I recently had the opportunity to read and review two books, Beauty and the Beast by Harper and Dear Evan Hansen by Val Ma. While I enjoyed certain aspects of both books, my overall experience was mixed.

One book that I did enjoy was Beauty and the Beast. In this retelling of the classic fairy tale, Harper's world is sucked into the kingdom of a prince who is cursed to live as a beast unless he can find true love. However, things take a complicated turn when Harper finds herself in his world. She already has a lot going on back home - her father is absent, her mother is dying, and her brother is getting involved in some pretty bad things. To make matters worse, Harper has Scerbo palsy, which she feels is often underestimated by those around her. Despite these challenges, Harper finds herself navigating the complexities of this new world and trying to find a way out.

I was particularly happy to see that the book included representation for people with disabilities, specifically Scerbo palsy. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any information on reviewers who agree with my assessment of the representation being good. However, it's clear that Harper put thought into including this aspect in her story and did a great job of portraying the challenges and difficulties that come with living with a disability.

One of the things that stood out to me about Beauty and the Beast was its connection to the original fairy tale. The book brought to mind the 2017 movie adaptation starring Emma Watson, particularly the scene where Belle is trapped in the castle by the beast. It was clear that Harper was drawing inspiration from this story, but she also added her own unique twist.

Despite my enjoyment of certain aspects of Beauty and the Beast, I have to admit that the book wasn't for me. One of the main reasons I didn't connect with it was its length. The book was very long, which made it feel like a chore to read at times. Additionally, I felt like there were a lot of random elements thrown into Harper's life back home that didn't really add anything to the story. It felt like too much information was being presented without any real resolution or explanation.

Overall, I gave Beauty and the Beast 2 out of 5 stars. While it had some redeeming qualities, such as its representation of Scerbo palsy, the book's length and lack of focus made it difficult for me to enjoy.

Unfortunately, my experience with Dear Evan Hansen by Val Ma was not as positive. I started listening to the audiobook, but unfortunately, I only got a little way into it before I had to put it down due to disinterest. Despite being drawn in by the musical, which I've never seen or heard, I just couldn't get into the story.

Unfortunately, my experience with Dear Evan Hansen was so negative that I even DNF'd (did not finish) the book. While I know some people love this story and appreciate its themes, it wasn't for me.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey Rhoda Tilly and today I'm going to be talking about some books that I've read recently so I'm doing this video in place of my monthly wrap-up because last month I read five books in the video was like 20 minutes long and it's only the 13th of March and I have already read six books so with the way it's going I feel like it's just going to make more sense to do recent reads instead of doing an end of the month wrap-up because I want to be able to go into depth about these books and not feel like I have to rush through things or else I'll have a super super long video because personally I don't like videos to be like super super long I want to keep it at a reasonable length where everyone will be happy is so that is why I'm doing this I have some awesome books to talk about today I have some books that I didn't like so much it's kind of all over the place but I'm happy to say that I'm still getting out of my reading slump I was on a contemporary kick for a while because that was really helping me and d-n effing books has still been very helpful but I've tried a couple of fantasies I'm reading one right now but I've been really busy so I haven't really had that much time to read so the timing of that kind of sucks but the one fantasy that I tried didn't like so much but I will get into all of that while I talk about the books that I read so let's just get on into it so the first book that I have to talk about today is hello girls by Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry this book is coming out on August 6th and it follows two characters Winona and Lucille and they are best friends and they became best friends because they met outside of a police station when both of them were deciding whether or not they wanted to turn their families in so when Nona lives in this illusion her father is a celebrity whether a man behind closed doors he's actually very very abusive so everything is a friend and he's just hiding a lot of crap that he does to her and Lucille her family is struggling as well so her mother is trying really hard to provide for her family but really it falls on Lucille because her brother is like dealing drugs and there's just a lot of stuff happening there so they keep on talking about the future in the fact that they are going to take off and finally be on their own and be away from the families that they have been dying to get away from but they don't know when they'll actually be able to do it it's a distant future thing they actually decide that the time is now they can't wait anymore so they take off in a stolen car headed for Las Vegas to start a new life so going into this I was obviously intrigued by the plot in the characters because I knew that I was in for a wild ride I mean they're taking off in a stolen car toward Las Vegas like you just know that you are in for some wild stuff that's gonna be happening and I felt like I got that to a certain extent by the intrigue that kept me wanting to read because I wanted to see where the storyline was going because I really had no clue it didn't make it enough that I really really got into it it definitely kept me going and kept me kind of not realizing that I didn't really care for the story that much until I was like 80% of the way through and I was like okay I'm just not really intrigued anymore that can only take me so far and now I'm kind of like personally for my taste I felt like the two characters were way