Quarterly Wrap-Up #2 | May to August [CC]

What’s up, friends? It has been a while since I’ve filmed behind my bookshelves and today I finally have my second quarterly wrap-up of the year. I’ll have the first one up above if you would like to go and watch it. I talk about the books that I’ve read from January to April and today I’ll be talking about the books I’ve read from May to August. I have 17 books and and one comic. So, sit back and relax, grab a snack or a drink and I’m going to get right into the books. As always check my description for updated petitions and donation links and let’s get started.

00:36 - We’re going all the way back to May and you will see a theme that basically I didn’t have a really great reading month during the summer. I was really going through a lot of things in my life. So it was hard to read but in May, was the first round of Read O Rama and this was the rainbow edition and I do have a whole reading vlog which I’ll have up above if you would like to go and watch it. I started off the readathon with my arc of I Kissed Alice by Anna Birch which I have since sent off to another reviewer. It is a sapphic enemies to lovers book about two girls Rhodes and Iliana who are sworn enemies but little do they know that they are internet friends and co-author and illustrate a web comic inspired by Alice in Wonderland and the comics are spread throughout the book which I really enjoyed, unfortunately, I gave this a three star which isn’t bad by any means but it wasn’t an enemies to lovers that wrapped up at the end.

01:34 - It just felt like it was constant hate and as I was just not in the place to be reading about a book full of hate. I just was not in the mood for it um I didn’t really like the therapy aspect, that’s one big pet peeve I have in books is that it is just like a mean therapist who is bad and I wish that Rhodes would have gotten more out of therapy instead of her therapist just saying that she was paid to talk to her by her mother and so I didn’t really like that aspect but if you like Alice in Wonderland and you like enemies to lovers, I think you’ll enjoy this book, it just wasn’t for me. Trigger warnings for alcoholic parent, talk of death hate talk, and girl shaming. Next, I read Challenger Deep by Neal Schusterman and this is about a boy named Caden who has schizophrenia. um This book was based off of Neal Schusterman’s son’s experiences with schizophrenia and I listened to it on audio and I loved the audio.

02:36 - Primarily because it did such a good job with narrating because Caden does have hallucinations where he feels like he’s on a ship and just the ship aspect was narrated so well. I can’t really comment on any of the experiences in the book or the representation and I know how the neurodivergent community feels about authors that are parents writing about their children’s experiences. So, I am not gonna really comment on this one. I really enjoyed it um but I have since been rethinking just because of that aspect. um I just feel like we need more own voices stories rather than parents writing about the experiences? because if you have not experienced it then you can’t really truly write about it but that’s all I have for this book.

03:28 - And then I read my advanced reader’s copy of One Year at Elsmere by Faith Erin Hicks and I gave this a three star. I just thought it was okay. It’s a middle grade about a girl named Juniper going to a prestigious boarding school she deals with bullying and it’s just an academic setting and I didn’t think it was all that special. There are some magic elements in it which was nice but because I had an arc it switches to black and white and so I felt like I was kind of out of the story because it’s not a book that is supposed to be in black and white but i would like to pick it up again just to see what it looks like because like there is color um it came out in July so I’m definitely going to get around to it when I can. I think I’ve kind of fallen off with my love for Faith Erin Hicks and have found more illustrators and graphic novel artists and authors that I’ve really enjoyed. I read her graphic novel collaboration with Rainbow Rowell and I didn’t like it as much? I just thought it was okay and then I also tried to read her novel which is Comics Will Break Your Heart and I just couldn’t really get into it so I think that she is just not the author for me anymore but the graphic novel i do like from her is Friends with Boys; it’s about a girl who has a ghost haunt her and just start following her around and I really love that trope.

04:52 - And the last book I read was Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith and I actually read my arc of this. I did read a lot of arcs that week. And this is one of my favorite books. If you’ve been on my channel this year, you know it’s one of my favorites. It is about a trans boy named Pony, who goes stealth at his new school. He also lands a job with a former celebrity by cleaning out his attic and he’s trying to save up money to get top surgery. This is definitely a hard book to read. It is about Pony dealing with the unacceptance from his family um just dealing with internal issues like [gender] dysphoria but he meets a girl named Georgia at his school and she is a cheerleader and there are some feelings there.

