Life at the End of the Book and the Uncertainty of Reading More

As I sit here reflecting on my reading experience for the past month, I have to say that it's been quite eventful. One book in particular left me feeling uncertain about how to feel about its ending. The book was a reverse harem novel that explored themes of love, relationships, and identity. While I enjoyed the sex scenes and the way the author subverted traditional expectations of straight characters, the overall plot and character development didn't quite resonate with me. The cliffhanger ending left me feeling unsatisfied, and I'm not sure if I'll be continuing to read the series.

One aspect that did strike a chord with me was the representation of non-straight relationships in the novel. In reverse harem fiction, it's common for all the characters to be straight, which can feel like a missed opportunity to explore more diverse identities and experiences. However, in this particular book, the author made a conscious effort to include queer characters, and I appreciated the play on expectations that came with it.

Despite my reservations about the ending, I was pleased to find that the book was relatively short and easy to get through. This was a welcome change from some of the longer books I've been reading lately, and it allowed me to power through despite my doubts about the series. Overall, while this book wasn't a personal favorite, I enjoyed its lighthearted and playful tone, and I'm glad I got to experience it.

In contrast to the recent reverse harem novel, my next read was quite different in terms of genre and tone. "Local Woman Missing" by Mary Kibiga is a thriller that explores themes of abduction, trauma, and identity. Unfortunately, this book didn't resonate with me on a personal level, and I found its subject matter to be off-putting. While some readers may enjoy books with heavy themes and plot twists, they were not my cup of tea.

I understand that every reader is different, and what appeals to one person may not appeal to another. However, for me, the combination of medical trauma and abduction in this book was just too much to handle. I've read books in the past with similar themes, but this one felt particularly heavy-handed and exploitative. Despite the clever plot twists and subtle storytelling, I couldn't shake off my discomfort with the subject matter.

The author's writing style is competent, but it wasn't enough to save this book for me. The believability of the plot was another issue – some readers may enjoy books that are over-the-top and unbelievable, but they weren't my taste. Overall, while I can appreciate why others might enjoy "Local Woman Missing," it was not a book for me.

Moving on from these two books, I've been reflecting on how many books I actually read this month. In addition to the reverse harem novel and thriller, I also finished several other titles that will be featured in my upcoming vlogs and reviews. While I don't have an exact count, I can say that it was a busy reading month with plenty of variety.

As we head into December, I'm feeling a bit uncertain about how many books I'll actually read. With the holiday season approaching, life is getting busier, and my reading schedule may need to adjust accordingly. However, I do have a few titles lined up that I'm excited to tackle in the coming weeks. These include audiobooks from my local library, which I've been meaning to check out for ages. I've heard great things about them, and I'm looking forward to diving into some new stories.

In terms of planning for December, I do have a few videos lined up that will feature books from this month's reading list. These will include a few more titles in the reverse harem genre, as well as some other picks that I think my audience will enjoy. While it's still early days, I'm feeling excited about the prospect of sharing these books with you all and hearing your thoughts on them. As always, I'd love to hear from you – leave a comment below letting me know what your favorite book was this month, and I'll feature it in one of my upcoming videos!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my channel and happy halloween if you're watching this video the day it comes out uh today i'm going to be doing my october wrap up this month i think i read 11 books that weren't for videos which in hindsight i'm kind of regretting because i was just trying to like organize my reading and stuff for november and december and i realized i'm really behind but it's okay because i read some really good stuff for myself and i had a really good time doing it some of these books were total wins and i had a lot of duds too so it's gonna be some five stars and some two stars but i'm excited to run through everything with you because there's some genres that i don't normally read in here along with obviously some romance so without further ado let us get into the wrap-up the first book that i read this month oh my god claimed by j.r ward i ended up giving this book two stars i was super disappointed in this book it's the first book in her new lair of the wolven series i think that's what it's called and i was excited because i've actually enjoyed j.r ward's books outside of the black dagger brotherhood the bourbon legacy whatever that was i liked those books they weren't necessarily the same quality as the black dagger brotherhood series but i think she's a talented writer and i was excited to give this one a try it just didn't work for me in any possible regard i learned this month though that i really don't like books that have animals in them i love animals don't get me wrong i do not like when animals are a part of books specifically when they are experimented on or held captive or whatever so in this book we have our main character lydia and she is working with wolves and trying to save them there is this big conglomerate this big hotel chain that is trying to i think tear down a ton of trees kill the wolves habitat kill the wolves most likely and you know just build their hotel lydia obviously is against this she works with the wolves i don't really know exactly like what her role at this non-profit is because she's not a vet she is not like a scientist i don't think either but she's there because she likes wolves so she is doing everything in her power she can to save them but some kind of weird is happening too the i think vet that works at this non-profit he kind of goes a little bit off the wall and then we also have daniel who comes in to i guess do some like handyman jobs around the i don't know if it's a compound reserve what they're calling it but where uh lydia works and where the wolves are he comes and he helps them i guess like take care of the property or something like that i don't really know daniel and lydia are supposed to like fall in love and i didn't like either of them i didn't like either of them as characters to be honest lydia was irritating daniel had no personality whatsoever and they had this kind of like insta chemistry which is fine sometimes in paranormal like i can overlook it especially if it's like a faded mate situation but this clearly was not that and there's just so much that didn't work about this book but i don't want to spoil it for people who are very interested in it and do want to read all of jr's you know books it just wasn't good it wasn't good and if you were looking for like a werewolf shifter romance this is absolutely not it you do learn about that kind of at the very end of the book but it's not the character you think it's going to be it's just it's it's not it's not a good time i wouldn't recommend it it won't be carrying on with the series sadly next up is a book that i really really really enjoyed it is razer blade tears by essay cosby this is a book that was definitely not on my radar before endeavoring to take on this video that i'm doing for december but i picked this book up first and i am so glad that i did because i