too similar I had a hard time distinguishing between the two and I don't know if that's because of the author's writing style and that being too similar the writing style definitely blended seamlessly together I just think it may have been a little bit too seamless I will say I did appreciate the feminist aspect of this story it's all about them reclaiming their lives and basically shoving the middle finger in the face of everyone who has ever wronged them especially the men particularly I feel like this was more of the story of Winona and her getting back at her father for all that he's done than it was Lucille's story they were both supposed to be main characters you get both of their perspectives but I felt like more of my focus was on Winona and Lucille felt like more of a side character so the aspects of revenge and friendship and reclaiming their lives I enjoyed that however I feel like their friendship wasn't entirely believable for me because everything felt very forced in the storyline nothing felt like it happened completely organically so I felt like it was a story that was trying really hard and that's why it was hard for me to really fall into step with it but I don't think this was a bad book by any means I just don't think it was one that was entirely for me I feel like I've read better books that are kind of surrounding this topic that we're just more enjoyable so overall I gave it a 2 out of 5 stars after that it picked up the geography of lost things by Jessica Rodie Jessica Brody is the author of one of my favorite books that I've read in 2017 technically but it was in my book miss 2018 favorites list and that was the chaos of standing still so I was really excited when I saw that she had a new book out even though she has quite a few titles but I haven't read all of them but this one was a roadtrip story and I love travel books so I was very excited about this one in particular so this book follows Allie whose estranged father has just died and she's not really sure how she feels about it because obviously like it's her dad so she feels like she should be sad but a relationship was so complicated and then things are made even more complicated even though he's dead he left her his car which was his prized possession it was a 1968 Thunderbird and she knows that he loved that car and she has so many memories of him with that car so it's really difficult for her to have that again but her family is really struggling her mother is not able to pay the bills anymore so they are facing eviction so she's like perfect I have this car and I can sell it and finally be able to not be evicted we can pay our rent and we'll be okay by the car is a stick shift and she doesn't know how to drive stick shift by her ex-boyfriend sure does so reluctantly she agrees to have Nico go with her and Nico convinces her that she might not need to sell the car after all they can trade up so they like get these items and they start with a hair elastic and then they're trying to trade up to something that is worth twenty five thousand dollars they're posting these things on Craigslist in the hope that she might be able to keep this car because he thinks that she should keep it even though she disagrees so just imagine having exes stuck in such a small space and there's just so much tension but this wasn't just a romantic story and that's what I really enjoy with my contemporaries I like them to be a romantic I'd like to have a fun one every now and again but I also love the layers and I think that Jessica Brody does a great job of that with the two contemporaries that I've read of hers I've been really happy with that so while there was this like slow burn tension where you're like will they won't they there's also a lot of fun aspects and a lot of really touching aspects it's a story about Allie learning to grieve something that she felt like she never had and a story about her finding herself as well it's really a trip of self-discovery she was a really difficult character because she's very complex you kind of just want to shake her and be like listen to yourself look at the big picture here and just like snap out of it because she is so stuck in her head that she doesn't see what's right in front of her I felt like there were a lot of really fun quirks that this story had like the trading up thing was so interesting I didn't expect that at all when I was going into this and then I also loved the fact that she was so obsessed with taking personality quizzes I felt like that was so relatable for me because I'll know who I am so I'm like let's take a personality quiz and be like what cupcake I want tells me who I am perfect I'll listen to that so I really liked that and I liked the fact that there were little quizzes like that that were interspersed throughout the story it just made it that much more fun to read I feel like this is a story that had three main characters and that would be obviously Allie Nico was a big character as well and then her father was the other character I do wish that there were other characters that were brought into it particularly I wanted to know a bit more about her mother in their relationship but I totally understood why that didn't happen I was happy enough learning about Allie because she was a very flawed and relatable character and Nico was a great character as well I was happy with who we got I just kind of wanted a few more characters in there so then I could get a big picture of what Ali's life is like there were also like a lot of other books and her other book did this too and it's one of those things that I kind of love hate it's when they had this illusion to this big thing that happened and then you have to wait until basically the very end of the book to find out what that was and I will say I found the payoff for this one was a little bit disappointing but it wasn't enough for me to not like the book overall I was just kind of like oh that was it like yeah it's a big thing but it wasn't as big as I was expecting it wasn't like that POW moment but this still was a very complex and layered story and I really enjoyed it overall so I gave it a four out of five stars next I read on the come-up by Angie Thomas finally Angie Thomas is the author of the hate you give of course which absolutely exploded onto the scene so I was kind of nervous going into her second novel you know I feel like you