October and November Reading Wrap Up | Bookmas Day 3

0:00 Welcome back to such fun read. I've been trying to read the books that are on my physical TBR. I even made myself a TBR jar. I put all my under-a-books in there on a piece of paper for me to pull from. Color-coded them and everything per genre. It's a pretty big TBR jar, but we don't need to talk about the number of books. Less than I could judge you, okay? I do, however, want to talk about the books that I've been reading for the last couple months. I've definitely been more in a reading move lately than I was earlier this year. So I definitely want to talk about these books and I'll give them a bit of a rating. So the rating system I use was created by the book roast.

0:43 I did tweak it a bit to fit my liking. Now, let's just get into the books. So when it comes to the fall season, are Gilmak Girls and Pumpkin Spice Latte's in your rotation? I read Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice at the beginning of October. It is a young adult contemporary and I picked it up because it was advertised as If You Like Gilmak Girls, read this. There are some similarities. It has the small-town aspect, mother-daughter relationship, mother owns a business, and coffee is everywhere, I promise. It was cute. It was something to read during the fall. Could I have just rewatched an episode of Gilmak Girls that led to me binging at least seven instead?

1:27 Probably. There was a time where I was reading. I did start to imagine cartoon characters or anime characters as these characters in the book. And it worked better for me as a story for some reason. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but it made all the sense to me at the time. Now for my rating, for character, I gave a 6. I felt like the side characters weren't developed enough. Her friends, they felt a bit bland. The atmosphere slash setting, I gave a 7. It did feel kind of like fall. The writing, I gave a 7. The plot, I gave a 6.

2:08 Entry, I gave a 5. Logic, 6. Relationships, 7. I liked the mother-daughter relationship. The potential relationship with the faux Starbucks coffee guy. I can't think of his name right now, but that relationship, it was fine too. And engagement, I gave a 6. So this book gets a 3.5 stars. So the main character in the last book didn't like the boy that would end up becoming her possible love interest. Mostly because her family's had rival coffee shops. I think she would have put a hex on him if she could have probably.

2:49 Just like the characters did in the next book I read, the main character in the ex-hex put a curse on the man who broke her heart. Listen ladies and gents, let us not put curses on people. You may piss off ghosts and have issues with lane lines which may ruin the town you live in. And maybe just moving on will be healthier. I'm just saying. This was another cute read and it was a lot of fun to read during October. I would categorize this one as a paranormal romantic comedy. I believe there is a sequel that's already out and I think I'm going to have to read that. But I do think it's set around Halloween. So I may wait until next year.

3:34 So my ratings for character is 8. I do remember enjoying the characters in this book. Atmosphere setting. I would give an 8 as well. Riding a 7. Plot a 6. Intrigue a 6. Logic 7. Relationship 7. Engagement 7. This one also gets three and a half stars. The next book I read did surprise me but I wouldn't say it surprised me in a good way. Finley Donovan is killing it was not at all what I expected. It is an adult mystery. I honestly don't know exactly what I expected from it. But I felt like it wasn't what I read.

4:16 I may have gone into it with too high expectations. I did empathize with the main character early on. A single mother who had to deal with her pain in the neck baby daddy and his wife or fiance. Whatever she was. She wasn't nice. And then she gets mistaken for a contract killer but the book kind of lost me. I stopped empathizing with the main character at some point. It was honestly just waiting for her to be put in jail. There is a cliffhanger at the end. I'm curious but I don't think I'm curious enough to continue on in the series. At least not any time soon.

4:56 So as for my ratings character I give a six. Atmosphere setting I give a seven. Writing a six. Plot a five. Intrigue a six. Logic a five. Relationships a four. I didn't really like any of the relationships in the book. And then engagement a five. And this one gets three stars. Speaking of coffee and killings how about some blood instead? I'm sorry. I don't know. I'm sorry. I was just segueing here. I read Immoral Dark and I really enjoyed this one. It is a young adult fantasy. Our main character is looking for her sister.

5:40 And she believes that sister was taken by a vampire. The same vampire that is bound to her family. There is also a university where she begins to attend that has vampires and humans interacting every day. And she must live with that vampire that she thinks pretty much stole her sister. She must live with him in her family home for a year to figure out what happened to her sister. There are morally gray characters, a slow burn enemy to love her storyline. And when I say enemies, I mean enemies. They hate each other. They would like each other to die.

