal Devices it was my favorite of her books so I was excited to read it again but I don't know if it was just the mindset I was in or white but I just didn't quite connect with it as much as I had wanted to unfortunately but unlike the Mortal Instruments this is set in Victorian London which is just like the greatest and you find out a little bit more but the world in the underworld of the Shadowhunter universe which is really cool but I just don't have the nostalgia attached to it that Hannah and Zoe do so I didn't enjoy it quite as much as they did it was a solid read for me by it definitely around a 3.5 out of 5 stars but I'm hesitant to change my rating because I think just the fact that I had to read it under a time limit did kind of change my enjoyment of it especially because I wasn't exactly in the mood for it so I think I'm going to stick with my original rating from when I first read it a four out of five stars and then maybe I'll reread it again at some point in the future and see how I really really feel about it next is if I'm being honest by Emily Webb early in Austen seidman Broca so this was one of my most anticipated releases for the year I was so so so excited for it because I read the debut by this author duo which was always never yours and that focused on Romeo and Juliet and I loved it I thought it was so cute really fun and a nice surprise but I went into that one with no expectations so I think because I had expectations going into this one it did change my enjoyment of it so if I'm being honest on the other hand is a Taming of the true retelling which I was fascinated by because I don't think I've ever experienced a Taming of the Shrew retelling I know there's a movie I think it's 10 Things I Hate About You but I've never seen it and I can hear Zoey gasping about that because she was shocked by that but I have never experienced a Taming of the Shrew retelling I have read the original Taming of the Shrew and I read it for a university class actually so I studied it so having some familiarity with the story I was intrigued by this so this follows Cameron who is the queen bee at her la private school which has like a bunch of like really prestigious students they're not prestigious in terms of being like really smart but they have like really big shot parents so she kind of rules the school a bit Regina George style but she is known for being very very honest she always says what's on her mind doesn't really filter herself and just as like here it is like it or not take it or leave it that's how it is so this can get her into trouble but she hasn't really cared until the guy that she has a crush on is like no like you're just a straight-up and I'm not interested in you because of that so she decides to tame herself and try and make amends for all the bad things that she has done and she kind of goes through a list of like trying to apologize to these people and make everything right again so she can get this guy but then her feelings end up getting a little bit muddled and she is just left very confused about everything and wondering who she is and what she really wants so like I said my expectations were super high going into this because one I had already read something by these authors and really liked it and two I had seen great reviews for this so I thought this was like a surefire four or five star book but I ended up giving it a three out of five stars because I just didn't have the connection with the characters that I really wanted to I felt like there was something missing with the story it was just kind of going through the motions of her kind of going through almost a checklist of apologizing to people and it never really got further into there were things that I enjoyed I did like some of the characters even if I didn't feel like I had that connection with them I like the fact that Cameron was unlikable and she wasn't really like any other characters that I feel like I've read too often especially in why a so that was interesting to me by watching her relationship develop and her develop as a character I felt like was a little bit stunted at times but I did enjoy the romance in the way it ended up going it just ultimately there was something missing there that made it so I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped to unfortunately but I do think it was a pretty good read I just don't think it's one that I will really remember next is another bookmarked book and if you follow along with the book merked book clubs and then you know that we've had some pretty bad luck with our past couple of reads and this is the book where it started going downhill so that book is I was born for this by Alice Osmond I actually already had this book in my two unhaul pile because I have no desire to keep it I just didn't like it at all but we decided to read this book because we did a poll first of all so it wasn't just our choice but second of all we all have read radio silence by Alice Osmond and really really loved it and this sounded like it could be a really fun story too and the reviews seemed really good so we took a shot and we just it didn't really work out but that happened so once again I'll link our live show down below it gets really ran T the heating of the brick is a big topic in it if you want to know what the hell I'm talking about you can watch that live show but this book is all about the arc which is this band and it is about the main character angel who is going to meet the arc for the first time so she's so excited she's a huge fan girl and it's about fandom culture really but it's told in dual perspective from the perspective of angel a fan and also from the perspective of one of the members of the band his name is Jimmy I forgot that had to refer to my notes that kind of tells you how I felt about this book I did like Jimmy as a character though he was one of the redeeming elements but this book was all over the place it was like you had to have a