don't get two hits like that's such an intimidating thing to have such a smash with your first novel and then you're like okay how can I follow that up but she did an amazing job this was just so good so this book is also set in garden Heights which was a really fun aspect to it but it follows brie and breed is the daughter of an underground rap legend that died before he could ever make it big and she has always dreamt of being a rapper she wants to be the rap star that he never got the chance to be and she wants to make a name for herself aside from her father she wants to just be known as brie and not breathe water of this major rap star as she's trying to find success the stakes become higher than ever when her mother unexpectedly loses her job and they are suddenly fighting to keep the lights on to keep the gas going in their house and to keep their house entirely in general I didn't really know a lot about this book going into it I knew that it dealt with rap and I knew that it was by Angie Thomas so that was enough for me to want to read it but I was really delightfully surprised when in the first little bit there's something that happens that sets off the course of events so it kind of follows the same sort of framework of the hate you give but it still manages to be its own story and it's still a very impactful and powerful story on its own specifically when that event happened I could think of things that I had seen on social media and I feel like she just does such a great job of fictionalizing these realistic story is that you can kind of connect them to real life and she always has a moral to things but you don't feel like you're being moralized I don't know if that makes any sense at all but I just feel like I learn a lot reading her books and I think that they're important for everyone to read in all honesty this book taught heavily with racial profiling and the angry black woman stereotype and I think that these are very very important things to unpack and address because they shouldn't exist at all and I loved the fact that this novel was able to do that while still remaining a very fun story at its core another thing that she does really well is write these characters that you fall in love with and particularly the bonds between these characters they are so strong and unbreakable and the family units that she presents I love a book that deals with family at its center or friendship I love romance as well but I love when you have that family connection there and this once again just like the hate you gave had such an amazing family that I just rooted for and I wanted the very best for them the entire time there was also a great friendship happening and I feel like more so than in the heat UK there's a great romance happening I feel like that was more of a topic in this book than it was in her previous book using hip-hop as a vessel to explore the different things that she wanted to address in this book was really cool because it was something that I admittedly don't know a lot about but I felt like it lent itself perfectly to what she was trying to do and I think it was so successful you have brie who is a really flawed character at her core and she's someone that you root for and you can understand and I loved seeing the development that she went through not only in terms of her hip-hop career but in terms of her life in general this just solidified the fact that I think that Angie Thomas is such an incredible author and I will read anything that she writes she does such a great job of writing these stories that have so many layers to them and they really encourage readers to get out and speak up for what they believe in and I just think that is such a beautiful thing and that is why I love reading she reminds me of why I love reading so obviously I gave this a 5 out of 5 stars and if you haven't read it yet you should next I picked up another five star breed I have three five star reads this year already that is so amazing but the next one is Daisy Jones in the six by Taylor Jenkins read so I really don't want to get into the plot of this too much basically it's set in the 1970s and follows this rock band and it's told in an interview style format like there's no real frame tale here it's just interviews so this is our first bookmarked book club pick of the month yay and it was such a great one to start out with but it will have the link for the Goodreads group and all of that stuff down below for a bookmarked if you wanted to join us in reading less we will be having a live show discussion at the end of the month on March 31st a Sunday I believe at like 3 p.m. or something like that all those details are to come but so far I've already been discussing this a lot with Hannah because she also loved it and Joey is still working her way through it and we just want her to finish it by this was my absolute favorite audiobook that I have ever ever listened to and I've listened to a lot of audiobooks but it's told by a full cast the interview format I honestly think if I had physically read it I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much as I enjoyed that audiobook I listen to it all in one shift at work and I could not stop listening to it I was like I need to know what is happening what is going on because I just became so engrossed in the story of Daisy and the six and everything about them I just was like I need to know more no Evelyn Hugo I really liked but I didn't enjoy it as much as this one and I don't know if it's because I already had so much hype surrounding it so I felt like I had to really enjoy it and I truly didn't dislike Evelyn Hugo it's just this was such an indescribable absolute experience for me going through the story and I felt like with the interview format that's so difficult like how can you build up this story how can you get this whole timeline because it covers a very vast period of time and how can you get to know so many characters because there's a lot of characters too but she did it like she did the damn thing and did a great job of it every single character was so incredibly layered there was not one single character that I felt like was one-dimensional and I didn't care about them I cared about every single one of them and I wanted to know more about every single one of them but I felt like I knew them in real life and it was just so much like I feel like this