hey booktube today i'm coming to you
with a wrap up of all the books i read
in the month of july
ever since i started booktube i've been
reading a lot more than i used to
and this month was no exception i read a
total of nine books this month
some for a read-a-thon some for this
reading vlog that you guys will never
see
and today i'm just going to be talking
about all of the books i read this month
but before i do
remember to like this video comment down
below if you've read any of these books
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but let's get into the video so the
first book i read this month
was a five-star read it was just so good
and that is slay by brittany morris
this is our next chapter book club pick
of the month
for the month of july you can still pick
it up and read it because our live show
is on august 2nd
over on troy read's channel everything
you need to know is in the description
i highly recommend you come join us it's
going to be a lot of fun
this book was just so so good and i'm so
happy it was our first pick
this book is about 16 year old Kiera
Johnson who is the only black kid
at this really good private school but
what everyone around her including her
family doesn't know
is that online she is this game
developer of a really popular online
game
obviously it's a game it's online called
slay millions of black gamers play this
game
that revolves around black culture and
nobody knows that kiera is the game
developer of this game
she even goes by a different persona
just to keep herself
private but when a teen in kansas city
is murdered over a conflict in this game
Kiera's life suddenly becomes so much
more complicated and while everyone
around her is talking about
how exclusionary and racist this game
developer was Kiera has to try to figure out how
to make her way in this world
while also keeping her black identity
while there are trolls
infiltrating this game and everyone on
the news is talking about her
and this book was just so good obviously
it tackled a lot of important issues
in racism but it also was so well
written i actually interviewed this
author a while ago maybe last year
and i just never picked up this book and
i'm so happy that i did now but the game
is so detailed which i didn't expect
most times authors just use the games as
tools but in this book it was very
developed there were
playing cards that actually meant
something and the game had an entire
dynamic
i would play this game 100 percent but obviously
i wouldn't be able to because i'm not
black and that's actually one of the
main themes in this book because the
game is being exclusionary
by not letting white people come in that
also is a really important
question in this book and it's really
explored well there's
so many plot twists and the characters
are just so amazing and i just loved
kiera's perspective and we also get a lot
of other different perspectives in this
book
just for like a chapter so and those
just enriched the story a little bit
more
and overall this was such a good debut
and Brittany morris
second book which i'm so excited for but
yeah join us
august 2nd 6 p.m eastern standard time
troy reads channel come with us
that sounded weird come join us alright
so the second book i read during the
month of july
is the upside of unrequited by becky
albertelli this is the
sequel you don't really need to read the
first book to simon vs the homo sapiens
agenda
which was just so good anyone who's read
it will tell you that they loved it
i haven't met anyone who didn't like
simon vs the homo sapiens agenda
it's so well written and i was i had
pretty high expectations for this book
and it was one of my more disappointing
reads of the month
it was all romance like both characters
did not
have any character i didn't know much
about who they were as people
all i knew about was their relationships
and this really weird love triangle
that didn't need to be there nothing
really happened in this book
like there was no plot and while john
green can do that
becky albertalli can't do that and
simon vs the homo sapiens agenda there was a
plot
there are twists and this this book had
some beautiful moments
but it it wasn't a full plot i i already
forgot what happened in this book
that's how unmemorable the plot was it's
beautiful at times
pointless most times but overall i rated
it 3.5 out of 5 stars
i only gave this 3.5 stars for a romance
book because it's becky albertelli and her
writing style
is just so effective
it's not purple prose it doesn't jump
out at you but it just gets the job done
the next book i read this month is you
should see me in a crown by leah johnson
this book is about liz lighty who's
always believed she's too poor too black
shine in this prom obsessed town that
she lives in and she's been relying on
the scholarship to go to this really
good college
where she will play in their world famous
orchestra but when the scholarship money
that she was counting on
unexpectedly falls through she has to
find out a different way to make this
money
up and so she signs up for prom because
prom is this big thing
in this town and so she signs up for
prom to win the scholarship money she
needs please know she's going to
encounter trolls
people are going to humiliate her but
she knows she has to do
what it takes to get this scholarship
and especially when she falls in love
with her competitor things become so
much more complicated this book was just
so well written
such a good debut all of the characters
were just so beautiful
and i loved how they all just worked
together and how i knew each and every
one of them
they were all just so actualized and i
could all see them
function as separate characters and
that's really hard to do in a book
and i'm so astounded that this author
did it in a debut novel
and it was so realistic as to what
school is really like
like friends were lost relationships
were lost over
one scene or one little fight and the
characters just grew so much in this
book
it was not made easy for them at all
they all just came together in the end
and it was such a beautiful ending just
read this book for the ending alone
and there's also this old friendship
