Hi friends, welcome back to my channel. My name is Kat and today I am doing my
August wrap up part
two. So in the month of August, I read
29 books, 29 books!
I covered nine of those books in my
August wrap up part one so I will go
ahead and leave that linked down below.
Five are going to be in my romance wrap
up which I'm gonna film right after this
and then two are in a secret mini burst
so I'm not gonna talk about them in this
wrap up but you'll see it
in the next month when I finish the
third book. So today, for my August wrap
up part two, I have
13 books to talk about. So
I did just finish the live show with
Jordaline and it was so great to talk to
you guys. The live show was absolutely
amazing.
If you haven't already seen it, I highly
recommend watching it. It is just so fun
and we talk about The Graveyard
Apartment in as much detail as you can
go into with it.
Um we talk about all the books that we
read for the prompts
and we also just talked about a lot of
other sh*t as well. So
we had a fabulous time. Thank you to
everyone who came out. It was honestly
amazing. There were so many of you it
just like
completely boggles my mind how many
people were staying up late
to like watch and it was just lovely and
we had a great time
having pizza together. Um so all the
books that I talked at
length about in the live show, I'm just
going to give you
like the name of it and what I rated it
because we have so many books to talk
about today.
So, without further ado, we're gonna go
ahead and get into it. So,
the first one on this list is The
Graveyard Apartment which I gave
two stars. This is not shocking to anyone
who was in the live show.
Jordaline and I both gave it two stars.
It wasn't really our jam.
I really don't recommend it. There's a
lot better Japanese books out there.
Uh yeah and that's all I'm going to say
about that.
Next up is Toddler-Hunting. This I also
gave
two stars and this one I un-recommend.
Because this was one of the books I was
most excited for
um for the read a translated book prompt
and written by women prompt and vintage
prompt.
And this was not it. This was not it.
It had a lot of
misogyny and domestic abuse,
which is common in some older books but
then there was one specific short story
in here
that just had like gross use of ableism
uh and I'm not here for it and
I don't recommend this. I un-recommend
this. Next up, we have a book
that I read because of ScallywagAThon
and I had heard you guys talk about it
so much and that the ending was
just gonna blow my mind. However,
I wasn't that thrilled and I gave it two
and a half stars. So,
the majority of this novel is about a
girlfriend and a boyfriend who are
traveling in the car to go meet
the boyfriend's parents for the first
time. The majority of it takes place
in the car and she is reminiscing on
their times together
while she is thinking of ending things
with him.
And honestly, a lot of the car driving
sequences
I found a bit
pretentious and boring and then by the
time they get to the house and certain
things start to happen,
I kind of guessed what the twist was
uh so that by the end, I just...
I really didn't care that much. I know
that sounds really bad but
um I'll definitely be watching the TV
series that's coming out soon. It looks
really creepy.
The book just didn't do it for me, though.
I wonder if it would have been better
on audio? So next up, I have The Ruin by
Dervla McTiernan. 
This is set in Galway in 1993
when a young investigator is called to a
house
to sort through a domestic situation.
However, when he turns up the mother is
dead from a drug overdose and the two
children are alone in this creepy
damp house. And he helps them get to
safety
and while the little boy is in the
hospital, the older
girl runs away and it isn't until many,
many years later when he's working on
another case
that his old case and this new case of a
suicide
might have something in common. So this
definitely kind of
got me interested and kept my reading
fast.
However, I think I failed to connect with
the main detective.
So that's why this got three and a half
stars for me. I felt
a little bit disconnected from the main
detective.
But I have heard that the second one in
this series called The Scholar
is even better. Like it has obscenely
high
ratings on Goodreads and it follows the
same detective.
So I'm thinking I might get the second
one because if it's good
I want to give these to my Dad. He really
loves to read
mystery thrillers with like detectives
in Europe. That's very
very niche. But... so I think that if
the second one is amazing,
he might really like these. So if you've
read the second one let me know your
thoughts down below. So another three and
a half star
is Frankenstein by Junji Ito. This is
obviously a Frankenstein retelling.
