**Book Reviews and Musings**

In May, I had the pleasure of diving into several books that left me with a mix of emotions, from excitement to disappointment. In this article, I'll share my thoughts on each book, highlighting what made them special and what didn't quite hit the mark.

First up was "The Witch's Heart" by Genevieve Cogman. This novel follows two girls who are witches of different types and their best friendship is put to the test as they navigate a world of secrets and magic. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, particularly for its focus on female friendship. The author skillfully weaves together a tale of adventure, romance, and self-discovery that left me eagerly turning pages. While it took some time to get into the rhythm, I was hooked once the story started to unfold. My only criticism is that the pacing could have been better, but overall, I devoured this book in two sittings.

I also read "Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star" by Brandon Mull, which concludes the first two books in the Fablehaven series. This middle-grade novel follows two siblings as they discover a magical world hidden within their family's property. I was thrilled to see how well the author wove together the plot, characters, and world-building, creating an immersive experience that drew me in from start to finish. The sibling dynamics were particularly endearing, making it easy to become invested in their adventures. While not perfect, this book set a solid foundation for the rest of the series, which I'm excited to continue reading.

Lastly, I tackled "Wolf Wilder" by Catherine Rondell. This middle-grade novel tells the story of a young girl living in the Russian wilderness with her mother, who helps release wolves back into the wild. While the premise was intriguing, I found the plot to be somewhat lacking. The pacing was quick, but not necessarily engaging, and I couldn't help feeling like I was waiting for something more substantial to happen. However, I did appreciate the strong bond between the mother and daughter, as well as the wolf aspect of the story. Overall, this book was decent but didn't leave a lasting impression.

**Rating Breakdown**

* "The Witch's Heart" by Genevieve Cogman: 4.5 out of 5 stars

* "Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star" by Brandon Mull: 4 out of 5 stars

* "Wolf Wilder" by Catherine Rondell: 3 out of 5 stars

**Conclusion**

Reading is a journey, and sometimes books leave us with more questions than answers. While not every book is a home run, it's the ones that resonate with us that truly matter. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to read these books and share my thoughts with you. If you're looking for middle-grade adventures or fantasy stories with strong female friendships, I highly recommend checking out "The Witch's Heart" and "Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star."