lot of suspension of disbelief and be like yeah that could happen but like wowzers it was the most I gave this book a 2 out of 5 stars overall was like enjoyable in the beginning but it took me a really long time to read and I just feel like I didn't really get any payoff from that unfortunately so I don't really have much else to say about this book honestly I've kind of put it from my brain but if you wanted to hear more thoughts we talked about it a lot in the live show and it's a time so enjoyed that so after that I decided to spend pretty much a whole week and I've locked the whole thing so I'll link that down below for you guys but I decided to read a bunch of adult romances but then I ended up moving to reading just Christina Lauren books so I finished all the Christina Lauren books that I haven't read yet so the first one that I hadn't read yet was roomies and this was the one that I was the most excited for to be honest it seemed the most like Josh and Hazel which is my favorite of theirs by the way if you're wondering why I'm saying there's it's because it's two authors Christina and Lauren or two authors it's an author duo if you didn't know that I probably just blew your mind because I know I was mind blown when I found that out but roomies follows the main character Holland and Holland is always finding excuses to go to particular subway station because she is obsessed with this guy who plays his guitar there she has kind of made up a fantasy about him in her mind and doesn't really ever like actually talk to him until she ends up having an accident and he ends up saving her and to repay him she ends up getting him an audition for a Broadway show but then she finds out that he is actually there on an expired student visa he is Irish and he is there illegally so they decide to get married so then he can stay there and obviously that is the setup for disaster but that plot brings to mind one of my favorite movies which is the proposal a fantastic movie is so funny and just really enjoyable rom-com but that's not what I got here I was pretty disappointed with this I gave it a 3 out of 5 stars but I think it's kind of like a two point five two point seven five he found the romance very unbelievable and I didn't like the lead-up to it I didn't really care for Holland as a character especially because she had been like fantasizing about the love interest for so long and I've never really told him which I felt like was a little bit creepy so that kind of rubbed me the wrong way and made it really hard for me to get into the romance but there were some funny parts like there were some parts that made me laugh which is what I would expect from the author duo but a lot of this was kind of like I was born for this really unbelievable for me I struggled to buy the storyline that they were selling and because of that I was just kind of flipping through the pages and wanting it to be over and hoping that there would be a sex scene at least kind of because those were at least kind of interesting to read about but the rest of it just was really flat for me and I do like Broadway like I'm not a huge Broadway fan but I do enjoy that world and like the synopsis sounds so good it sounds very interesting but it was just the execution didn't get me I will say I thought the music aspect was really interesting I liked the descriptions that came along thereby overall it just was a little bit disappointing and I think once again it was a case of my expectations being too high which I really do try and lower my expectations before going into books but sometimes especially with authors that are like auto-buy authors for you it's hard to do that so unfortunately I didn't really like this but after that one I picked up my favorite half nightstand and I enjoyed this one way more than I was expecting to so for some reason I thought it was gonna like roomies I thought that I might not like this one I wasn't really sure and then love in other words which is the next one that I'm going to talk about I didn't really think I would like this one either but I actually ended up really enjoying both of these but like I said I'll talk about this one in a second for now I would talk about this one so Milly is a professor and also a serial-killer expert which is a fun little fact about her by her friend group is all these guys who also are professors at the same university as her and there's a banquet coming up so they all decide that they need dates and they go online dating and they go on this app and Milly really struggles with sharing like serious parts of her life so she kind of makes a persona where she can share those things but she ends up matching with her very best friend who she happened to have a one-night stand with on the night that they decided they were gonna do this but then they decided no we're gonna be friends keep it platonic but then as this other girl which he doesn't know it's her they end up kind of starting a relationship and things get a little steamy a little serious and she doesn't know what to do as everything is going to chaos so I actually listen to this one on audio and I don't normally listen to romance books on audio I kind of has started to recently but like there's just something about someone reading a sex scene to me it kind of weirds me out but I actually enjoyed the audiobook for the one sec sings aside I thought it was really good and I think it helps me to connect with the characters more than I would have if I hadn't listened to it I loved the friend group that was going on I liked the fact that even though like you didn't get that much of the other boys each character had a very distinctive personality and I could see how their friend group worked and that was really cool and though the relationship was very frustrating because it was kind of like miscommunication you know secrets being kept it was like oh come on like if you're just honest and like speak your mind then everything will be