I gave this three and a half stars
because the art style
is gruesome and hideous so I do
love that about it. However, I think that
Junji Ito focuses a lot on the
illustrations and not as much time
on building like characters.
So this is what the illustration of
Frankenstein's monster looks like.
So it is really creepy and like yes the
illustrations in here
did kind of give me like a little bit of
a nightmare like when I was falling
asleep I just saw that face and was like
eeeewwww.
So three and a half stars. If you
like Junji Ito, I recommend it. If you're
looking for a Frankenstein retelling
there are better ones out there.
If you're looking for specifically a
graphic illustrated Frankenstein
retelling,
Gris Grimly did an awesome one which I
read last year.
It's very cool. His art style is very
like um
kind of Nightmare Before Christmassy if
that makes sense? But it was very good so
if I was going to choose between these, I
would definitely choose that one.
Also, because
the characters are more developed.
Another three and a half star I have is
Little Eyes by Samantha Schweblin who is
an Argentinian
author. And this I really, really
gelled with. Uh this is following a world
where there are these little things
called kentukis. Picture
like Furbies that have cameras in the
eyes and little wheels
that can move around and you can choose
to either be watched
or watch someone else.
This is kind of an exploration of what
the world would look like if these
things existed.
So each chapter follows different people.
Sometimes you
meet those people again later, sometimes
you don't. But I think it was a really
interesting thought experiment.
I think some of the chapters were
stronger than others, some were weaker.
So that's ultimately why it got three and a
half stars but Samantha Schweblin
is definitely someone I'm going to be
reading more from
in the future. Okay now we're getting
into my four stars. I had so many
good books four and above! So first, I
want to talk about
a thriller. This is If You Knew Her by
Emily Elgar.
This was really good
because we're following a young woman
who is hit by someone and her body falls
into a
nearby creek and she's brought to the
hospital where she lies in a coma.
So while she's in a coma, the person that
is also in the room is a man who has
been paralyzed
and it's kind of locked in syndrome
where he can't even move
like his eyelids. He can't communicate
but he can watch everything that's
happening.
And he realizes that the woman in a coma
is in grave danger so you're
alternating
between the nurse who works on the ward
who's taking care of both of them
and the man who is paralyzed and can
can't do anything about what he knows.
And it's so good and there were a few
scenes in this that were just so
scary from his point of view
because he's totally at the mercy
of other people. I'm not gonna say
anything else, but this
was really good and I sped through it.
I ate it up so fast because I was like
"what's gonna happen, what's gonna happen?"
I was really on the edge of my seat
because it was such a unique
premise too. [If the nurse] missed the
tiniest little thing...
she has so many patients to deal with...
and just like the littlest
moment
could like mean life or death and I was
just like "what's gonna happen???"
So, if you're looking for a thriller and
that sounds interesting to you, I highly
recommend this. It was really
good, really really good. But, I have to
say my favorite thriller
of the month was Ghost Girls by Cath Ferla.
This was
such a pleasant surprise. I got it at a
used bookstore for
three dollars and it was so good.
We're following
an ESL teacher in Sydney, Australia and
one day she's teaching and then one of
the students she's teaching
jumps out the window and commits suicide
and when she goes downstairs to see
which of her students it was
people are telling her that it was a
student but when she looks at the
body she's like
"that's not, that's not that student" and
everyone's like "yeah it is, that's what
her name is" and she's like
"no, I've been teaching that woman for
months, I know what she looks like"
so she realizes that
there are these ghost girls where in
order to keep their visas
girls will pay other girls to substitute
into the ESL classes for them
while they go and work elsewhere such as
in
serving or working in a hostess bar
or even prostitution. So as she starts to
delve deeper into
this string of missing girls who have
come to Australia
for visa purposes and English learning
purposes but then they
seem to be missing it gets darker and
darker. And another area where this was so
interesting
was that the author has a love of
Chinese food, specifically food from the Sichuan
province
that features ginger, chili, and garlic.