6:24 Like for real. They would be okay if either of them died. At least they start out that way. This is a series I will definitely be continuing. So for my ratings character. I give it eight. Atmosphere setting. I give an eight. Writing. I give an eight. Plot. I give an eight. Entry. I give an eight. Logic. I give a seven. The time throughout this book was a bit confusing. I didn't know how much time I passed and was a bit confused when I found out. Relationships. I gave a nine. And engagement. I gave an eight. And this one gets four stars.

7:06 For some reason, I almost forgot I read the next book. But honestly, I really don't know how I could have even forgotten. I read Ice Planet Barbarians. I started pulling books for my TBR jar at this point. And of course, this is the one I got. I've had the first two books of this series on my shelf for a few years now. And I finally ended up reading the first one. Women are getting kidnapped by aliens and then crashing on a different alien planet and possibly becoming mates with those aliens. The ones on the different alien planet.

7:47 Not the ones that kidnapped them. Just wanted to differentiate that. This book was definitely not something that I would normally pick up. I don't know if this is a series I want to continue, but I do own the second book. So I might as well read that one, right? Maybe. We'll see. It was definitely, this book was definitely an experience. I mean, the way our main character was greeted by the alien was a way to greet someone, I guess. It was not a way that I think I would ever read someone greeting someone. So there's that.

8:27 For my ratings, character, I give a six. Atmosphere setting, six. Writing, six. Plot five. Entry five. Logic five. Relationship six. Engagement five. And this book gets three stars. So after reading that one, I picked up the Black Witch. This one was another ride and in a different way. And I am still trying to figure out how to talk about this book. I feel like I could talk about this book for quite a while, but I also don't want to talk about this book because I don't think I want to market it.

9:09 This is a young adult fantasy. There is a university. There are different races of magical people slash creatures that attend this university. There is also a lot of prejudice and honestly reading this book during election week this year was, it was a choice that I made. I do not believe I'm going to continue with this series. And for my ratings, characters, I give a three. Everyone honestly felt younger than they were supposed to be, especially the bullies. Actually, when you come to think of it, a lot of the characters were bullies. I mean, the main character was pretty much a bully.

9:53 So there's that at Mr. Setting 3, writing, I give it a five, plot for entry for logic, three relationships, three engagement for this one gets 2.5 stars. Let's move on to the next book I pulled from my TBR jar before I think about that one anymore right now. Snow like ashes. I was surprised by this one and a good way. It is a young adult fantasy that came out in the early 2010s. I really wish I had read this back then. The world has different kingdoms, the kingdoms of the seasons and the kingdoms of the rhythms.

10:36 Our main character is from winter and her kingdom was actually conquered. So a few of her people are trying to find a way to bring their kingdom back. There's political maneuvering, there's possible patrol those, there's a war. I thought I knew where this book was going, but it went a different way and I'm very happy it did. I'm really doing my best to stop myself from just going out and buying the rest of the series. I want to get through a few more series, at least 10, maybe even the ones I mentioned from yesterday's episode. But I want to get through a few more before I get the rest of the books in the series.

11:16 We'll honestly see how long that lasts. For my ratings, character 8, atmosphere 7, 7, writing 8, plot 7, intrigue 7, logic 7, relationships 7, engagement 7. This book gets 4 stars. And the last book I finished was Kingdom of the Wicked. This book is the first book in a trilogy. We follow Amelia, who is a twin and she comes from a family of witches and they secretly live amongst humans. Then her twin sister is brutally murdered and she is determined to find the person who did it.

11:59 She ends up summoning a prince of hell and he kind of assists her in finding the culprit. This was another enjoyable read. I was kind of surprised how much I liked it. I don't know why that was so surprising to me. Maybe because it's been on my shelf for a while, it's been on my shelf since I believe 2020. And it is also another book where I am stopping myself from getting the next book in the series just yet. Now for my ratings, character 7, atmosphere slash setting I gave a 6. The world in this book felt cramped a bit. Maybe that was on purpose. I don't know.

12:39 Hopefully it opens up in the next one. Writing a 7, plot a 7, intrigue a 7, logic a 7, relationships a 7, and engagement an 8. And this book I gave 3.5 stars. Okay, so those are the books that I have been reading. And I'm curious what your favorite read has been in the last couple months. Just let me know. Immortal, dark, and snow-like ashes were my favorites from these reads. Now thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss new episodes and we'll speak soon.