fixed that is usually something that I hate but I don't think it bugged me as much because this featured when my favorite tropes which is friends to Lover's I really enjoy that so I could kind of get past some of the things that were a little bit annoying about it Milly has a main character was pretty annoying and kind of unlikable but also unfortunately for me I found her very relatable which was like a slap to the face but you know that happens sometimes but she didn't annoy me so much that I didn't like the book I didn't end up really enjoying it I gave it a four out of five stars I thought it was cheesy light-hearted and fun definitely nothing that like made me think a lot but I don't regret reading it at all I thought it was a blast to read to be honest so the final Christina Lauren book that I had that I hadn't read yet was eleven other words and this one I didn't know what to expect but it blew me away honestly so Macy is kind of going through the motions of her life she has a job that she loves she's marrying a man who's older but financially secure and it's kind of a bit of a loveless relationship but it's comfortable so everything is going according to plan until she runs into Elliot who is her first love and her first heartbreak and she spent so much time with him growing up so seeing him kind of just completely sets her life off-kilter so history alternates between the past and the present and over all that just ends up giving you such a well rounded love story I was expecting a romance because that's usually what you get like a steamy romance that's just cheesy and fun and light-hearted that's what I've gotten with all the other Christina Lauren books that I've read but this was a true love story where you get more of the emotional side of things more of an impactful romance going on it had the elements of fun and lightheartedness that their other books had but it also packed real punch which was an unexpected but really nice surprise this featured another one of my favorite tropes which I don't really know like what the exact word for it but basically when an old relationship ends up becoming a romance that is something that I really love and getting to see the past in the present in this made it feel so real so it was done like incredibly well I know it seems like I really loved this and I did but I gave it a 4.5 out of 5 stars maybe a 4.75 the reason that it's not a 5 is because the ending and the kind of thing that's going on in this book is there's this looming thing that has happened but you don't know what it is and usually I hate that and I didn't really enjoy it that much but like I could get past it in this book but the reveal of what that thing was and the ending overall was a bit disappointing for me and I didn't really enjoy it that much but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story so much to take off like a full star rating this is also the perfect romance if you love books in our book lover and I'm imagining that you are because you were on my channel if not I'm sorry that you got lost on YouTube but it is such a bookish romance it's like a slow burn bookish romance which is just everything that I wanted and more so it was great and I highly recommend it next is stargazing by Jen Wang this is kind of a hard book to describe honestly because I didn't really understand the synopsis so well and I think that you should just kind of go into it so I'm not really going to give you much as a synopsis but I will just say that reading this the kind of plot twist that happened I was not expecting it at all and especially cuz I didn't know what to expect going into it it really took me by surprise and I ended up really liking it so I know that's super vague but if you were going to read this definitely just go into it and read it and I think you'll understand what I mean when you do read it but this is a graphic novel actually which I haven't read one in a very long time so I was really happy that I ended up enjoying the one that I ended up picking up but this isn't oh yeah I got this at Book Expo and it is coming out September 10th so definitely check it out so I just have a couple more books to talk about this next one I'm gonna talk about really really quickly just because it is another book marks book club pick and that was wicked Fox by Kat Cho we've read this in July and we just did the live show recently so I will link that down below for you guys but once again we didn't really like this book that much when I read the synopsis I thought it it's super cool but ultimately what I got didn't feel like what I signed up for so I gave it a 2 out of 5 stars and we go way into that in the live show and pretty much break this book down like point by point so definitely check that out if you wanted some more thoughts on it I'm sorry that I'm rushing through this I have been filming for like an hour now and I don't even know how long this video is gonna be when I edit it so yeah and my final recent read is the wedding date by Jasmine Gilroy this was another letdown so it's all about this girl who ends up being the wedding date for this guy that she doesn't even know just broke up with his girlfriend and he's going to an ex's wedding so he's like I can't go and stand up in this wedding when I don't have a date so they meet in the elevator briefly and then she agrees to go and be his date and I thought we were gonna get way more of the wedding but we didn't like the weddings just a very brief part in this and then there's a bromance that I didn't care about I didn't care about the characters or anything so it was very forgettable and I kind of just wanted to be done with it in the end which I was happy when I was so I gave this a 2 out of 5 stars as well if you haven't watched my reading rush vlogs or don't follow me on Twitter or Instagram then you might not know that I've been reading Harry Potter recently so I am through with the first illustrated edition and the second