think had i not picked this one up first i don't know if i would have carried on with the video so grateful for this book for a lot of reasons that being a big one but also it was just a fantastic story so this book is about our two main characters ike and buddy ike is a black man buddy is white and their respective sons were married in a relationship had a daughter together and were unfortunately brutally murdered and the cops can't see him to figure out what exactly happened and what went down and they really don't have any interest in kind of figuring out who murdered their sons so i can buddy team up to seek vengeance and to figure out who exactly killed them and along the way they figure out a lot of things about themselves about their sons about forgiveness about racism in america about homophobia in america oh my god it was so powerful and not preachy at all and i just feel like this is a book that so many people could get so much from it does have that sort of like mystery thriller feel to it it is gritty it is gruesome um there's definitely a lot of violence in this book i think this book does such an excellent job at pointing out the hypocrisy of certain actions and showing people uh how they might just like have the wrong thoughts right like how they up how they can do better going forward so good it was so so good i again i don't think i would have picked this up on my own mostly because i feel like the cover just doesn't really give you a lot and the description it didn't really totally jump out to me but upon reading it i mean this is a phenomenal phenomenal book and i would highly recommend you pick it up amazing i'm so glad i read this book and i'm really excited for y'all to see that video in december fingers crossed i can finish all the books for it but i'm about halfway there and there have been some real gems so i really i'm glad i read this one go check it out so the next book that i read this month was another one that took me by surprise it was another one that was not on my radar and it is another one that is for that december video it is the last thing he told me by laura dave oh my god i love this book i ended up giving it five stars and i just really solidified my feelings on loving mysteries way more than thrillers now i kind of feel like i need to seek out more mysteries because this just so so worked for me and i think part of that is that i read it at the perfect time and like the perfect situation i was driving back from my parents house to austin this book is set partially in austin and i got to listen to it all in one sitting on the road oh it was so brilliant it was so so brilliant so the book is about our main character hannah and she is kind of going through a tough time because her husband recent kind of husband i guess they've only been married like a year or two but goes missing owen goes missing and he leaves behind his daughter bailey and hannah is given this task of taking care of bayley keeping bailey safe and also potentially figuring out what happened to owen he doesn't really want to be found he doesn't really want anyone to know where he is but hannah is determined and hell-bent on finding her husband who she loves a ton and i love the story because it was so twisty and interesting there's so many things that you assume from the beginning you're like oh you know owen's just a bad guy he definitely up he definitely is just like taking his money and running and then the more the story unfolds you understand the complexity of all these characters lives and how they're interplaying it was just i loved it i really loved this book a lot of the reviews for this book are kind of like middle of road and or this book is boring and i totally get where you're coming from because it's not a thriller it's not fast-paced it's not something that i think will appeal to a lot of people but i think why i liked this book so much was that it really at its core it is a love story there is a big love story at the heart of this book and i won't tell you kind of what that love story is or even if it's a romantic one but love is at the heart of this book and loved it i did cry a little bit at the end it's a book that i was considering purchasing a physical copy of if that tells you anything i would say definitely pick it up if you are interested in kind of like a slower paced mystery this book is not overly long but i mean it does have kind of like a plotting sort of plot but i liked it i thought it was good 10 out of 10 great time the next book that i read uh just kind of like a middle of the road read for me but for some reason i just keep picking up the books in the series it's archangels enigma by nellynie singh i give this book three stars this one is the book about nasser and andromeda i want to say her name is yes i thought it was fine i kind of feel that way about all these books i just really enjoy the narration and anytime that i'm going on a road trip from austin to houston i always download one of these and then just listen because it's a really enjoyable experience i think i listened to this one on the way to houston and it was perfectly serviceable it was fun to listen to i liked it when i read it but it's not a book that i'll be thinking about for years to come i think really my issue with nalini singh's writing is that she does a fantastic job at plot and at kind of conducting the plot throughout all of her books great job at that but i don't tend to love her love stories there's always kind of this like happy for now element that doesn't totally work for me i like a really strong happily ever after especially in a paranormal so you know it was fine it wasn't something that i necessarily totally recommend but i do like these books so i don't know i think this is like book eight in the series too so i'm like pretty far i'm kind of committed i feel like i gotta finish it out but it's nothing that i'm like in love with okay um crystal if you're watching this video look away now because i'm going to be talking about dreaming of you by lisa klepis huh okay this was a disappointment i mean like i don't know how to say it i didn't like this book it was about sarah and derek and the setup for this book was so promising i was so excited about it because sarah is this semi-wallflower but she also has a little bit of like zest for life she is from this small country town and she comes to london because she wants to see this notorious gaming hell run by derek craven i don't even know if she's like specifically seeking craven's gaming help but she definitely needs to go to one get that experience and then write about it because she has a pretty famous book that she's written about this fictional sex worker she is wanting to read the sequel but she doesn't really know what to write it about or if she has the right like experience i guess to be able to write that fully so she ends up going to this gaming hell and trying to like kind of infiltrate and kind of see what's up and i love that idea that's so fun especially kind of taking that like traditional wall flower thing and flipping it on its head making it a little bit more interesting and then derek craven is this notorious rake but he also has this sort of like damaged hero past and i think that appeals to a lot of people and it certainly appeals to me i love a good damaged hero he was someone who i think grew up in orphan kind of grew up on the streets and was able to kind of flaw his way out of the gutter as it were and become this you know big gaming hell dude which again i love that idea i love an opposite attract romance but it was all of the little like ancillary bits and the actual plot of this book that really really didn't make it work for me so i think the biggest thing and i don't think this is a spoiler to say at the beginning of the book derek is with a woman i think considers her a mistress she is married to a duke or something like that she's unsatisfied in that marriage and so