was a historical fiction podcast that I was listening to even though it totally wasn't it's all fiction but it doesn't make sense she did the same thing with Evelyn Hugo where like I feel like they're real people and I want to know more about them I feel like this was pretty similar to Evelyn Hugo in some ways Evelyn Hugo is an interview format as well but this wasn't really a framed tale interview format there's only like one point where you get kind of a frame tale going on and that was so unexpected and like the last bit of this if you're feeling skeptical I do encourage you like I'm very into DN f'ing right now as you know but give it until that last a little bit those last like hundred or so maybe even fifty pages I don't know because I listened to the audiobook I would say it was like the last hour of the audiobook I was like what is happening oh my god was just such an emotional experience and it was all just so much it was overwhelming so this was really just an unexpected story it wasn't something that I thought I would fall in love with because I like music but I'm not really that into it and I'm not really into like 70s rock and roll I do really like Queen but I don't know when Queen is actually from it's just not one of those things that I'm really passionate about but like it was just so good I'm making my sister listen to the audiobook now I highly encourage you to listen to the audiobook I do have a link down below for Amazon if you wanted to sign up for an audible free trial then you can get two free audiobooks do this one please once again I'm not even trying to promo myself I just want you to listen to this book please and then come and talk about it with us at bookmark because we are going to have a lot to discuss I'm probably gonna listen to it again before bookmark because oh it was so good so once again 5 out of 5 stars obviously so after reading so much contemporary and so much realistic fiction I was like okay I think I think I'm ready I think I'm ready to try out a fantasy again to try getting back there because I feel like some people are misconstruing I love fantasy I really do but I went through such a period of time where fantasy was all that I was reading so not having that break in between like having to learn about all these new worlds made it very tiresome for me so I kind of fell out of love with it for a bit but I do really love it and I want to get back into it so I'm just trying to kind of ease my way there and I feel like I'm ready now I just kind of chose bad time since I've been really busy but you first fantasy that I've read was a curse so dark and lonely by Brigid qamar burr I actually lent this out to a friend because she was interested in reading it so I don't have my copy on me anymore so I felt like this was the perfect fantasy it to start out with because it's a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast so it's partially in our world partially in a fantasy world as it's like an urban fantasy retelling so it's like perfect that will be really easy to kind of ease me back into it prince ren is doomed to repeat the same season of his 18th year over and over and over again until he gets someone to fall in love with him and then he will be saved by at the end of each season he turns into this horrible beast that ends up killing and destroying everything in his wake so then Harper ends up getting sucked into his world but she already has a lot going on back home her father is absent her mother is dying and her brother is getting involved in some pretty crappy things so she's trying to hold her family together but she's constantly underestimated by her brother in particular because of her Scerbo palsy so while she has a lot going on at home she ends up getting into his kingdom and is just like what's happening here what am I supposed to do and then you know it's Beauty and the Beast so it's the last chance for him to save his kingdom and conveniently we have a girl here so maybe they'll fall in love so picking this up I was hoping that I would get a fun cute romance and I loved some parts of it I really love to the servo palsy representation I don't think that disabilities get enough representation and young adult fiction in particular and really just in general so I thought that was great to see and I thought it was well done but I encourage you to look up some own voices reviewers and see what they say but from what I've seen people are saying that is good representation which is awesome I also really liked the Beauty and the Beast retelling aspect it brought to mind the movie particularly the Emma Watson one just because it's more recent it made me think of it a lot a lot like I feel like I could pinpoint particular scenes and like where would kind of fit in so I felt like it really stayed true to that original beauty and the beast' story while also adding a twist however I felt like it was just a really generic and boring book in general I got pretty far into it and I was like maybe it's just cuz I'm busy and maybe it's because it's my first fantasy what I'm trying out but I was like this is way too long and I'm bored that was also really difficult for me because I've been seeing this book on Instagram and Twitter and everywhere and people are loving it but I just I didn't at all but I guess I shouldn't say I didn't at all because there are things that I liked about it but I didn't get the romance that I was looking for and I felt like it was entirely a one-dimensional story there was a lot of information that would be presented but it would never be expounded upon so I didn't really get a feel for the world I didn't quite understand a lot of things and I didn't understand a lot of facets of the characters there were so just a lot of random things that were going on there were so many things thrown into Harper's life back home that I felt like it was way too much and it didn't really add anything to the storyline so I felt like there was just a lot trying to be brought in and nothing was really done to its full potential because there were so many different facets that were trying to be thrown into one like tiny box so overall I gave it a 2 out of 5 stars unfortunately it just wasn't for me I do understand why people are liking it I think I've just read way too much fantasy for it to be something that I would enjoy especially Beauty and the Beast retellings cuz there