one but I'm currently halfway through the third one which by the time this video goes up hopefully I'll be done with it I don't know but it has been great to be back in the Potter universe again these are all obviously 5 out of 5 stars still upon rereading them it's just nice to be welcome back home to Hogwarts every time I read it it's just oh so good I highly recommend a reread if you haven't so those are all my recent reads I'm sorry that this video was so long thank you guys if you stayed until the end and listened to all my thoughts on these books I hope you liked it if you have also read any of these books please let me know what you thought about them I hope the ones that I didn't like you enjoyed more than I did bye if you enjoyed this video don't forget to click that subscribe button and then click that Bell icon so you'll be notified whenever I post I post new videos every week and you can also follow me on all of my social media all my handles and links and all that stuff will be down below for you guys so thank you so much watching and I will see you in my next video byehey everyone its Haley and today I'm going to be talking about some of the books that I have read recently so it has been a hot second since I've done a recent reads video so I have a ton of books to talk about today there's something I'm going to go into more than others because some I have more to say than others so I hope that's okay with you guys but I kind of went through a spell where I wasn't really reading a lot so it didn't make sense to do a recent reads video and then I just never actually filmed one once I had read a lot so now I have like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 books to talk about so I'm going to try and keep this as short and sweet as possible I do thankfully have an iced coffee to get me through or else I would die not to be dramatic or anything but let's just get into some spoiler-free thoughts about the books that I have read recently so the first book I have to talk about today is one that I can't say a lot about and that's because it's a sequel what I actually read a sequel I continued with a series that I had been meaning to for forever yes yes I did character development so I finally picked up Thunderhead by Neil Schusterman yay I've had this book for a very long time and I've been meaning to read it for a very long time and then we read size 4 bookmarked I don't even know what month it was like I have 3 bookmarked books on this list so they're all starting to blur together especially because I haven't talked about them but after finishing sighs my love for that book was renewed and then Hannah had read this and she was like you need to read it so then I was like yes I need to read it I already knew I did need to do it I don't know what happened in that sentence but I knew that I had to read it so she gave me like the final push that I needed to pick it up and I'm so glad that I did it was wild like I knew that it was going to be good because I've like a lot of people read it and liked it but then when Thunder had came out I feel like everyone was talking about the series way more than they had been before so that's when like the series really got hyped up and I had heard so many things about the sequel and it's not very often where a sequel is more hyped up than the first book so I was intrigued to say the least and so many things happened in here like the last like hundred or so pages I was like what what is going on like what I hope you enjoyed that dramatic reenactment but like I was so confused I couldn't predict anything that happened in this and to me that is the mark of a great sequel even though I never predict anything I like really it was left field like I was just like slapped across the face with it Wow where did that come from so it was super enjoyable I give it a four point five out of five stars and if you haven't checked out this series you should definitely do so and the final I don't know if it's actually the final question mark book is coming out and fall so now is the time to pick this series up whoo speaking of book marks the next book is Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare we read this in an unknown month like I said it all blurs together I think it was May it was made yes this was our May book of the month and it was a reread for all of us and unfortunately for me I didn't enjoy it as much as the first time around which makes me really sad but I will leave a link for the live show down below for you guys so you can hear more of our in-depth thoughts about it but it gives you aren't familiar with it which would be kind of surprising but this is the first book in the Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare which is a prequel to The Mortal Instruments series and I'm not like a huge Cassandra Clare fan but I do really enjoy the Infernal Devices it was my favorite of her books so I was excited to read it again but I don't know if it was just the mindset I was in or white but I just didn't quite connect with it as much as I had wanted to unfortunately but unlike the Mortal Instruments this is set in Victorian London which is just like the greatest and you find out a little bit more but the world in the underworld of the Shadowhunter universe which is really cool but I just don't have the nostalgia attached to it that Hannah and Zoe do so I didn't enjoy it quite as much as they did it was a solid read for me by it definitely around a 3.5 out of 5 stars but I'm hesitant to change my rating because I think just the fact that I had to read it under a time limit did kind of change my enjoyment of it especially because I wasn't exactly in the mood for it so I think I'm going to stick with my original rating from when I first read it a four out of five stars and then maybe I'll reread it again at some point in the future and see how I really really feel about it next is if I'm being honest by Emily Webb early in Austen seidman