she ends up sleeping with derek and whenever he breaks it off because he's no longer interested she ends up trying to kill him like that's a big subplot of this book which i didn't really find very appealing i don't expect that my hero and heroine will be like celibate or anything before they get together but i just didn't like that inclusion and then on top of that the the dynamic between sarah and derek sort of devolves for me it turned from something that i thought was sweet opposites attract to oh my god you're so much better than all these other girls because you're not a or whatever i didn't i didn't really like that derek always goes for the ones that are easy and sarah is not easy i just i don't know i didn't like it i didn't like it i didn't like that dynamic i don't think we need to pit women against each other to make the heroin ultimately like the one for him i don't know i just i got that vibe from it and it wasn't it wasn't really for me also uh the epilogue of this book i don't know how much i want to say but i'm just gonna say the word lactation and we're going to move on now we can do another 180. i'll talk to you guys about a book that i loved and it is baking me crazy by carla sorensen this is book one in the love it for sight series which is part of penny reads green valley series so if you have read the winston brothers series and you really liked that kind of like down home tennessee five you're gonna like this series it's set in the same world and it is set at the donner bakery i think all of the books are said at the donner bakery i loved this i thought this was so charming if you were looking for a hero who is head over heels for the heroine before she even knows that she likes him i think you're gonna enjoy this i love good pining romance y'all know that and this definitely delivered so it's about our main characters levi and jocelyn and levi is a hero who you can't help but love he is a physical therapist from first sight i mean i guess it's called love at first sight novel he's really really enamored with jocelyn he thinks she is absolutely beautiful and i want to say he meets her at like a wheelchair basketball kind of game or something like that just totally into her but at the time i think he asked jocelyn on a date or something and she says no because she is recently disabled and she's not completely comfortable in her kind of new life situation she just doesn't really she's not ready for it and so they decide to take it slow they decide to just be friends instead and jocelyn kind of completely forgets about the fact that levi wanted to date her and he ends up just becoming friends with her and they are friends for i want to say like five or six years before anything turns romantic i loved watching levi just be so so into her and kind of trying to figure out a way to show jocelyn that he is really into her i just loved it i thought it was awesome i also thought the representation was pretty good too i mean i can't speak to that obviously like i am not disabled i'm not a wheelchair but really liked the way that it was handled here if you're looking for something good i'd recommend it i will say contrary to the title or like series name love it for sight it's not like his love for her is based just on her looks or like levi doesn't get to know her like there's definitely a romance and attention built there so i wouldn't worry too much about the love of her side title but i thought this was awesome and i'm just surprised this isn't like rated higher i really enjoyed this book so four stars loved it okay i definitely didn't plan it this way but it seems like we're having like really high highs and really low lows back to back that's just kind of how my reading month was i'm going in reading order here i read the wedding day disaster by avery flynn which i gave two stars too i really wanted to like this book because i read back in the burbs by avery flynn and tracy wolfe i want to say i thought that was really charming i think i gave that book four stars this one on the other hand did not work it is compared to the hating game because there is kind of a similar dynamic built here but it couldn't be farther from that so this book is about our main character who i cannot remember the name of hadley and she is tasked with going to her sister's wedding but of course she does not want to go alone because that's so lame to go to a wedding without a date so she asks one of her best male friends to go with her but instead of going with her he ends up sending his twin brother and hadley's arch nemesis in his stead so she's having to go on kind of like a wedding date i guess you could say with this guy she hates who i can't remember the name of and i didn't write down my notes the reason this book didn't work for me is not because i dislike an enemies to lover situation y'all know i'm all about that but i think it needs to be built on something beyond thinking that your brother's best friend is a gold digging yeah throughout this book we get so much illusion and also like verbalization from our hero about how he thinks that hadley is just after his brother's money and that there's no way that she could just want to be friends with him and this persists over the course of the story and i don't think he tells her until like midway into the book that this is why he does not like her i didn't like it i did not like this book i feel like in the hating game when there's that initial first kiss you just feel this like shock to your heart and you're also kind of like i was about to say sweaty in the pants but she catched my drift this one just made me infuriated like they have this kiss in a coat closet i want to say and then he proceeds to portray her immediately it's just like not it just wasn't it okay i'm just gonna leave it that didn't like it and i gave it two stars moving on next up is a book that i read for that december video and you might be asking yourself like why are you telling us about these if we're gonna have to listen to you talk about them again and that's fair but it's not gonna be a vlog setting so like i figure it's okay to talk about them now book i didn't like this close to okay by lisa cross smith two stars mess just mess mess mess feel like this book is probably written for someone i just cannot for the life of me determine who that would be this story is about tally and emmett tally is i wanna say like 40 ish she's recently divorced and her ex-husband has impregnated another woman that is really upsetting tally because she is someone who wanted to get pregnant but couldn't or something like that really heartbreaking really shitty circumstances one day tally is walking along or maybe she's in her car i think she's probably in her car and she sees emmett who looks like he's about to jump from a bridge i think he's like in his 20s maybe so she stops and she helps him and she convinces him to come home with her and he ends up living with her for a while and they kind of form this relationship i guess you could say okay so tally is also a therapist or like some sort of mental health counselor in some way but her behavior does not really lead you to believe that she has one the way that she romanticizes emmett's mental health and the way that she lusts after him it just didn't feel appropriate given the circumstances i mean just the sheer fact that she's bringing him home to like live with her for a while feels a little bit weird and then kind of the boundaries she crosses it just didn't feel very professional granted like she's not his therapist but as someone who is a professional you would assume she would know boundaries a little bit better and she didn't really do so good with boundaries on top of that emmett also doesn't understand boundaries and ends up interfering in tally's relationship with her ex-husband and ends up like writing to him in her voice like he ends up catfishing her ex-husband it's just bizarre it was a bizarre