are a lot out there so it's just kind of myth for me and the last book I wanted to talk about in this video is one that I actually dnf'd and that was dear Evan Hansen by Val ma I started listening to the audiobook for this one but I just don't think it's for me I'm sure the musical is great and I would love to see it but I just didn't really like the author's writing there were some things that I kind of just made me cringe and I just couldn't really get into the story so I was listening to the audiobook but unfortunately I put it down and that's okay because dn effing is great so those are all the books that I want to talk about today I hope you guys enjoyed this video let me know if you like when I do this instead of my wrap ups I feel like I'm able to go a little bit more into depth and tell you some more about these books which I think it's fun I don't know but if you did enjoy this video don't forget to click that subscribe button and then click that Bell icon she'll be notified whenever I post I post new videos every Monday Wednesday and Friday I'm also a part of the bookmarks live show which is held every Friday at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time but all the information for that will be down below for you guys as well as our book club you can also follow me on all of my social media all of my handles and links and all that stuff will be down below for you guys so thank you so so much for watching and I will see you in my next video byehey Rhoda Tilly and today I'm going to be talking about some books that I've read recently so I'm doing this video in place of my monthly wrap-up because last month I read five books in the video was like 20 minutes long and it's only the 13th of March and I have already read six books so with the way it's going I feel like it's just going to make more sense to do recent reads instead of doing an end of the month wrap-up because I want to be able to go into depth about these books and not feel like I have to rush through things or else I'll have a super super long video because personally I don't like videos to be like super super long I want to keep it at a reasonable length where everyone will be happy is so that is why I'm doing this I have some awesome books to talk about today I have some books that I didn't like so much it's kind of all over the place but I'm happy to say that I'm still getting out of my reading slump I was on a contemporary kick for a while because that was really helping me and d-n effing books has still been very helpful but I've tried a couple of fantasies I'm reading one right now but I've been really busy so I haven't really had that much time to read so the timing of that kind of sucks but the one fantasy that I tried didn't like so much but I will get into all of that while I talk about the books that I read so let's just get on into it so the first book that I have to talk about today is hello girls by Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry this book is coming out on August 6th and it follows two characters Winona and Lucille and they are best friends and they became best friends because they met outside of a police station when both of them were deciding whether or not they wanted to turn their families in so when Nona lives in this illusion her father is a celebrity whether a man behind closed doors he's actually very very abusive so everything is a friend and he's just hiding a lot of crap that he does to her and Lucille her family is struggling as well so her mother is trying really hard to provide for her family but really it falls on Lucille because her brother is like dealing drugs and there's just a lot of stuff happening there so they keep on talking about the future in the fact that they are going to take off and finally be on their own and be away from the families that they have been dying to get away from but they don't know when they'll actually be able to do it it's a distant future thing they actually decide that the time is now they can't wait anymore so they take off in a stolen car headed for Las Vegas to start a new life so going into this I was obviously intrigued by the plot in the characters because I knew that I was in for a wild ride I mean they're taking off in a stolen car toward Las Vegas like you just know that you are in for some wild stuff that's gonna be happening and I felt like I got that to a certain extent by the intrigue that kept me wanting to read because I wanted to see where the storyline was going because I really had no clue it didn't make it enough that I really really got into it it definitely kept me going and kept me kind of not realizing that I didn't really care for the story that much until I was like 80% of the way through and I was like okay I'm just not really intrigued anymore that can only take me so far and now I'm kind of like personally for my taste I felt like the two characters were way too similar I had a hard time distinguishing between the two and I don't know if that's because of the author's writing style and that being too similar the writing style definitely blended seamlessly together I just think it may have been a little bit too seamless I will say I did appreciate the feminist aspect of this story it's all about them reclaiming their lives and basically shoving the middle finger in the face of everyone who has ever wronged them especially the men particularly I feel like this was more of the story of Winona and her getting back at her father for all that he's done than it was Lucille's story they were both supposed to be main characters you get both of their perspectives but I felt like more of my focus was on Winona and Lucille felt like more of a side character so the aspects of revenge and friendship and reclaiming their lives I enjoyed that however I feel like their friendship wasn't entirely believable for me because everything felt very forced in the storyline nothing felt like it happened completely organically so I felt like it was a story that was trying really hard and that's why it was hard for me to really fall into step with it but I don't think this was a bad book by any means I just don't think it was one that was entirely for me I feel like I've read better books that are kind of surrounding this topic that we're just more enjoyable so overall I gave it a 2 out of 5 stars after that it picked up the geography of lost things by