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys it's regan and today i'm here to bring you my may wrap up now for the month of may i actually had probably one of the best reading months i've had all year just it's been a while since i've read this many books i read eight books this month and it wasn't just eight books that i liked i thoroughly enjoyed pretty much all of them which was just so great i loved reading a book really loving it jumping into another book and then i really loved that book it was just it was just a it was just great guys it was great but due to the amount of books i'm just gonna go ahead and get started because again there's eight of them so the first book i'm going to talk about was sent to me for review by hatchet books and i'm working with them for this video and that is the sudden appearance of hope by claire north now if you have been following my channel for a while you know i'm a huge fan of claire north's first 15 lives of harry august i love that book so when they contacted me to read her newest release that came out this month i was pumped and i have to say i was not disappointed at all this novel follows our main character hope and she has a peculiar ability where basically she disappeared essentially hope as a person um essentially just disappeared from everyone's life meaning that she can have a conversation with you you can have feelings about her you can laugh with her like her blah blah blah but when she leaves your sight for about 30 seconds you'll entirely forget that she ever existed and that any type of communication or feelings you had toward her existed at all this novel starts out kind of as an exploration of hope as a character but then kind of evolves into a thriller a very exciting thriller mystery novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat that being said i don't want to go too heavily into the plot because i think it's a thriller so i don't want to ruin anything for you but i do want to say the reason why i love claire north's book so much is that she takes a character she gives them a peculiar superpower that in a lot of ways isn't that great for the person who has it imagine disappearing from everyone you've ever met they don't remember you how lonely that existence is so because of that we have characters that are very strong but also very vulnerable as much as you're rooting for them you also feel really bad for them anyway this book was absolutely fantastic i loved it so much flew through it it's a pretty chunky book but like i said i was on the edge of my seat and i ended up giving this a 4.5 out of 5 stars would recommend the next book i'm going to talk about i've already done a full review on so i'm going to be brief but that is jenna slash finn by hannah moskowitz and kat helgeson this book was so good this novel is a contemporary novel following two girls who form a friendship online they basically are part of the same fandom and they start communication for each other and it just starts the story of love friendship commitment and it's just honestly so great as someone who exists very much online it was just nice to see a friendship that is online can be very real real feelings are involved and i know this story is really really great again if you want more information on my thoughts i have a non-spoiler review i gush about it for a while so you can kind of get feelings on this but again this book is really really great if you like female friendship and contemporary this is great i ended up giving this a 4.5 out of 5 stars and i read the perusetopia book club pick of the month and that was the hidden article book one of the trials of apollo series by rick riordan and this month we are working with disney hyperion this is the first book to rick riordan's new series following our main character apollo basically zeus apollo's father cast him out of olympus and turned him into a teenage boy apollo has to figure out how to regain favor with his father and it just involves a whole bunch of antics involving cath camp half blood and we see a lot of our old favorite characters in this i loved this book i thought it was hilarious i found apollo to be a fantastic main character and had a great spectrum of sexuality and diversity and just everything about this book was fantastic this is why i love rick roy jordan as seen in this book i'm always always a pleasure to read his novels i have a great time i will say this does my release minorly spoil the heroes of olympus series so if you're interested in reading that i would wait to read this until after you finish that but i loved it 4.5 out of 5 stars noticing now given a lot of books 4.5 out of 5 stars now we are heading to the books that i read on vacation basically i went on vacation and got super sick so all i did was read which you know in a lot of ways ain't that bad so the next book i read was a court of mist and fury by sarah j maas now this book as i mentioned in my book haul completely took me by surprise i read a court of florence and roses the first book to this series last year i enjoyed it but honestly as time passed i wasn't really obsessed with it i wasn't even anticipating this book that much at all but i picked it up because i heard good things around the internet it's very highly reviewed and i was like yeah i'll give it a try i read it and holy crap this book was amazing this sophomore attempt to this series was just so fantastic it had such amazing character growth oh my god feyre from book one to book two was just astounding to see it had fantastic female friendships which i am always a sucker for and i personally thought sarah j maas dealt with physical and emotional abuse as well as ptsd pretty well like she she definitely gave it in my opinion the respect that it needed in this series she didn't just let her character just brush off a traumatic event and move on like we usually see in ye novels a lot so i just really loved this book and that being said have you ever have been hesitant to start this series because you're just like i don't know i implore you to try it i will say this book is definitely very sexy there are a lot of explicit sex scenes so if that's something that you're not very interested in keep that in mind if you do want to pick this up or if you're very young keep that in mind before you want to pick this up that being said i gave this book a 5 out of 5 stars i freaking loved it and i cannot wait for the next book in this series then i read another fantastic fantasy novel and that was truthwitch by susan denard i've heard fantastic things about this so i was expecting to love this when i picked it up and i definitely enjoyed it a lot this follows two girls who are two different types of witches and they're best friends and basically they just get involved in a whole bunch of tomfoolery and secrets and stuff like that throughout the story i don't want to give too much about the plot because i do feel as you read it's it's better to find out as you read a lot like i don't want to spoil anything because the characters are basically finding out what's going on as it's happening so i feel the reader needs to be in that same position as well but what i really enjoyed about this novel was purely just first and foremost the wonderfulness of a female friendship in this a lot of times we have friendships and novels but a lot of times we go to the wayside especially when a love interest is