Broca so this was one of my most anticipated releases for the year I was so so so excited for it because I read the debut by this author duo which was always never yours and that focused on Romeo and Juliet and I loved it I thought it was so cute really fun and a nice surprise but I went into that one with no expectations so I think because I had expectations going into this one it did change my enjoyment of it so if I'm being honest on the other hand is a Taming of the true retelling which I was fascinated by because I don't think I've ever experienced a Taming of the Shrew retelling I know there's a movie I think it's 10 Things I Hate About You but I've never seen it and I can hear Zoey gasping about that because she was shocked by that but I have never experienced a Taming of the Shrew retelling I have read the original Taming of the Shrew and I read it for a university class actually so I studied it so having some familiarity with the story I was intrigued by this so this follows Cameron who is the queen bee at her la private school which has like a bunch of like really prestigious students they're not prestigious in terms of being like really smart but they have like really big shot parents so she kind of rules the school a bit Regina George style but she is known for being very very honest she always says what's on her mind doesn't really filter herself and just as like here it is like it or not take it or leave it that's how it is so this can get her into trouble but she hasn't really cared until the guy that she has a crush on is like no like you're just a straight-up and I'm not interested in you because of that so she decides to tame herself and try and make amends for all the bad things that she has done and she kind of goes through a list of like trying to apologize to these people and make everything right again so she can get this guy but then her feelings end up getting a little bit muddled and she is just left very confused about everything and wondering who she is and what she really wants so like I said my expectations were super high going into this because one I had already read something by these authors and really liked it and two I had seen great reviews for this so I thought this was like a surefire four or five star book but I ended up giving it a three out of five stars because I just didn't have the connection with the characters that I really wanted to I felt like there was something missing with the story it was just kind of going through the motions of her kind of going through almost a checklist of apologizing to people and it never really got further into there were things that I enjoyed I did like some of the characters even if I didn't feel like I had that connection with them I like the fact that Cameron was unlikable and she wasn't really like any other characters that I feel like I've read too often especially in why a so that was interesting to me by watching her relationship develop and her develop as a character I felt like was a little bit stunted at times but I did enjoy the romance in the way it ended up going it just ultimately there was something missing there that made it so I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped to unfortunately but I do think it was a pretty good read I just don't think it's one that I will really remember next is another bookmarked book and if you follow along with the book merked book clubs and then you know that we've had some pretty bad luck with our past couple of reads and this is the book where it started going downhill so that book is I was born for this by Alice Osmond I actually already had this book in my two unhaul pile because I have no desire to keep it I just didn't like it at all but we decided to read this book because we did a poll first of all so it wasn't just our choice but second of all we all have read radio silence by Alice Osmond and really really loved it and this sounded like it could be a really fun story too and the reviews seemed really good so we took a shot and we just it didn't really work out but that happened so once again I'll link our live show down below it gets really ran T the heating of the brick is a big topic in it if you want to know what the hell I'm talking about you can watch that live show but this book is all about the arc which is this band and it is about the main character angel who is going to meet the arc for the first time so she's so excited she's a huge fan girl and it's about fandom culture really but it's told in dual perspective from the perspective of angel a fan and also from the perspective of one of the members of the band his name is Jimmy I forgot that had to refer to my notes that kind of tells you how I felt about this book I did like Jimmy as a character though he was one of the redeeming elements but this book was all over the place it was like you had to have a lot of suspension of disbelief and be like yeah that could happen but like wowzers it was the most I gave this book a 2 out of 5 stars overall was like enjoyable in the beginning but it took me a really long time to read and I just feel like I didn't really get any payoff from that unfortunately so I don't really have much else to say about this book honestly I've kind of put it from my brain but if you wanted to hear more thoughts we talked about it a lot in the live show and it's a time so enjoyed that so after that I decided to spend pretty much a whole week and I've locked the whole thing so I'll link that down below for you guys but I decided to read a bunch of adult romances but then I ended up moving to reading just Christina Lauren books so I finished all the Christina Lauren books that I haven't read yet so the first one that I hadn't read yet was roomies and this was the one that I was the most excited for to be honest it seemed the most like Josh and Hazel which is my favorite of theirs by the way if you're wondering why I'm saying there's it's because it's two authors Christina