Jessica Rodie Jessica Brody is the author of one of my favorite books that I've read in 2017 technically but it was in my book miss 2018 favorites list and that was the chaos of standing still so I was really excited when I saw that she had a new book out even though she has quite a few titles but I haven't read all of them but this one was a roadtrip story and I love travel books so I was very excited about this one in particular so this book follows Allie whose estranged father has just died and she's not really sure how she feels about it because obviously like it's her dad so she feels like she should be sad but a relationship was so complicated and then things are made even more complicated even though he's dead he left her his car which was his prized possession it was a 1968 Thunderbird and she knows that he loved that car and she has so many memories of him with that car so it's really difficult for her to have that again but her family is really struggling her mother is not able to pay the bills anymore so they are facing eviction so she's like perfect I have this car and I can sell it and finally be able to not be evicted we can pay our rent and we'll be okay by the car is a stick shift and she doesn't know how to drive stick shift by her ex-boyfriend sure does so reluctantly she agrees to have Nico go with her and Nico convinces her that she might not need to sell the car after all they can trade up so they like get these items and they start with a hair elastic and then they're trying to trade up to something that is worth twenty five thousand dollars they're posting these things on Craigslist in the hope that she might be able to keep this car because he thinks that she should keep it even though she disagrees so just imagine having exes stuck in such a small space and there's just so much tension but this wasn't just a romantic story and that's what I really enjoy with my contemporaries I like them to be a romantic I'd like to have a fun one every now and again but I also love the layers and I think that Jessica Brody does a great job of that with the two contemporaries that I've read of hers I've been really happy with that so while there was this like slow burn tension where you're like will they won't they there's also a lot of fun aspects and a lot of really touching aspects it's a story about Allie learning to grieve something that she felt like she never had and a story about her finding herself as well it's really a trip of self-discovery she was a really difficult character because she's very complex you kind of just want to shake her and be like listen to yourself look at the big picture here and just like snap out of it because she is so stuck in her head that she doesn't see what's right in front of her I felt like there were a lot of really fun quirks that this story had like the trading up thing was so interesting I didn't expect that at all when I was going into this and then I also loved the fact that she was so obsessed with taking personality quizzes I felt like that was so relatable for me because I'll know who I am so I'm like let's take a personality quiz and be like what cupcake I want tells me who I am perfect I'll listen to that so I really liked that and I liked the fact that there were little quizzes like that that were interspersed throughout the story it just made it that much more fun to read I feel like this is a story that had three main characters and that would be obviously Allie Nico was a big character as well and then her father was the other character I do wish that there were other characters that were brought into it particularly I wanted to know a bit more about her mother in their relationship but I totally understood why that didn't happen I was happy enough learning about Allie because she was a very flawed and relatable character and Nico was a great character as well I was happy with who we got I just kind of wanted a few more characters in there so then I could get a big picture of what Ali's life is like there were also like a lot of other books and her other book did this too and it's one of those things that I kind of love hate it's when they had this illusion to this big thing that happened and then you have to wait until basically the very end of the book to find out what that was and I will say I found the payoff for this one was a little bit disappointing but it wasn't enough for me to not like the book overall I was just kind of like oh that was it like yeah it's a big thing but it wasn't as big as I was expecting it wasn't like that POW moment but this still was a very complex and layered story and I really enjoyed it overall so I gave it a four out of five stars next I read on the come-up by Angie Thomas finally Angie Thomas is the author of the hate you give of course which absolutely exploded onto the scene so I was kind of nervous going into her second novel you know I feel like you don't get two hits like that's such an intimidating thing to have such a smash with your first novel and then you're like okay how can I follow that up but she did an amazing job this was just so good so this book is also set in garden Heights which was a really fun aspect to it but it follows brie and breed is the daughter of an underground rap legend that died before he could ever make it big and she has always dreamt of being a rapper she wants to be the rap star that he never got the chance to be and she wants to make a name for herself aside from her father she wants to just be known as brie and not breathe water of this major rap star as she's trying to find success the stakes become higher than ever when her mother unexpectedly loses her job and they are suddenly fighting to keep the lights on to keep the gas going in their house and to keep their house entirely in general I didn't really know a lot about this book going into it I knew that it dealt with rap and I knew that it was by Angie Thomas so that was enough for me to want to read it but I was really delightfully surprised when in the first little bit there's something that happens that sets off the course of events so it kind of follows the same sort of framework of the hate you give but it still manages to be its own story and it's still a very impactful and powerful story on its own specifically when that event happened I could think of things that I had seen on social media and I feel like she just does