between two of the characters
that was rekindled and just seeing that
blossom was just so much fun
and then seeing the bullies get what
they deserved was also so much fun
so yeah i highly recommend you should
see me in a crown i gave it five stars
it was so good
if you need good representation good
writing good characters this is the book
for you
the next book i read this month is
rumblefish by s.e hinton
s.e hinton is obviously more popular for
her book the outsiders which i also do
not own
but this book is like really short it's
only like 140 pages maybe
i read it one day because it was so
short but it just has such an impact on
you
i don't know really how to describe this
book and i don't want to describe too
much because it
is pretty short but it's basically about
rusty james who wants to keep up this
reputation of being like the tough boy
in her school
just like his older brother motorcycle
boy laura st james isn't
book smart he uses his fists instead of
his brains and he hasn't needed his
brain so far but there's only so many
things a motorcycle boy can help him out
for
and when motorcycle boy unexpectedly
disappears rusty james's life
unexpectedly comes apart
in so many pieces this book is just so
poetic i'd
urge you to not look just on what it is
on the outside
so much poetry and meaning to be taken
when you really look deeper into the
story it's about living our own lives
and
finding our own meanings in the world
it's about idolization and really about
celebrity
and it's just about so many important
things and s.e hinton really did again
this book
and it's just so underrated and i highly
recommend you read it like i'm looking
at goodreads right now
and the only person i follow who has
rated it is marcus zuzak
come on now you guys are sleeping on
this book i assure you it is so good i
highly recommend to pick it up
in the end of this book i don't want to
say too much about it you learn
how to be a rumble fish that came out
way cheesier than i was expecting
okay the next book
one of my new all-time favorites
the knife of never letting go
by patrick ness where do i start with
this book like i haven't talked about on
my channel yet
i need to make a video on it it deserves
it
i just loved this book so much i was not
expecting to like it
but it's basically about this guy called
todd who's in this town called prentiss
town where basically you can hear
everything that everyone else is
thinking and this thing is called
noise Todd is just a month away from
being a man which in this town is being
13 years old i think todd and his dog
manche unexpectedly stumble upon
this area of silence which is not you're
not supposed to find that in prentiss
town
like all the silence it's gone it was
gone a long time ago
and this is a secret so awful that now
todd and manchee have to run for their
lives
and they meet crazy characters they have
the adventure of their lives
friendships are made friendships are
lost they go
on like literally an epic quest they
stumble upon these new worlds
and learn a lot about each other and
have to make a lot of hard decisions
and nothing is ever easy for them not
even until the ending
the ending is even tough this book has
so many plot twists
and i just love how good of a
storyteller patrick ness is as well
the knife of never letting go is such a
symbol in this book it's so important
and integral to
todd and the character he becomes in the
story and how much he grows and learns
about himself
and about other people and how to treat
them i almost cried during this book it
was just
it's also a really good allegory on
social media and it even says that in
the back of the book
it has fascinating and deeply complex
characters
an amazing world a thrilling adventure
and i literally loved
everything about this book and i cannot
wait to read the second book this was
also supposed to be a movie
with tom holland in it and then it just
never worked out
which i'm just so sad and i would love
to see this translated on the screen
but i mean you we can't get everything
in life alright so the next book i read
this month was my first read for the
reading rush
and that is stardust by neil gaiman i
read this book for the prompt of reading
a book
based on a movie you've already seen i
don't know why i just did it like that
but if you have not watched the movie
miles better than the book i spoiled it
i hated this book it was so
underwhelming
completely different from the book in
the worst way possible it was still neil
gaiman it was still the writing style
and for that it was still three stars
but it was just so underwhelming
so much of what i loved in the movie was
just not here in the book
so much was changed it was such a slow
story and it just did not give me the
same magical vibe
as i expected it to be i expected it to be
at least as good
or better than the movie but it was
nothing it was
horrible i i hated this book and i was
not expecting that
like the movie was about love and life
and finding out our identity
and this book was all about nothing it
the book didn't even know what i wanted
to be about
and the movie just made it so much
better and i would love to read a book
that is based on the movie in which the
plot actually functions like the movie
did but alas that's not what i got with
this book
and i just hate that i hated this book
so much one thing in the movie i love
is the man on the ship and his complex
character and how much he hides of
himself
that was something i loved a lot in this
book we don't cover that at all i was
waiting
i was so excited for that part and then
it's like 10 pages long
it's this really quick time lapse and
then we're done with it
when i finished that scene i was so
disappointed
we were already so long into the book
and i was like where is the good parts
going to come where is neil gaiman
going to show his magic and it just
never came and i'm so disappointed that
i did not like this book
so now let's talk about a book that i
love i got a life chloe brown
this is the first adult romance that
i've ever read in my life and it did not
disappoint you've probably heard
everyone talk about this book and i mean