05:34 - And this is also written from the perspective of a straight trans boy and I really enjoyed that. Do keep in mind the trigger warnings because this isn’t just a happy go lucky book. It is definitely a dark book um but it also talks about the real life experiences that trans people have to deal with. Pony’s sibling is polyamorous. There is a non-binary side character and a trans woman. There are trigger warnings for outing, gender dysphoria, depression, violence, and a hate crime.

06:04 - Misgendering, binding, homophobia, and transphobia. There is homophobic slurs and a disapproving parent. Do consider the trigger warnings before reading because like I said this is pitched as a romance but it is way more than that. There is definitely a lot of heavy content in this book but I really enjoyed it. Then, June was pride and I participated in two readathons: The Queer Lit Readathon and Queer Blackathon hosted by Jesse at Bowties and Books and The Queer Lit Readathon is hosted by Kathy and Rogan and so I’ll have all information for that down below.

06:41 - I also hosted “Virtual Pride” which was on Adri’s channel because we had some technical difficulties and there is captions on that so i’ll link that down below as well. Blackathon usually happens in February but Jesse decided to make a Queer Blackathon where you read queer books by Black authors and so here are the books that I read in June. First, I read Felix Ever After by Kacen Callendar. This is one of my new favorite books and favorite authors. Tthis is about felix who is a bisexual demi boy and he has just gotten top surgery this is set during the summer where This is about Felix who is a bisexual demi boy and he has just gotten top surgery.

07:16 - This is set during the summer where Felix goes to an art program. He’s dealing with the mixed messages of support from his father and an absent mother. He enrolls in a summer art program and the first day he walks in and he is outed. And his pre-transition photos are plastered for the whole school to see. And then he ends up getting some Instagram messages that are transphobic and so he wants to seek revenge and decides to catfish the person he thinks is doing it and it is a wild ride but I did really enjoy it.

07:49 - I love this book because it’s not a traditional story and it does talk about not being trans enough or just questioning your identity and I love this so much. I love Kacen and I love this book. I also read the first comic of Moonstruck and I didn’t realize that it was a comic. I actually thought it was the volume one but it wasn’t. Um that’s on Hoopla so I’ll probably read it next year but I liked it? I just didn’t get enough of it so I think I gave it a five star but I don’t really have like a concrete rating. I thought it was a good introduction. It’s a fantasy graphic novel with queer characters.

08:23 - I just wish that I would have read volume one but that’s entirely on me. Next is a graphic novel I’ve been talking about a lot this year and this is Bingo Love by Tee Franklin and this is about two black women who rekindle their love in their 60s and this is just a queer romance. It has a disabled character. The author is also disabled and I just love this book. It’s great. There’s queer, and pansexual rep and an all-black cast. I also read Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett which is another favorite book of mine.

08:55 - This is about a girl named Simone who was born HIV positive and she’s directing her high school’s production of RENT. RENT happens to be one of my favorite musicals and so I love that so much but this was just such a great book. It taught me a lot about HIV and I just thought it was really great. There’s queer friends and it just was a great book, it was heavy um she is raised by two gay men and it was just a great book. RENT is one of my favorite musicals so I am a little biased but this is definitely one of my favorite books and it’s a debut novel.

09:31 - And then I listened to the poetry collection homie by Danez Smith on audio and Danez is one of my new favorite poets. They are great and this was just fantastic. They are non-binary in this poetry collection they express being a queer black non-binary person who is HIV positive, grief and mourning the loss of those taken too soon, depression, suicidal thoughts and American racism. Danez Smith is a powerful poet and they are hilarious. Some of my favorite poems are in this collection. I thought they were so funny but also very impactful. The audiobook is narrated by the author and I really enjoy that experience of just hearing Danez recite all of their poems. The last book I read in June, I gave four stars and this is You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. This is a contemporary about a girl named Liz Lighty who is all set for college and is ready to go to her mother’s alma mater, Pennington college and become a hematologist and play in their orchestra after her mother passed away from sickle cell disease. However, she gets an email saying that her financial aid did not go through.