introduced this is not the case in this series it's friendship first and i freaking loved it i love the two main characters of this and don't get me wrong there's definitely hints to a slow building romance that i am totally trashed for like it's it's obscene i had some slight problems with this book in the beginning only because i felt like it took a while to kind of get its feet under itself but once it did i read this book in literally two settings and i loved it a lot and i anticipate the second book to be even better so i ended up giving this also a 4.5 out of 5 stars wasn't exactly 5 stars but it was really great and i can't wait for the next book in the series then we have and i'm actually really proud of myself for reading this uh fablehaven book one to fablehaven series and also fablehaven rise of the evening star both by brandon mull this is the first two books in the five book fableheaven series by brandon mall that i've been meaning to read for forever and i finally read the first two books the first two books that i owned i don't own the rest of them but i'll be fixing that later but this is a middle grade series following two siblings and they go and stay with their grandfather for a period of time over the summer and they realize that their grandfather lives on a property and he's kind of the caretaker caretaker to all these magical creatures essentially a whole bunch of antics and adventures start from there i found the first book to be a great introduction to the series i find brandon mull's writing to be very engaging and very addictive i flew through these i read these in probably a couple hours a piece and it was just really great to see i i love the dynamics between the two siblings it was just a lot of fun i ended up giving this one three out of five stars i thought it was great um but it had some flaws which i felt were fixed a lot going into the second book this book was a little more complex the plot was a little more engaging and it definitely pulled me in as a sequel and it set up very nicely the rest of the books the series it seems to be a lot of drama heading their way in fablehaven and i end up giving this one a 4 out of 5 stars so this series i feel like it's just going to progressively get better as i go on if you like middle grade and you like adventure i highly recommend them they're a lot of fun and i know i like middle grade and the last book i read this month was probably my least favorite book of the month unfortunately and that was wolf wildler by catherine rondell this book is a middle grade story following a young girl who lives in the russian wilderness with her mother where they make wolves wild again they basically release wolves back into the wild and help them be able to function in the wild again i found this story to be interesting fast-paced it's very short but ultimately i found the plot to be just sort of okay i kind of was waiting for it to end to be completely honest with you i got it to be a good story by it was a good story by all means but was it something i really wanted to pick up again and again not particularly and this is something i want to reread again not particularly but i enjoyed the the strong uh female relationship between the mother and the daughter i also liked the wolf aspect i liked i like animal companionship but again it was just all right for me and i'm giving this like a three out of five stars 2.5 out of five stars it was alrighty guys those are all the books i read in the month of may i know this video was probably pretty long but then again i read a lot of books let me know down below some of the books you really enjoyed reading this month i would love to know and i will see you guys soon with another video soon goodbyehey guys it's regan and today i'm here to bring you my may wrap up now for the month of may i actually had probably one of the best reading months i've had all year just it's been a while since i've read this many books i read eight books this month and it wasn't just eight books that i liked i thoroughly enjoyed pretty much all of them which was just so great i loved reading a book really loving it jumping into another book and then i really loved that book it was just it was just a it was just great guys it was great but due to the amount of books i'm just gonna go ahead and get started because again there's eight of them so the first book i'm going to talk about was sent to me for review by hatchet books and i'm working with them for this video and that is the sudden appearance of hope by claire north now if you have been following my channel for a while you know i'm a huge fan of claire north's first 15 lives of harry august i love that book so when they contacted me to read her newest release that came out this month i was pumped and i have to say i was not disappointed at all this novel follows our main character hope and she has a peculiar ability where basically she disappeared essentially hope as a person um essentially just disappeared from everyone's life meaning that she can have a conversation with you you can have feelings about her you can laugh with her like her blah blah blah but when she leaves your sight for about 30 seconds you'll entirely forget that she ever existed and that any type of communication or feelings you had toward her existed at all this novel starts out kind of as an exploration of hope as a character but then kind of evolves into a thriller a very exciting thriller mystery novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat that being said i don't want to go too heavily into the plot because i think it's a thriller so i don't want to ruin anything for you but i do want to say the reason why i love claire north's book so much is that she takes a character she gives them a peculiar superpower that in a lot of ways isn't that great for the person who has it imagine disappearing from everyone you've ever met they don't remember you how lonely that existence is so because of that we have characters that are very strong but also very vulnerable as much as you're rooting for them you also feel really bad for them anyway this book was absolutely fantastic i loved it so much flew through it it's a pretty chunky book but like i said i was on the edge of my seat and i ended up giving this a 4.5 out of 5 stars would recommend the next book i'm going to talk about i've already done a full review on so i'm going to be brief but that is jenna slash finn by hannah moskowitz and kat helgeson this book was so good this novel is a contemporary novel following two girls who form a friendship online they basically are part of the same fandom and they start communication for each other and it just starts the story of love friendship commitment and it's just honestly so great as someone who exists very much online it was just nice to see a friendship that is online can be very real real feelings are involved and i know this story is really really great again if you want more information on my thoughts i have a non-spoiler review i gush about it for a while so you can kind of get feelings on this but again this book is really really great if you like female friendship and contemporary this is great i ended up giving this a 4.5 out of 5 stars and i read the perusetopia book club pick of the month and that was the hidden article book one of the trials of apollo series by rick riordan and this month we are working with disney hyperion