everyone
and for good reason this book is about
chloe brown
obviously who after she gets in this car
accident
does she maybe she like sees a car
accident
yeah after almost but not quite dying
she comes up with this list of seven
things she wants to do
to get a life and she's already
completed the first to move out of her
family's glorious mansion
one of the things on chloe's list is to
be bad but everyone knows it's not
that easy being bad and so chloe needs
help and so she enlists the help
of red morgan who is a struggling
artist who is her superintendent he has
tattoos
he has this amazing motorcycle and like i
said he's an artist who paints at night
and hasn't showed his work to anyone in
a long time and that's because of this
dark history that he had in london
but when chloe enlists red in her
mission to rebel to get this life he
learns things about him and he
her that help them both rediscover
themselves discover their identities and
come to accept themselves and each other
and just fall in love slowly but surely
this is just
a beautifully written story one of my
favorite things is a book no
my favorite thing in this book was chloe
and red's interactions
and since we have that almost every page
they're just so funny and snarky well
also just talking about a lot of
important things this book was just the
excellent blend of
humor and meaning and seriousness and i
just
love this book so so much like they're
both people and we could see that they
both have their flaws and they're trying to work
on those flaws but other flaws they're
not trying to work on
and that's exactly what real people are
like they both have their own stories
and these situations that have defined
them for years to come
they're both trying to work themselves out as
people i cannot believe i like this
romance book so much and if you want to
hear my real thoughts about it
you can just go to my youtube channel
the video is literally titled reading
get a life chloe brown
just watch my thoughts as they come i
talk so much about this book and
how good it is i highly recommend
reading it even if you're not into adult
romance
it's it i think everyone needs to read
this book alright so the next book i
read this month
is this song will save your life by leila
sales this book is about elise dembowsky
who spent her entire summer trying to
find out how to be popular
she like studies all the popular music
she does what she thinks
is the only thing humanly possible to
become popular
and it just completely backfires and she
considers giving up
on life but when she stumbles upon this
warehouse party she meets these two
characters that just
accept her wholeheartedly vicky this girl
in a band
and pippa is described as his carefree
spirit from england
and honestly that's all you need to know
and then this other character
who i didn't mention because char
who is this mysterious disc jockey that
is so on and off in this book and this
book is about identity
and friendship and how the power of
music and the power of art
can connect us all and help us
rejuvenate our lives and find meaning in
it
i have so many mixed feelings on this
book like i gave it four stars
but like that's a generous four stars
this book had so much potential for me
to love it
and i know so many other people love it
so much because they can relate to it
but i just don't have that relatable
level but even i could see that this
book was so well written
i almost cried so there's that the
characters are so beautiful
and i felt so deeply for our main
character and all she goes through in
this book to eventually get to the
ending
she goes through all of the things you
can go through in this book but there's
a mystery aspect in this book
and i'm a ravenclaw i know jk rowling
we don't talk about her
but like i think a house can really tell
a lot about who you are so i'm a
ravenclaw
and when this mystery aspect was created
was revealed
i obviously jumped to really think about
who i thought it was
and then it was this character that is
so irrelevant in this book like they're
literally
mentioned two times in this book they're
not even like
i don't even think they talk in this
book maybe once or twice
like they're so irrelevant and their
motivation for doing it is just so
stupid and i just hated the mystery
aspect in this book and we also never
really got a conclusion with some of the
main plot lines
especially one of the characters but
overall this book was just well written
it was still really good i thought it
could have been a little longer but i
still
really love this book okay so the last
book i read this
month where is it an organized person
right here
the conference of the birds by ransom
riggs this book was the sequel to a map
of days which was one of my favorite
books
of all time and while i obviously can't
go into spoilers with this book
this book was i had mixed feelings on
this one as well
well i loved being back in this peculiar
world and i just had so much fun reading
the story and it was a great adventure
and i just loved seeing where some
aspects of the plot went
i didn't like where other aspects of the
plot went
and it's hard not to talk about spoilers
as to why i didn't like this book
old things that were left in the past
that shouldn't have been brought up
again were brought up and that was the
case in the fourth book but i
didn't mind that at all i actually loved
that but in this book it was just
i hated it so much so many things that a
map of days led up to
just not carried out the way i had
wanted them to be in this book and
although
it was still an amazing adventure and i
cannot wait to see where the sixth book
goes
i just don't love this book as much as i
had wanted to originally
there's nothing fundamentally wrong
about the story i just didn't like it
and i feel like it could have been a lot
better the writing is as good as ever
the book was so thrilling and i still
highly recommend reading the series just
to get to the fourth book
even if the fifth book is a little bit
there's a little bit
of a letdown
okay guys so that was all the books i
read in the month of july
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bye