such a great job of fictionalizing these realistic story is that you can kind of connect them to real life and she always has a moral to things but you don't feel like you're being moralized I don't know if that makes any sense at all but I just feel like I learn a lot reading her books and I think that they're important for everyone to read in all honesty this book taught heavily with racial profiling and the angry black woman stereotype and I think that these are very very important things to unpack and address because they shouldn't exist at all and I loved the fact that this novel was able to do that while still remaining a very fun story at its core another thing that she does really well is write these characters that you fall in love with and particularly the bonds between these characters they are so strong and unbreakable and the family units that she presents I love a book that deals with family at its center or friendship I love romance as well but I love when you have that family connection there and this once again just like the hate you gave had such an amazing family that I just rooted for and I wanted the very best for them the entire time there was also a great friendship happening and I feel like more so than in the heat UK there's a great romance happening I feel like that was more of a topic in this book than it was in her previous book using hip-hop as a vessel to explore the different things that she wanted to address in this book was really cool because it was something that I admittedly don't know a lot about but I felt like it lent itself perfectly to what she was trying to do and I think it was so successful you have brie who is a really flawed character at her core and she's someone that you root for and you can understand and I loved seeing the development that she went through not only in terms of her hip-hop career but in terms of her life in general this just solidified the fact that I think that Angie Thomas is such an incredible author and I will read anything that she writes she does such a great job of writing these stories that have so many layers to them and they really encourage readers to get out and speak up for what they believe in and I just think that is such a beautiful thing and that is why I love reading she reminds me of why I love reading so obviously I gave this a 5 out of 5 stars and if you haven't read it yet you should next I picked up another five star breed I have three five star reads this year already that is so amazing but the next one is Daisy Jones in the six by Taylor Jenkins read so I really don't want to get into the plot of this too much basically it's set in the 1970s and follows this rock band and it's told in an interview style format like there's no real frame tale here it's just interviews so this is our first bookmarked book club pick of the month yay and it was such a great one to start out with but it will have the link for the Goodreads group and all of that stuff down below for a bookmarked if you wanted to join us in reading less we will be having a live show discussion at the end of the month on March 31st a Sunday I believe at like 3 p.m. or something like that all those details are to come but so far I've already been discussing this a lot with Hannah because she also loved it and Joey is still working her way through it and we just want her to finish it by this was my absolute favorite audiobook that I have ever ever listened to and I've listened to a lot of audiobooks but it's told by a full cast the interview format I honestly think if I had physically read it I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much as I enjoyed that audiobook I listen to it all in one shift at work and I could not stop listening to it I was like I need to know what is happening what is going on because I just became so engrossed in the story of Daisy and the six and everything about them I just was like I need to know more no Evelyn Hugo I really liked but I didn't enjoy it as much as this one and I don't know if it's because I already had so much hype surrounding it so I felt like I had to really enjoy it and I truly didn't dislike Evelyn Hugo it's just this was such an indescribable absolute experience for me going through the story and I felt like with the interview format that's so difficult like how can you build up this story how can you get this whole timeline because it covers a very vast period of time and how can you get to know so many characters because there's a lot of characters too but she did it like she did the damn thing and did a great job of it every single character was so incredibly layered there was not one single character that I felt like was one-dimensional and I didn't care about them I cared about every single one of them and I wanted to know more about every single one of them but I felt like I knew them in real life and it was just so much like I feel like this was a historical fiction podcast that I was listening to even though it totally wasn't it's all fiction but it doesn't make sense she did the same thing with Evelyn Hugo where like I feel like they're real people and I want to know more about them I feel like this was pretty similar to Evelyn Hugo in some ways Evelyn Hugo is an interview format as well but this wasn't really a framed tale interview format there's only like one point where you get kind of a frame tale going on and that was so unexpected and like the last bit of this if you're feeling skeptical I do encourage you like I'm very into DN f'ing right now as you know but give it until that last a little bit those last like hundred or so maybe even fifty pages I don't know because I listened to the audiobook I would say it was like the last hour of the audiobook I was like what is happening oh my god was just such an emotional experience and it was all just so much it was overwhelming so this was really just an unexpected story it wasn't something that I thought I would fall in love with because I like music but I'm not really that into it and I'm not really into like 70s rock and roll I do really like Queen but I don't know when Queen is actually from it's just not one of those things that I'm really passionate about but like it was just so good I'm making my sister listen to the audiobook now I highly encourage you to listen to the audiobook I do have a link down below for Amazon if you wanted to sign up for an