book i didn't understand that i literally just didn't understand the point of it either like it was not good commentary on mental health or how that should be handled it also wasn't a love story in any sense of the word i just didn't understand it maybe i am just ill-equipped to understand things that are complex i mean that's valid but it didn't work for me okay and i gave it two stars to be fair all of my friends dnf this book i was scrolling through goodreads i always like to look through goodreads after i finish the book to see what the overall consensus was by my friends and i think i only saw one friend that finished it and they gave this book two stars as well so i feel validated vindicated and yeah if it sounds interesting to you obviously pick it up but it just didn't work for me in any sense of the word the next book i read was one that's just totally bizarre and perfect for october uh i read things have gotten worse since we last spoke by eric larocca larocca i ended up giving this book three stars although frankly i have no idea how to read this book it is a hundred-ish page book horror for sure and it is about two women who meet online in this like lgbt type forum chat room their bizarre relationship that unfolds i will say i appreciated how weird this book is i was very interested to see what happened and i was fairly satisfied with the ending of the story i feel like it all came full circle and it felt like a complete like little novella um it was also really disgusting so i don't know i don't know how to feel about it i don't think this was like the best thing i've ever read i don't think this is the worst thing that i've ever read i feel like if you're even a little bit interested in it maybe pick it up but definitely be forewarned there is fairly gratuitous i would say animal abuse and or like harm to animals i don't know what the word for that is but i don't know how to feel about this one i'm glad i read it i guess so like now i know what the hype's about but i'm also semi-scarred for life so moving on another kind of middle of the road lisa clayton's book i ended up reading devil and winter and i gave it three stars now i know this is everyone's favorite lisa claibos book and honestly i don't understand it i really really really don't understand it the characters were fun but they weren't fun enough to overcome the issues with the plot this book is about evie and sebastian they're introduced in the previous novels in the series i didn't read the second book so i feel like i missed out on some of the kind of tension and conflict between sebastian and the heroine of the last novel i want to say he like kisses her and does like roguelike to her but he's easily redeemed in this book evie is trying to escape her really shitty family and so she propositions sebastian one night and is like hey can we get married and i also will get my family's inheritance if we do this like it's kind of a win-win situation and sebastian's totally into it totally along for the ride and so they marry they end up going to see evie's sick father things progress from there holy though the plot so boring so boring who thought that this was a good idea for a book like were we reading the same book was i reading the same book that you were reading because i just don't understand what was interesting about this i think maybe i don't like gaming hills i think that could be it because this one and dreaming of you have that like in common not my thing not my thing didn't enjoy it i mean i liked the romance between eve and sebastian like just fine i thought they were cute i like how into eevee sebastian was but i need a decent plot in a romance like if there's going to be a plot it needs to be interesting i don't want to just be sitting at this gaming hell bored out of my goddamn skull moving on a book that was not boring at all okay um i picked this up on a whim and i like kind of am into it i'm not gonna try to convince you to read it but also maybe okay ruthless crown by amanda richardson i ended up giving this book three stars in hindsight no i'm not gonna give it four stars it's not it's not a four-star read but this is probably my favorite reverse harem book that i've ever read it is about our main character briar and her mom has recently remarried and she is going to go live with her mom stepdad and new brother her new stepbrother of course like this is a classic new adult bully romance reverse harem romance setup it very much is that but i feel like the writing of this book really makes everything feel more realistic and a little bit less cheesy and over the top than a lot that i've read like just the mindset that briar has and kind of the actions that our characters take they just don't feel stupid and i really liked the relationship too between a briar and her mom it felt very authentic to me and also i don't know i just feel like the parents in a lot of these books seem so neglectful and i didn't get that vibe from briar's mom so i liked that obviously briar's stepbrother has three super hot best friends and all four of them are lusting after briar but also kind of bullying her at the same time and eventually there's some like steamy sex scenes that happen there's an interesting kind of plot twist and or i was gonna say climax cliffhanger at the end of this book so it was fun it was an enjoyable book i don't know that i totally love how the topic of assault was handled breyer was assaulted but someone in her past and she's kind of running from that and it's healing from that and there's talk of therapy and stuff that i appreciated but it's also kind of used as like a plot twist as that person comes back into her life at the end of the book and i don't know how i totally feel about that nothing happens it's a cliffhanger and so i don't know if i'm going to hate it if i pick up the second book like i'm not sure i don't know i don't know how to feel about that but the sex scenes in this book were great who appreciated the play on reverse harem i guess you could say in it i feel like a lot of the time with reverse harem it just feels a little bit weird that everybody is straight in in the books and in this that's not the case and i appreciated that i feel like i'm not doing a very good job selling this book but it was fun it was hot and overall like it was a good reverse harem time is it gonna win any awards no but it doesn't need to because it's just a fun silly time i think this book was relatively short as well which i appreciated so that was the last romance i read this month and now we can talk about the last book that i read this month which i know a lot of people love um i didn't local woman missing by mary kabiga i gave this book two stars i just didn't like this book i understand why so many people enjoy this book why so many people are like buzzing about this book but it just didn't work for me i think the biggest thing was not so much that the book was unbelievable which it absolutely and totally was it's that i really don't appreciate some of the themes and topics explored in this book now i think it's totally dependent on you and your circumstances what you're into and thrillers i know some people like really over the top when it comes to like the themes and and the subject matter explored like if you like pretty girls by clarence slaughter i think this might be something you're into not the same topics at all but the same like over the topness i don't like books with medical trauma i am finding this was really heavy on the medical trauma and i also just really don't like books with abducted women now i have read books in the past that have like an abduction plotline that i haven't totally hated but more and more i'm finding that i just don't really like books with those themes so the whole like medical trauma plus abduction just didn't it didn't really sit well with me and i just feel like that coupled with the unbelievability just made it something that i couldn't