This book
was making me salivate as I was reading
it because she just describes the
different ways of
preparing food and honoring people with
food and family ties and food
and I was just... oh my god I wanted
Chinese food. It sounded so good and it
was making my mouth
water. This book was so good. The end
was so good, I didn't know what was
happening! It was so well done, I don't
know why more people aren't talking
about this. This is such
a freaking hidden gem. So if that
sounds at all interesting to you,
I highly recommend. Just know that
there's a lot of triggers for
everything having to do with the sex
trade um
yeah just know that it gets really dark
that way.
I really recommend this! This is such
a random hidden gem
find and I'm just like f*cking thrilled
that I read it. So next up
is one that I read again for
ScallywagAThon and this is
Follow Me To Ground
and it was so good. So I believe she's
also an Irish writer as well
and this is following a main character
who
is not quite human. So her and her father
are
different. They were basically produced
by
this magical weird ground
which produced them so they have the
ability to cure
humans of ailments they dig their hands
inside their bodies and like pull them
apart
and reach in and get sicknesses out or
tumors out
and then they can plant the humans in
that ground
and it kind of heals them and then they
bring them back up and send them on
their way and that's kind of how they
make
their living. But they're both really
long-lived beings and
we're following a main character who is
quite older than she looks.
She looks quite young but she
has been alive for a long time and she
starts up this relationship
with a local young man
and things are dark and weird
and creepy and I'm not going to say
anything else because I don't want to
ruin anything but there are definitely
triggers in here so
please look at reviews if you're someone
who's triggered by
things. I don't want to say anything
because it would give stuff away,
but I really
enjoyed this book. It's the kind of book
where when I finished it I was like
"What? I don't know how I feel about that"
and then now that I've sat with it
longer I'm like
"Ah yes, I do think I liked you"
Um it's very similar to how I felt about
Under the Skin by Michel Faber.
At first, I was like "What the f*ck was
that?" and then I was like
"Oh yes, yes I see, I see and I like... I like
what happened here."
So I highly recommend that if that
sounds like your cup of tea.
Um next up let's talk about
A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson. 
So, this was very interesting,
weird, and different. This is
set in an afro-centric
country it's unnamed really but it's a
fantasy world where
gods can intermingle with humans
and we're following a main character who
is a master of beasts. 
He takes care of the
beasts
at the at the royal castle
and he
meets a soldier who is from a
neighboring kingdom
who decides to
strike up a love affair with him
and it's about their story, but also not.
So this book really threw me for a loop
because
I thought that that's what it was going
to be about. However,
this book is a dual timeline so one
timeline is the present and it's
going
through the 10 days that they're
together and then the other timeline
skips into the future so
you're seeing things that happen and it
makes it made me both frustrated and
really melancholy and anxious
for what was happening in the current
time. And the ending made everything
worth it.
So before the ending, this was going to
be like a three to
three and a half because I was mad at
some of the things that were happening
and also you're kind of just dropped
into this world. It's not fully explained,
so if you need to know
everything about the world and how the
magic system works,
this might not be for you. But, I just
went with the flow hoping it would
come together at the end and while
nothing more about the world was totally
revealed,
I really loved the ending so it brought
it up to a four for me.
And if that sounds interesting to you,
this is the second
in Wilson's series kind of set in
this world.
The first one is The Sorcerer of Wildeeps,
which Tor, to celebrate their fifth
birthday, they just made that book free
September 1st 2nd and 3rd.
So if you go to the link on their Insta,
you can download it in your email.
Just saying, free book! I downloaded mine
because this one was so interesting and
unique that I want to read the first one.
Okay and next up, I have two four plus
novels. That means they're four
but they're like a high, high four.
This is Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall.
So, the more that I thought about this, the
more that I really really liked it.
So we're
following Elizabeth who
is 12 years old when her parents die and
she goes to live
with her grandmother and her aunt and uncle.
Now, she is 14 years old
but she's been having relations with her
uncle for quite a while.
And around the same time when she moves
to her grandmother's house
she starts to see someone who's an
ancestor of hers who was a witch
in her mirror and she starts to
communicate with her
and basically kind of struggle
with newfound power and family dynamics.