audible free trial then you can get two free audiobooks do this one please once again I'm not even trying to promo myself I just want you to listen to this book please and then come and talk about it with us at bookmark because we are going to have a lot to discuss I'm probably gonna listen to it again before bookmark because oh it was so good so once again 5 out of 5 stars obviously so after reading so much contemporary and so much realistic fiction I was like okay I think I think I'm ready I think I'm ready to try out a fantasy again to try getting back there because I feel like some people are misconstruing I love fantasy I really do but I went through such a period of time where fantasy was all that I was reading so not having that break in between like having to learn about all these new worlds made it very tiresome for me so I kind of fell out of love with it for a bit but I do really love it and I want to get back into it so I'm just trying to kind of ease my way there and I feel like I'm ready now I just kind of chose bad time since I've been really busy but you first fantasy that I've read was a curse so dark and lonely by Brigid qamar burr I actually lent this out to a friend because she was interested in reading it so I don't have my copy on me anymore so I felt like this was the perfect fantasy it to start out with because it's a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast so it's partially in our world partially in a fantasy world as it's like an urban fantasy retelling so it's like perfect that will be really easy to kind of ease me back into it prince ren is doomed to repeat the same season of his 18th year over and over and over again until he gets someone to fall in love with him and then he will be saved by at the end of each season he turns into this horrible beast that ends up killing and destroying everything in his wake so then Harper ends up getting sucked into his world but she already has a lot going on back home her father is absent her mother is dying and her brother is getting involved in some pretty crappy things so she's trying to hold her family together but she's constantly underestimated by her brother in particular because of her Scerbo palsy so while she has a lot going on at home she ends up getting into his kingdom and is just like what's happening here what am I supposed to do and then you know it's Beauty and the Beast so it's the last chance for him to save his kingdom and conveniently we have a girl here so maybe they'll fall in love so picking this up I was hoping that I would get a fun cute romance and I loved some parts of it I really love to the servo palsy representation I don't think that disabilities get enough representation and young adult fiction in particular and really just in general so I thought that was great to see and I thought it was well done but I encourage you to look up some own voices reviewers and see what they say but from what I've seen people are saying that is good representation which is awesome I also really liked the Beauty and the Beast retelling aspect it brought to mind the movie particularly the Emma Watson one just because it's more recent it made me think of it a lot a lot like I feel like I could pinpoint particular scenes and like where would kind of fit in so I felt like it really stayed true to that original beauty and the beast' story while also adding a twist however I felt like it was just a really generic and boring book in general I got pretty far into it and I was like maybe it's just cuz I'm busy and maybe it's because it's my first fantasy what I'm trying out but I was like this is way too long and I'm bored that was also really difficult for me because I've been seeing this book on Instagram and Twitter and everywhere and people are loving it but I just I didn't at all but I guess I shouldn't say I didn't at all because there are things that I liked about it but I didn't get the romance that I was looking for and I felt like it was entirely a one-dimensional story there was a lot of information that would be presented but it would never be expounded upon so I didn't really get a feel for the world I didn't quite understand a lot of things and I didn't understand a lot of facets of the characters there were so just a lot of random things that were going on there were so many things thrown into Harper's life back home that I felt like it was way too much and it didn't really add anything to the storyline so I felt like there was just a lot trying to be brought in and nothing was really done to its full potential because there were so many different facets that were trying to be thrown into one like tiny box so overall I gave it a 2 out of 5 stars unfortunately it just wasn't for me I do understand why people are liking it I think I've just read way too much fantasy for it to be something that I would enjoy especially Beauty and the Beast retellings cuz there are a lot out there so it's just kind of myth for me and the last book I wanted to talk about in this video is one that I actually dnf'd and that was dear Evan Hansen by Val ma I started listening to the audiobook for this one but I just don't think it's for me I'm sure the musical is great and I would love to see it but I just didn't really like the author's writing there were some things that I kind of just made me cringe and I just couldn't really get into the story so I was listening to the audiobook but unfortunately I put it down and that's okay because dn effing is great so those are all the books that I want to talk about today I hope you guys enjoyed this video let me know if you like when I do this instead of my wrap ups I feel like I'm able to go a little bit more into depth and tell you some more about these books which I think it's fun I don't know but if you did enjoy this video don't forget to click that subscribe button and then click that Bell icon she'll be notified whenever I post I post new videos every Monday Wednesday and Friday I'm also a part of the bookmarks live show which is held every Friday at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time but all the information for that will be down below for you guys as well as our book club you can also follow me on all of my social media all of my handles and links and all that stuff will be down below for you guys so thank you so so much for watching and I will see you in my next video bye\n"