and Lauren or two authors it's an author duo if you didn't know that I probably just blew your mind because I know I was mind blown when I found that out but roomies follows the main character Holland and Holland is always finding excuses to go to particular subway station because she is obsessed with this guy who plays his guitar there she has kind of made up a fantasy about him in her mind and doesn't really ever like actually talk to him until she ends up having an accident and he ends up saving her and to repay him she ends up getting him an audition for a Broadway show but then she finds out that he is actually there on an expired student visa he is Irish and he is there illegally so they decide to get married so then he can stay there and obviously that is the setup for disaster but that plot brings to mind one of my favorite movies which is the proposal a fantastic movie is so funny and just really enjoyable rom-com but that's not what I got here I was pretty disappointed with this I gave it a 3 out of 5 stars but I think it's kind of like a two point five two point seven five he found the romance very unbelievable and I didn't like the lead-up to it I didn't really care for Holland as a character especially because she had been like fantasizing about the love interest for so long and I've never really told him which I felt like was a little bit creepy so that kind of rubbed me the wrong way and made it really hard for me to get into the romance but there were some funny parts like there were some parts that made me laugh which is what I would expect from the author duo but a lot of this was kind of like I was born for this really unbelievable for me I struggled to buy the storyline that they were selling and because of that I was just kind of flipping through the pages and wanting it to be over and hoping that there would be a sex scene at least kind of because those were at least kind of interesting to read about but the rest of it just was really flat for me and I do like Broadway like I'm not a huge Broadway fan but I do enjoy that world and like the synopsis sounds so good it sounds very interesting but it was just the execution didn't get me I will say I thought the music aspect was really interesting I liked the descriptions that came along thereby overall it just was a little bit disappointing and I think once again it was a case of my expectations being too high which I really do try and lower my expectations before going into books but sometimes especially with authors that are like auto-buy authors for you it's hard to do that so unfortunately I didn't really like this but after that one I picked up my favorite half nightstand and I enjoyed this one way more than I was expecting to so for some reason I thought it was gonna like roomies I thought that I might not like this one I wasn't really sure and then love in other words which is the next one that I'm going to talk about I didn't really think I would like this one either but I actually ended up really enjoying both of these but like I said I'll talk about this one in a second for now I would talk about this one so Milly is a professor and also a serial-killer expert which is a fun little fact about her by her friend group is all these guys who also are professors at the same university as her and there's a banquet coming up so they all decide that they need dates and they go online dating and they go on this app and Milly really struggles with sharing like serious parts of her life so she kind of makes a persona where she can share those things but she ends up matching with her very best friend who she happened to have a one-night stand with on the night that they decided they were gonna do this but then they decided no we're gonna be friends keep it platonic but then as this other girl which he doesn't know it's her they end up kind of starting a relationship and things get a little steamy a little serious and she doesn't know what to do as everything is going to chaos so I actually listen to this one on audio and I don't normally listen to romance books on audio I kind of has started to recently but like there's just something about someone reading a sex scene to me it kind of weirds me out but I actually enjoyed the audiobook for the one sec sings aside I thought it was really good and I think it helps me to connect with the characters more than I would have if I hadn't listened to it I loved the friend group that was going on I liked the fact that even though like you didn't get that much of the other boys each character had a very distinctive personality and I could see how their friend group worked and that was really cool and though the relationship was very frustrating because it was kind of like miscommunication you know secrets being kept it was like oh come on like if you're just honest and like speak your mind then everything will be fixed that is usually something that I hate but I don't think it bugged me as much because this featured when my favorite tropes which is friends to Lover's I really enjoy that so I could kind of get past some of the things that were a little bit annoying about it Milly has a main character was pretty annoying and kind of unlikable but also unfortunately for me I found her very relatable which was like a slap to the face but you know that happens sometimes but she didn't annoy me so much that I didn't like the book I didn't end up really enjoying it I gave it a four out of five stars I thought it was cheesy light-hearted and fun definitely nothing that like made me think a lot but I don't regret reading it at all I thought it was a blast to read to be honest so the final Christina Lauren book that I had that I hadn't read yet was eleven other words and this one I didn't know what to expect but it blew me away honestly so Macy is kind of going through the motions of her life she has a job that she loves she's marrying a man who's older but financially secure and it's kind of a bit of a