10:35 - So, she’s not going to be able to pay her tuition. After some convincing, Liz agrees to run for prom queen because at her school you get a large amount of money if you win prom king and queen. And if it were like that at in my school, I probably would have tried a little bit harder. um But this is so good and if you love books with competition you will really enjoy this. I love the competition and there is also a sapphic romance in this. I loved it. I thought it was great.

I just wish I would have gotten more of the band aspect because 11:08 - she is in her school’s band and I just wanted to see more of that but I do get why we didn’t get to because there is a whole competition going on but I really love that. If you’ve read this I love the baking aspect. I thought that was fun. It felt like it was like a Food Network show. She goes to a school surrounded by rich white kids. So there’s a lot of talk about class status and there’s also a lot of talk about sickle cell disease because as her mother did die from it, she’s also dealing with her brother who is 15 years old and he has it as well and I really liked that aspect and I feel like it is not talked about enough when pitching this book but it does have a lot of hard-hitting topics. She lives with her grandparents. If you know me, I love dark contemporary. There are a lot of moments of black joy in this book and I really enjoyed it.

11:57 - Content warnings for death of a parent due to sickle cell disease, outing, homophobia, panic attacks, anxiety, and a hate crime. There is a scene where characters set up for a drunk driving assembly where the king and queen contestants dress up as victims of drunk driving and personally that was really triggering to me so I want to just talk about that and it is a scene where you kind of need to read it to know what the plot is? and that just was really hard for me to read so I wanted to point that out as well. And then we move on to July where I read one book and this was All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson. Another book that I’ve been talking about a lot on my channel recently and I talk about it in the sense that I really enjoyed it for the grief aspect um it just talks about grief in a way that really resonated with me as I was going through the same thing. But this also talks about being a queer black person um George is also non-binary so please use the they/them pronouns for them. um This was just fantastic.

It’s a memoir and there’s nothing more for me to say. I just really loved it. Um it just is really personal to me. The book hurt. It really hurt, okay? that’s the only that’s the only way I can say it. I sobbed at this book. I sobbed so much but it was a really great memoir and I enjoyed what was in it. Also, the author puts in their author’s note trigger warnings, and I really enjoyed that. So I will list the trigger warnings on the screen but they are also at the front of the book which is really great.

13:33 - And then we move on to the last month and this is August where I read five books. The first book I read in August was Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. I had finally gotten around to this. It was supposed to come out in June but the release date was pushed to September so I read it just in time and i gave it a five star. It was brilliant. This is a Latinx paranormal book about a boy named Yadriel who wants to convince his parents that he is a brujo and he is trans and it just talks about his identity and so because he wants to prove to his family that he is a brujo, he goes by himself with his cousin Maritza to try and summon the ghost of his deceased cousin. But unfortunately, he ends up summoning the high school bad boy Julian Diaz who is a treasure! He is a treasure.

I love this I really need to get a final copy so that I can re-read it. Aiden said that the final copy is so much different than the ARC. I love it so much. Adri from perpetualpages talks about it on their channel a lot. So, I will link one of their videos down below. Maybe I’ll link the live stream they did together? It was like an interview with Aiden and it was really great. They talk about it so much it is amazing. I just love the way it was written.

The transness is talked about really subtle in this book 14:54 - and that’s my favorite thing. I just love when it’s very subtle because sometimes it’s a lot for me to read. So, I really enjoyed this. It also talks about the celebration of grief and loss and I really enjoyed that because as I was going through my own grief at the time. I really enjoyed it just being able to read it in a way that made me think a little bit differently about how I was feeling with the situation I was in and I really enjoyed it. It was great the hype is real. I love it. Read Cemetery Boys and go and watch my Cemetery Boys book tag for clear skin.