But Alicia Reads brought up a very good
point
that if you view this through a
different lens
all of the witchcraft and all of the
dark creepy things that happen
which there are a lot... familiars, snakes,
cats,
toads, shattered mirrors, blood, death,
murder...there's a lot.  
If you view it through the
lens
of a young person who has
suffered sexual, physical, mental trauma
then this book takes on a whole other
level
of meaning and it makes me
really love it more. So I really do
recommend this but
it has triggers for
pedophilia, incest,
sexual assault, and
gaslighting, I think.
Yeah, there's like so many triggers so
please be careful if you're gonna read
this but
I think that this is a novel which
will grow in my ratings over time,
 if that makes sense.
So I really f*cked with this and I
really liked it. So, my other four plus
read was
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 which is a
book that
you guys voted for for ScallywagAThon
and I'm so glad I read it. It was
so good, you guys should read it.
Pick it up right now!!
So we're following the life of Kim Jiyoung
who's born in 1982 like it says
and it just documents her life
in all the ways that society in
South Korea is very patriarchal and very
set against
women. And I think that I connected with
this a lot because,
if you guys don't know, I lived in Korea
for two years,
where I worked.
One of the reasons that we moved away
was actually
sexual harassment at work so like
some of the elements in here
were just making me furious. Like I would
stop reading and I would turn to my
husband and I would be like "do you
remember when that happened?" Like
I blocked that from my memory because I
was like I never want to think about
that again
and then this book made me feel all the
things again. So I think it's incredibly
important and I understand why people (probably men)
are furious
in Korea that this is even out.
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
was amazing and it made me
absolutely furious. To be honest,
I was livid. And my favorite book of the
month actually turned out to be one I
read thinking it would be a romance
but it actually turned out to be an
extremely
well-written fantasy! So this is Radiance
by Grace Draven.
I never thought that I would say this,
but it was so good! So I actually decided
to pick this up
immediately when I heard Mina from Mina
Reads talk about it. She was saying
it's the best meet-cute she's ever seen
because the meet-cute is more like a
meet-roast
where they meet each other but they
don't know who the other one is
and they're just insulting the sh*t out
of one another like really bad.
Because in this world, the main
character who's a woman is human and she has 
long red hair and she's super pale.
To human eyes,
 she's beautiful,
but the [male] main character is another type of being.
They're like night walkers where
like his skin is gray
and he has like yellow eyes that have
like no
pupils and like dark black hair
and long black talons and
in his world in his people he is
extremely handsome.
But when they are put in an arranged
marriage to put their kingdoms
together [in alliance],
they think the other one is like the
f*cking ugliest thing ever.
But, BUT
even though they're in an arranged
marriage, they are so respectful of
each other because
they're truly trying to keep their
kingdoms from feuding
and doing the best to make the best
of the situation.
And so as their bond grows, they realize
that the
other person has so many good elements
in them.
It was just so great. It's like a
romance that is built on
a negative meet-cute and respect
and friendship way before there is any
sort of tension or sexual chemistry at all.
So that's why I ended up actually
putting this in my regular wrap-up
rather than in the romance because
I don't even think there's romance until
like maybe the last
20% of the book. So for most of it,
it's just a really good fantasy world.
It's really cool and I read it in one
sitting. I stayed up all night to finish
this book. I stayed up til 4 am.
I was reading next to my [sleeping] husband.
I just couldn't sleep, like I needed
to know what was gonna happen. I will be
reading the sequel sometime soon.
 So if that sounds at all
up your alley, I highly recommend it.
 I had an absolutely fab time reading it
and I gave it four and a half
shiny stars. So that is the end of this
wrap up. I read a lot, I had a great time.
I loved talking to you all and
I just loved reading all the books.
If you made it this far,
leave a ghost emoji down below for Ghost
Girls because this was
just a hidden gem. I think a lot of the
books in this list, I had high hopes for,
but this one I went in with no expectations and it
was amazing.
So, I will catch you guys in another
video soon.
I'm going to film my romance one next.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope you're having a fab day!
Lots of love! Byeee