loveless relationship but it's comfortable so everything is going according to plan until she runs into Elliot who is her first love and her first heartbreak and she spent so much time with him growing up so seeing him kind of just completely sets her life off-kilter so history alternates between the past and the present and over all that just ends up giving you such a well rounded love story I was expecting a romance because that's usually what you get like a steamy romance that's just cheesy and fun and light-hearted that's what I've gotten with all the other Christina Lauren books that I've read but this was a true love story where you get more of the emotional side of things more of an impactful romance going on it had the elements of fun and lightheartedness that their other books had but it also packed real punch which was an unexpected but really nice surprise this featured another one of my favorite tropes which I don't really know like what the exact word for it but basically when an old relationship ends up becoming a romance that is something that I really love and getting to see the past in the present in this made it feel so real so it was done like incredibly well I know it seems like I really loved this and I did but I gave it a 4.5 out of 5 stars maybe a 4.75 the reason that it's not a 5 is because the ending and the kind of thing that's going on in this book is there's this looming thing that has happened but you don't know what it is and usually I hate that and I didn't really enjoy it that much but like I could get past it in this book but the reveal of what that thing was and the ending overall was a bit disappointing for me and I didn't really enjoy it that much but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story so much to take off like a full star rating this is also the perfect romance if you love books in our book lover and I'm imagining that you are because you were on my channel if not I'm sorry that you got lost on YouTube but it is such a bookish romance it's like a slow burn bookish romance which is just everything that I wanted and more so it was great and I highly recommend it next is stargazing by Jen Wang this is kind of a hard book to describe honestly because I didn't really understand the synopsis so well and I think that you should just kind of go into it so I'm not really going to give you much as a synopsis but I will just say that reading this the kind of plot twist that happened I was not expecting it at all and especially cuz I didn't know what to expect going into it it really took me by surprise and I ended up really liking it so I know that's super vague but if you were going to read this definitely just go into it and read it and I think you'll understand what I mean when you do read it but this is a graphic novel actually which I haven't read one in a very long time so I was really happy that I ended up enjoying the one that I ended up picking up but this isn't oh yeah I got this at Book Expo and it is coming out September 10th so definitely check it out so I just have a couple more books to talk about this next one I'm gonna talk about really really quickly just because it is another book marks book club pick and that was wicked Fox by Kat Cho we've read this in July and we just did the live show recently so I will link that down below for you guys but once again we didn't really like this book that much when I read the synopsis I thought it it's super cool but ultimately what I got didn't feel like what I signed up for so I gave it a 2 out of 5 stars and we go way into that in the live show and pretty much break this book down like point by point so definitely check that out if you wanted some more thoughts on it I'm sorry that I'm rushing through this I have been filming for like an hour now and I don't even know how long this video is gonna be when I edit it so yeah and my final recent read is the wedding date by Jasmine Gilroy this was another letdown so it's all about this girl who ends up being the wedding date for this guy that she doesn't even know just broke up with his girlfriend and he's going to an ex's wedding so he's like I can't go and stand up in this wedding when I don't have a date so they meet in the elevator briefly and then she agrees to go and be his date and I thought we were gonna get way more of the wedding but we didn't like the weddings just a very brief part in this and then there's a bromance that I didn't care about I didn't care about the characters or anything so it was very forgettable and I kind of just wanted to be done with it in the end which I was happy when I was so I gave this a 2 out of 5 stars as well if you haven't watched my reading rush vlogs or don't follow me on Twitter or Instagram then you might not know that I've been reading Harry Potter recently so I am through with the first illustrated edition and the second one but I'm currently halfway through the third one which by the time this video goes up hopefully I'll be done with it I don't know but it has been great to be back in the Potter universe again these are all obviously 5 out of 5 stars still upon rereading them it's just nice to be welcome back home to Hogwarts every time I read it it's just oh so good I highly recommend a reread if you haven't so those are all my recent reads I'm sorry that this video was so long thank you guys if you stayed until the end and listened to all my thoughts on these books I hope you liked it if you have also read any of these books please let me know what you thought about them I hope the ones that I didn't like you enjoyed more than I did bye if you enjoyed this video don't forget to click that subscribe button and then click that Bell icon so you'll be notified whenever I post I post new videos every week and you can also follow me on all of my social media all my handles and links and all that stuff will be down below for you guys so thank you so much watching and I will see you in my next video bye\n"