this is the first book to rick riordan's new series following our main character apollo basically zeus apollo's father cast him out of olympus and turned him into a teenage boy apollo has to figure out how to regain favor with his father and it just involves a whole bunch of antics involving cath camp half blood and we see a lot of our old favorite characters in this i loved this book i thought it was hilarious i found apollo to be a fantastic main character and had a great spectrum of sexuality and diversity and just everything about this book was fantastic this is why i love rick roy jordan as seen in this book i'm always always a pleasure to read his novels i have a great time i will say this does my release minorly spoil the heroes of olympus series so if you're interested in reading that i would wait to read this until after you finish that but i loved it 4.5 out of 5 stars noticing now given a lot of books 4.5 out of 5 stars now we are heading to the books that i read on vacation basically i went on vacation and got super sick so all i did was read which you know in a lot of ways ain't that bad so the next book i read was a court of mist and fury by sarah j maas now this book as i mentioned in my book haul completely took me by surprise i read a court of florence and roses the first book to this series last year i enjoyed it but honestly as time passed i wasn't really obsessed with it i wasn't even anticipating this book that much at all but i picked it up because i heard good things around the internet it's very highly reviewed and i was like yeah i'll give it a try i read it and holy crap this book was amazing this sophomore attempt to this series was just so fantastic it had such amazing character growth oh my god feyre from book one to book two was just astounding to see it had fantastic female friendships which i am always a sucker for and i personally thought sarah j maas dealt with physical and emotional abuse as well as ptsd pretty well like she she definitely gave it in my opinion the respect that it needed in this series she didn't just let her character just brush off a traumatic event and move on like we usually see in ye novels a lot so i just really loved this book and that being said have you ever have been hesitant to start this series because you're just like i don't know i implore you to try it i will say this book is definitely very sexy there are a lot of explicit sex scenes so if that's something that you're not very interested in keep that in mind if you do want to pick this up or if you're very young keep that in mind before you want to pick this up that being said i gave this book a 5 out of 5 stars i freaking loved it and i cannot wait for the next book in this series then i read another fantastic fantasy novel and that was truthwitch by susan denard i've heard fantastic things about this so i was expecting to love this when i picked it up and i definitely enjoyed it a lot this follows two girls who are two different types of witches and they're best friends and basically they just get involved in a whole bunch of tomfoolery and secrets and stuff like that throughout the story i don't want to give too much about the plot because i do feel as you read it's it's better to find out as you read a lot like i don't want to spoil anything because the characters are basically finding out what's going on as it's happening so i feel the reader needs to be in that same position as well but what i really enjoyed about this novel was purely just first and foremost the wonderfulness of a female friendship in this a lot of times we have friendships and novels but a lot of times we go to the wayside especially when a love interest is introduced this is not the case in this series it's friendship first and i freaking loved it i love the two main characters of this and don't get me wrong there's definitely hints to a slow building romance that i am totally trashed for like it's it's obscene i had some slight problems with this book in the beginning only because i felt like it took a while to kind of get its feet under itself but once it did i read this book in literally two settings and i loved it a lot and i anticipate the second book to be even better so i ended up giving this also a 4.5 out of 5 stars wasn't exactly 5 stars but it was really great and i can't wait for the next book in the series then we have and i'm actually really proud of myself for reading this uh fablehaven book one to fablehaven series and also fablehaven rise of the evening star both by brandon mull this is the first two books in the five book fableheaven series by brandon mall that i've been meaning to read for forever and i finally read the first two books the first two books that i owned i don't own the rest of them but i'll be fixing that later but this is a middle grade series following two siblings and they go and stay with their grandfather for a period of time over the summer and they realize that their grandfather lives on a property and he's kind of the caretaker caretaker to all these magical creatures essentially a whole bunch of antics and adventures start from there i found the first book to be a great introduction to the series i find brandon mull's writing to be very engaging and very addictive i flew through these i read these in probably a couple hours a piece and it was just really great to see i i love the dynamics between the two siblings it was just a lot of fun i ended up giving this one three out of five stars i thought it was great um but it had some flaws which i felt were fixed a lot going into the second book this book was a little more complex the plot was a little more engaging and it definitely pulled me in as a sequel and it set up very nicely the rest of the books the series it seems to be a lot of drama heading their way in fablehaven and i end up giving this one a 4 out of 5 stars so this series i feel like it's just going to progressively get better as i go on if you like middle grade and you like adventure i highly recommend them they're a lot of fun and i know i like middle grade and the last book i read this month was probably my least favorite book of the month unfortunately and that was wolf wildler by catherine rondell this book is a middle grade story following a young girl who lives in the russian wilderness with her mother where they make wolves wild again they basically release wolves back into the wild and help them be able to function in the wild again i found this story to be interesting fast-paced it's very short but ultimately i found the plot to be just sort of okay i kind of was waiting for it to end to be completely honest with you i got it to be a good story by it was a good story by all means but was it something i really wanted to pick up again and again not particularly and this is something i want to reread again not particularly but i enjoyed the the strong uh female relationship between the mother and the daughter i also liked the wolf aspect i liked i like animal companionship but again it was just all right for me and i'm giving this like a three out of five stars 2.5 out of five stars it was alrighty guys those are all the books i read in the month of may i know this video was probably pretty long but then again i read a lot of books let me know down below some of the books you really enjoyed reading this month i would love to know and i will see you guys soon with another video soon goodbye\n"