really enjoy if those things had been included and then the like plot twists were really clever and it was all very subtle i think i might have been able to overlook it but those two things combined just not not a book for me and i feel bad saying that this was definitely like a very personal thing i don't think that this book is in any way like super poorly written i just didn't like it that's that's it that's it i didn't i didn't enjoy it so those are the 11 books that i read 11 books 12 books i don't actually know 11 or 12 books that i read in october that weren't for vlogs i had an interesting reading month i'm glad that i ended up reading all of these books i feel like these are books that have been like peaking my interest over the past year or so and i just have been kind of putting off reading because i've had other stuff to do but i'm glad that i got to them i don't know and i know i said this last month but i really don't know for november how many books i'm going to be reading that are not for upcoming videos i'm just so determined to get stuff read for december and i just don't know i'm going to have time for anything else if i do it's probably going to be like madison kate i got the audiobooks from my library and they're surprisingly excellent so i feel like i'm going to read those soon but i do have a couple of thrillers that i like i'm midway through that i'm not reading for videos that i might talk about in a wrap-up if i end up finishing them so i don't know if i do a wrap-up it's going to be like maybe five books so anyway thanks for listening to me babble for however long this video is love y'all so much i have i think a vlog coming next sunday and then you're gonna be getting two videos for me every week leading up to december and then you're getting uh so many videos for me like way too many videos for me so anyway love y'all so much thanks so much for watching i appreciate you leave a comment down below letting me know what your favorite book was this month so i can put it on my own tbr but uh until next sunday youhello welcome back to my channel and happy halloween if you're watching this video the day it comes out uh today i'm going to be doing my october wrap up this month i think i read 11 books that weren't for videos which in hindsight i'm kind of regretting because i was just trying to like organize my reading and stuff for november and december and i realized i'm really behind but it's okay because i read some really good stuff for myself and i had a really good time doing it some of these books were total wins and i had a lot of duds too so it's gonna be some five stars and some two stars but i'm excited to run through everything with you because there's some genres that i don't normally read in here along with obviously some romance so without further ado let us get into the wrap-up the first book that i read this month oh my god claimed by j.r ward i ended up giving this book two stars i was super disappointed in this book it's the first book in her new lair of the wolven series i think that's what it's called and i was excited because i've actually enjoyed j.r ward's books outside of the black dagger brotherhood the bourbon legacy whatever that was i liked those books they weren't necessarily the same quality as the black dagger brotherhood series but i think she's a talented writer and i was excited to give this one a try it just didn't work for me in any possible regard i learned this month though that i really don't like books that have animals in them i love animals don't get me wrong i do not like when animals are a part of books specifically when they are experimented on or held captive or whatever so in this book we have our main character lydia and she is working with wolves and trying to save them there is this big conglomerate this big hotel chain that is trying to i think tear down a ton of trees kill the wolves habitat kill the wolves most likely and you know just build their hotel lydia obviously is against this she works with the wolves i don't really know exactly like what her role at this non-profit is because she's not a vet she is not like a scientist i don't think either but she's there because she likes wolves so she is doing everything in her power she can to save them but some kind of weird is happening too the i think vet that works at this non-profit he kind of goes a little bit off the wall and then we also have daniel who comes in to i guess do some like handyman jobs around the i don't know if it's a compound reserve what they're calling it but where uh lydia works and where the wolves are he comes and he helps them i guess like take care of the property or something like that i don't really know daniel and lydia are supposed to like fall in love and i didn't like either of them i didn't like either of them as characters to be honest lydia was irritating daniel had no personality whatsoever and they had this kind of like insta chemistry which is fine sometimes in paranormal like i can overlook it especially if it's like a faded mate situation but this clearly was not that and there's just so much that didn't work about this book but i don't want to spoil it for people who are very interested in it and do want to read all of jr's you know books it just wasn't good it wasn't good and if you were looking for like a werewolf shifter romance this is absolutely not it you do learn about that kind of at the very end of the book but it's not the character you think it's going to be it's just it's it's not it's not a good time i wouldn't recommend it it won't be carrying on with the series sadly next up is a book that i really really really enjoyed it is razer blade tears by essay cosby this is a book that was definitely not on my radar before endeavoring to take on this video that i'm doing for december but i picked this book up first and i am so glad that i did because i think had i not picked this one up first i don't know if i would have carried on with the video so grateful for this book for a lot of reasons that being a big one but also it was just a fantastic story so this book is about our two main characters ike and buddy ike is a black man buddy is white and their respective sons were married in a relationship had a daughter together and were unfortunately brutally murdered and the cops can't see him to figure out what exactly happened and what went down and they really don't have any interest in kind of figuring out who murdered their sons so i can buddy team up to seek vengeance and to figure out who exactly killed them and along the way they figure out a lot of things about themselves about their sons about forgiveness about racism in america about homophobia in america oh my god it was so powerful and not preachy at all and i just feel like this is a book that so many people could get so much from it does have that sort of like mystery thriller feel to it it is gritty it is gruesome um there's definitely a lot of violence in this book i think this book does such an excellent job at pointing out the hypocrisy of certain actions and showing people uh how they might just like have the wrong thoughts right like how they up how they can do better going forward so good it was so so good i again i don't think i would have picked this up on my own mostly because i feel like the cover just doesn't really give you a lot and the description it didn't really totally jump out to me but upon reading it i mean this is a phenomenal phenomenal book and i would highly recommend you pick it up amazing i'm so glad i read this book and i'm really excited for y'all to see that video in december fingers crossed i can finish all the books for it but i'm about halfway there and there have been some real gems so i really i'm glad i read this one go check it out so the next book that i read this month was another one that took me by surprise it was another one that was not on my radar and it is another one that is for that