15:30 - Kayla from Booksandlala was hosting Read Eh Thon. This is a Canadian focused readathon focused on reading Canadian authors and I didn’t read anything in that week but i did read it the next week i just was not in the space to be reading and i was just kind of like slumpy but also just in like a life slump. So, reading was just not getting done but I did read From The Ashes by Jesse Thistle, another book that i’ve been talking about and this is a memoir about Jesse Thistle. He is Canadian and he is Metis-Cree. I listened to this on audio and it is definitely a heavy read. It is all about resilience and just Jesse’s life from childhood to his mid-20s and how he was homeless and he was dealing with stealing um he was dealing with drug addiction.

There are very massive trigger warnings which will also be on the screen. It really talks about Jesse and his relationship with being Native and just the growth of that um first he was a little embarrassed about it and would tell people he was Italian and after college he really got more in touch with his heritage and what it means to be Native and I really enjoyed this experience. It was a really heavy book so I will leave the trigger warnings on the screen because there is a lot of them um but it is a great book and if you’re looking for a memoir by an Indigenous author, I highly recommend this. And then I also listened to the audiobook of The Pretty One by Keah Brown and y’all probably know I love this. It’s so good. It is a memoir and it is from the perspective of a black woman who has cerebral palsy and she just talks about pop culture.

She really touches on 17:06 - the importance of disability representation and why the poor representation leads to a ableist society and she also talks about Paramore and I love Paramore and I don’t know? I just really enjoyed this. It was really great I didn’t think I was going to like the pop culture but once she talked about Paramore I was hooked and I just really, really enjoyed this. It really surprised me because I didn’t know how much I was going to love it but now it is one of my favorite books. I highly recommend it and I want everyone to read it. If you’re looking for more books by disabled voices, I highly recommend this one.

17:39 - Then, for The Reading Coven book club, I read In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado and this is a non-fiction about Carmen’s experiences in a queer relationship with domestic abuse and this was written in such a unique way. Each chapter, The Dream House is symbolized by something so it’s the dream house is blank and I thought that was just such a unique spin on it. I feel like this is just a book you need to experience to understand. Um at first I wasn’t really vibing with the writing but as I got into it more, I really enjoyed it. I just loved it it was great. But, it was a really hard book to read she’s also from Philadelphia which I thought was great um I don’t see many authors from Philly where I am from so I really enjoyed that but this is a very powerful book.

18:26 - Nonfiction and memoirs are always very personal and this one was just very unique and I really enjoyed the spin on it and just their writing and it was really great and the hype is real. But trigger warnings for domestic abuse and I’ll leave the rest of them on the screen. Recently I was listening to one of my favorite NPR podcasts, CodeSwitch, and they actually had Carmen Maria Machado on the podcast. So I will link that episode down below. I really enjoyed it. I haven’t finished the rest of it yet but I am going to. If you have read it or if you haven’t and you would like to I suggest to listen to it.

19:03 - And the final book I read in August, I also have a reading vlog for and this was Paola Santiago and the River of Tears by Tehlor Kay Mejia. This is a middle-grade magical realism book and the sequel is coming out next year and I’m very excited for it. I gave this a four star and I do talk about it more in that reading vlog. This is a middle grade Latinx book about a girl named Paola and her and her friend Dante invite their friend Emma to go stargazing near a river and she never shows up. And it is all about missing children and them looking for her.

There is a magical world and it 19:41 - is just so great but it does tackle heavy topics of deportation and the children going missing and being in cages and kidnapping and it was a very hard read but as it’s middle grade it was done so well that a child would be able to understand it and I did read this for the Middle Grade Book Club and I really enjoyed it because we all talked about it and there were some people in the group that were saying that they were reading it to their children and it just was really good. This was my first introduction to middle grade magical realism and I just can’t wait for the sequel. It’s going to be really good. I really love the characters and I thought this was really well done. So, those are all the books I read in the second quarter of the year. I will have my last one probably in January. Feel free to subscribe if you haven’t and let me know what your favorite book of the year has been. Um or what you’re currently reading. Talk to me in the comments and if you don’t feel like it, leave a hockey stick emoji so I know you stayed till the very end and if you did thank you because I know this is probably a really long one. Um but that is it for me today. I have a Patreon if you like to support me there for only one dollar. I hope you’re all having a great day, staying safe, and I will see you next time. Bye! (Around You - Oh Christmas Tree by Dylan Rockoff playing) .