december video it is the last thing he told me by laura dave oh my god i love this book i ended up giving it five stars and i just really solidified my feelings on loving mysteries way more than thrillers now i kind of feel like i need to seek out more mysteries because this just so so worked for me and i think part of that is that i read it at the perfect time and like the perfect situation i was driving back from my parents house to austin this book is set partially in austin and i got to listen to it all in one sitting on the road oh it was so brilliant it was so so brilliant so the book is about our main character hannah and she is kind of going through a tough time because her husband recent kind of husband i guess they've only been married like a year or two but goes missing owen goes missing and he leaves behind his daughter bailey and hannah is given this task of taking care of bayley keeping bailey safe and also potentially figuring out what happened to owen he doesn't really want to be found he doesn't really want anyone to know where he is but hannah is determined and hell-bent on finding her husband who she loves a ton and i love the story because it was so twisty and interesting there's so many things that you assume from the beginning you're like oh you know owen's just a bad guy he definitely up he definitely is just like taking his money and running and then the more the story unfolds you understand the complexity of all these characters lives and how they're interplaying it was just i loved it i really loved this book a lot of the reviews for this book are kind of like middle of road and or this book is boring and i totally get where you're coming from because it's not a thriller it's not fast-paced it's not something that i think will appeal to a lot of people but i think why i liked this book so much was that it really at its core it is a love story there is a big love story at the heart of this book and i won't tell you kind of what that love story is or even if it's a romantic one but love is at the heart of this book and loved it i did cry a little bit at the end it's a book that i was considering purchasing a physical copy of if that tells you anything i would say definitely pick it up if you are interested in kind of like a slower paced mystery this book is not overly long but i mean it does have kind of like a plotting sort of plot but i liked it i thought it was good 10 out of 10 great time the next book that i read uh just kind of like a middle of the road read for me but for some reason i just keep picking up the books in the series it's archangels enigma by nellynie singh i give this book three stars this one is the book about nasser and andromeda i want to say her name is yes i thought it was fine i kind of feel that way about all these books i just really enjoy the narration and anytime that i'm going on a road trip from austin to houston i always download one of these and then just listen because it's a really enjoyable experience i think i listened to this one on the way to houston and it was perfectly serviceable it was fun to listen to i liked it when i read it but it's not a book that i'll be thinking about for years to come i think really my issue with nalini singh's writing is that she does a fantastic job at plot and at kind of conducting the plot throughout all of her books great job at that but i don't tend to love her love stories there's always kind of this like happy for now element that doesn't totally work for me i like a really strong happily ever after especially in a paranormal so you know it was fine it wasn't something that i necessarily totally recommend but i do like these books so i don't know i think this is like book eight in the series too so i'm like pretty far i'm kind of committed i feel like i gotta finish it out but it's nothing that i'm like in love with okay um crystal if you're watching this video look away now because i'm going to be talking about dreaming of you by lisa klepis huh okay this was a disappointment i mean like i don't know how to say it i didn't like this book it was about sarah and derek and the setup for this book was so promising i was so excited about it because sarah is this semi-wallflower but she also has a little bit of like zest for life she is from this small country town and she comes to london because she wants to see this notorious gaming hell run by derek craven i don't even know if she's like specifically seeking craven's gaming help but she definitely needs to go to one get that experience and then write about it because she has a pretty famous book that she's written about this fictional sex worker she is wanting to read the sequel but she doesn't really know what to write it about or if she has the right like experience i guess to be able to write that fully so she ends up going to this gaming hell and trying to like kind of infiltrate and kind of see what's up and i love that idea that's so fun especially kind of taking that like traditional wall flower thing and flipping it on its head making it a little bit more interesting and then derek craven is this notorious rake but he also has this sort of like damaged hero past and i think that appeals to a lot of people and it certainly appeals to me i love a good damaged hero he was someone who i think grew up in orphan kind of grew up on the streets and was able to kind of flaw his way out of the gutter as it were and become this you know big gaming hell dude which again i love that idea i love an opposite attract romance but it was all of the little like ancillary bits and the actual plot of this book that really really didn't make it work for me so i think the biggest thing and i don't think this is a spoiler to say at the beginning of the book derek is with a woman i think considers her a mistress she is married to a duke or something like that she's unsatisfied in that marriage and so she ends up sleeping with derek and whenever he breaks it off because he's no longer interested she ends up trying to kill him like that's a big subplot of this book which i didn't really find very appealing i don't expect that my hero and heroine will be like celibate or anything before they get together but i just didn't like that inclusion and then on top of that the the dynamic between sarah and derek sort of devolves for me it turned from something that i thought was sweet opposites attract to oh my god you're so much better than all these other girls because you're not a or whatever i didn't i didn't really like that derek always goes for the ones that are easy and sarah is not easy i just i don't know i didn't like it i didn't like it i didn't like that dynamic i don't think we need to pit women against each other to make the heroin ultimately like the one for him i don't know i just i got that vibe from it and it wasn't it wasn't really for me also uh the epilogue of this book i don't know how much i want to say but i'm just gonna say the word lactation and we're going to move on now we can do another 180. i'll talk to you guys about a book that i loved and it is baking me crazy by carla sorensen this is book one in the love it for sight series which is part of penny reads green valley series so if you have read the winston brothers series and you really liked that kind of like down home tennessee five you're gonna like this series it's set in the same world and it is set at the donner bakery i think all of the books are said at the donner bakery i loved this i thought this was so charming if you were looking for a hero who is head over heels for the heroine before she even knows that she likes him i think you're gonna enjoy this i love good pining romance y'all know that and this definitely delivered so it's about our main characters levi and jocelyn and levi is a hero who you can't help but love he is a physical therapist from first sight i mean i guess it's called love at first sight novel he's really really enamored with jocelyn he thinks she is absolutely beautiful and i want to say he meets her at like a wheelchair basketball kind of game or something like that just totally into her but at the time i think he asked jocelyn on a date or something and she says no because she is recently disabled and she's not completely comfortable in her kind of new life situation she just doesn't really she's not ready for it and so they decide to take it slow they decide to just be friends instead and jocelyn kind of completely forgets about the fact that levi wanted to date her and he ends up just becoming friends with her and they are friends for i want to say like five or six years before anything turns romantic i loved watching levi just be so so into her and kind of trying to figure out a way to show jocelyn that he is really into her i just loved it i thought it was awesome i also thought the representation was pretty good too i mean i can't speak to that obviously like i am not disabled i'm not a wheelchair but really liked the way that it was handled here if you're looking for something good i'd recommend it i will say contrary to the title or like series name love it for sight it's not like his love for her is based just on her looks or like levi doesn't get to know her like there's definitely a romance and attention built there so i wouldn't worry too much about the love of her side title but i thought this was awesome and i'm just surprised this isn't like rated higher i really enjoyed this book so four stars loved it okay i definitely didn't plan it this way but it seems like we're having like really high highs and really low lows back to back that's just kind of how my reading month was i'm going in reading order here i read the wedding day disaster by avery flynn which i gave two stars too i really wanted to like this book because i read back in the burbs by avery flynn and tracy wolfe i want to say i thought that was really charming i think i gave that book four stars this one on the other hand did not work it is compared to the hating game because there is kind of a similar dynamic built here but it couldn't be farther from that so this book is about our main character who i cannot remember the name of hadley and she is tasked with going to her sister's wedding but of course she does not want to go alone because that's so lame to go to a wedding without a date so she asks one of her best male friends to go with her but instead of going with her he ends up sending his twin brother and hadley's arch nemesis in his stead so she's having to go on kind of like a wedding date i guess you could say with this guy she hates who i can't remember the name of and i didn't write down my notes the reason this book didn't work for me is not because i dislike an enemies to lover situation y'all know i'm all about that but i think it needs to be built on something beyond thinking that your brother's best friend is a gold digging yeah throughout this book we get so much illusion and also like verbalization from our hero about how he thinks that hadley is just after his brother's money and that there's no way that she could just want to be friends with him and this persists over the course of the story and i don't think he tells her until like midway into the book that this is why he does not like her i didn't like it i did not like this book i feel like in the hating game when there's that initial first kiss you just feel this like shock to your heart and you're also kind of like i was about to say sweaty in the pants but she catched my drift this one just made me infuriated like they have this kiss in a coat closet i want to say and then he proceeds to portray her immediately it's just like not it just wasn't it okay i'm just gonna leave it that didn't like it and i gave it two stars moving on next up is a book that i read for that december video and you might be asking yourself like why are you telling us about these if we're gonna have to listen to you talk about them again and that's fair but it's not gonna be a vlog setting so like i figure it's okay to talk about them now book i didn't like this close to okay by lisa cross smith two stars mess just mess mess mess feel like this book is probably written for someone i just cannot for the life of me determine who that would be this story is about tally and emmett tally is i wanna say like 40 ish she's recently divorced and her ex-husband has impregnated another woman that is really upsetting tally because she is someone who wanted to get pregnant but couldn't or something like that really heartbreaking really shitty circumstances one day tally is walking along or maybe she's in her car i think she's probably in her car and she sees emmett who looks like he's about to jump from a bridge i think he's like in his 20s maybe so she stops and she helps him and she convinces him to come home with her and he ends up living with her for a while and they kind of form this relationship i guess you could say okay so tally is also a therapist or like some sort of mental health counselor in some way but her behavior does not really lead you to believe that she has one the way that she romanticizes emmett's mental health and the way that she lusts after him it just didn't feel appropriate given the circumstances i mean just the sheer fact that she's bringing him home to like live with her for a while feels a little bit weird and then kind of the boundaries she crosses it just didn't feel very professional granted like she's not his therapist but as someone who is a professional you would assume she would know boundaries a little bit better and she didn't really do so good with boundaries on top of that emmett also doesn't understand boundaries and ends up interfering in tally's relationship with her ex-husband and ends up like writing to him in her voice like he ends up catfishing her ex-husband it's just bizarre it was a bizarre book i didn't understand that i literally just didn't understand the point of it either like it was not good commentary on mental health or how that should be handled it also wasn't a love story in any sense of the word i just didn't understand it maybe i am just ill-equipped to understand things that are complex i mean that's valid but it didn't work for me okay and i gave it two stars to be fair all of my friends dnf this book i was scrolling through goodreads i always like to look through goodreads after i finish the book to see what the overall consensus was by my friends and i think i only saw one friend that finished it and they gave this book two stars as well so i feel validated vindicated and yeah if it sounds interesting to you obviously pick it up but it just didn't work for me in any sense of the word the next book i read was one that's just totally bizarre and perfect for october uh i read things have gotten worse since we last spoke by eric larocca larocca i ended up giving this book three stars although frankly i have no idea how to read this book it is a hundred-ish page book horror for sure and it is about two women who meet online in this like lgbt type forum chat room their bizarre relationship that unfolds i will say i appreciated how weird this book is i was very interested to see what happened and i was fairly satisfied with the ending of the story i feel like it all came full circle and it felt like a complete like little novella um it was also really disgusting so i don't know i don't know how to feel about it i don't think this was like the best thing i've ever read i don't think this is the worst thing that i've ever read i feel like if you're even a little bit interested in it maybe pick it up but definitely be forewarned there is fairly gratuitous i would say animal abuse and or like harm to animals i don't know what the word for that is but i don't know how to feel about this one i'm glad i read it i guess so like now i know what the hype's about but i'm also semi-scarred for life so moving on another kind of middle of the road lisa clayton's book i ended up reading devil and winter and i gave it three stars now i know this is everyone's favorite lisa claibos book and honestly i don't understand it i really really really don't understand it the characters were fun but they weren't fun enough to overcome the issues with the plot this book is about evie and sebastian they're introduced in the previous novels in the series i didn't read the second book so i feel like i missed out on some of the kind of tension and conflict between sebastian and the heroine of the last novel i want to say he like kisses her and does like roguelike to her but he's easily redeemed in this book evie is trying to escape her really shitty family and so she propositions sebastian one night and is like hey can we get married and i also will get my family's inheritance if we do this like it's kind of a win-win situation and sebastian's totally into it totally along for the ride and so they marry they end up going to see evie's sick father things progress from there holy though the plot so boring so boring who thought that this was a good idea for a book like were we reading the same book was i reading the same book that you were reading because i just don't understand what was interesting about this i think maybe i don't like gaming hills i think that could be it because this one and dreaming of you have that like in common not my thing not my thing didn't enjoy it i mean i liked the romance between eve and sebastian like just fine i thought they were cute i like how into eevee sebastian was but i need a decent plot in a romance like if there's going to be a plot it needs to be interesting i don't want to just be sitting at this gaming hell bored out of my goddamn skull moving on a book that was not boring at all okay um i picked this up on a whim and i like kind of am into it i'm not gonna try to convince you to read it but also maybe okay ruthless crown by amanda richardson i ended up giving this book three stars in hindsight no i'm not gonna give it four stars it's not it's not a four-star read but this is probably my favorite reverse harem book that i've ever read it is about our main character briar and her mom has recently remarried and she is going to go live with her mom stepdad and new brother her new stepbrother of course like this is a classic new adult bully romance reverse harem romance setup it very much is that but i feel like the writing of this book really makes everything feel more realistic and a little bit less cheesy and over the top than a lot that i've read like just the mindset that briar has and kind of the actions that our characters take they just don't feel stupid and i really liked the relationship too between a briar and her mom it felt very authentic to me and also i don't know i just feel like the parents in a lot of these books seem so neglectful and i didn't get that vibe from briar's mom so i liked that obviously briar's stepbrother has three super hot best friends and all four of them are lusting after briar but also kind of bullying her at the same time and eventually there's some like steamy sex scenes that happen there's an interesting kind of plot twist and or i was gonna say climax cliffhanger at the end of this book so it was fun it was an enjoyable book i don't know that i totally love how the topic of assault was handled breyer was assaulted but someone in her past and she's kind of running from that and it's healing from that and there's talk of therapy and stuff that i appreciated but it's also kind of used as like a plot twist as that person comes back into her life at the end of the book and i don't know how i totally feel about that nothing happens it's a cliffhanger and so i don't know if i'm going to hate it if i pick up the second book like i'm not sure i don't know i don't know how to feel about that but the sex scenes in this book were great who appreciated the play on reverse harem i guess you could say in it i feel like a lot of the time with reverse harem it just feels a little bit weird that everybody is straight in in the books and in this that's not the case and i appreciated that i feel like i'm not doing a very good job selling this book but it was fun it was hot and overall like it was a good reverse harem time is it gonna win any awards no but it doesn't need to because it's just a fun silly time i think this book was relatively short as well which i appreciated so that was the last romance i read this month and now we can talk about the last book that i read this month which i know a lot of people love um i didn't local woman missing by mary kabiga i gave this book two stars i just didn't like this book i understand why so many people enjoy this book why so many people are like buzzing about this book but it just didn't work for me i think the biggest thing was not so much that the book was unbelievable which it absolutely and totally was it's that i really don't appreciate some of the themes and topics explored in this book now i think it's totally dependent on you and your circumstances what you're into and thrillers i know some people like really over the top when it comes to like the themes and and the subject matter explored like if you like pretty girls by clarence slaughter i think this might be something you're into not the same topics at all but the same like over the topness i don't like books with medical trauma i am finding this was really heavy on the medical trauma and i also just really don't like books with abducted women now i have read books in the past that have like an abduction plotline that i haven't totally hated but more and more i'm finding that i just don't really like books with those themes so the whole like medical trauma plus abduction just didn't it didn't really sit well with me and i just feel like that coupled with the unbelievability just made it something that i couldn't really enjoy if those things had been included and then the like plot twists were really clever and it was all very subtle i think i might have been able to overlook it but those two things combined just not not a book for me and i feel bad saying that this was definitely like a very personal thing i don't think that this book is in any way like super poorly written i just didn't like it that's that's it that's it i didn't i didn't enjoy it so those are the 11 books that i read 11 books 12 books i don't actually know 11 or 12 books that i read in october that weren't for vlogs i had an interesting reading month i'm glad that i ended up reading all of these books i feel like these are books that have been like peaking my interest over the past year or so and i just have been kind of putting off reading because i've had other stuff to do but i'm glad that i got to them i don't know and i know i said this last month but i really don't know for november how many books i'm going to be reading that are not for upcoming videos i'm just so determined to get stuff read for december and i just don't know i'm going to have time for anything else if i do it's probably going to be like madison kate i got the audiobooks from my library and they're surprisingly excellent so i feel like i'm going to read those soon but i do have a couple of thrillers that i like i'm midway through that i'm not reading for videos that i might talk about in a wrap-up if i end up finishing them so i don't know if i do a wrap-up it's going to be like maybe five books so anyway thanks for listening to me babble for however long this video is love y'all so much i have i think a vlog coming next sunday and then you're gonna be getting two videos for me every week leading up to december and then you're getting uh so many videos for me like way too many videos for me so anyway love y'all so much thanks so much for watching i appreciate you leave a comment down below letting me know what your favorite book was this month so i can put it on my own tbr but uh until next sunday you\n"