June WRAP-UP

Hello! Here I am, with my first monthly wrap-up. I hope I'll be able to do it every month from now on.

First, some stats:

Books read: 14

Pages read: 4807

Favourite book: Cemetery Boys

Average rating: 3,5

Now, to the books. For the first two weeks of June I've participated in two readathons, Queer Lit Readathon and Read Your Gays. I've linked both and I recommend you guys check them both out!

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The first book I've read is The State of Us by Shaun David Hutchinson. I've read this for Queer Lit Readathon for the rainbow cover prompt.

My rating of this book was 1 star mostly due to the presentation of the Conservative party, which was at best insensitive and at worst intentionally harmful. I'm by no means an expert on American politics but I still felt deeply uncomfortable with how things were presented here. The message of this book is basically that it doesn't matter if your parent wants to strip groups of people of their human rights as long as she accepts you for who you are even if you're one of the people she wants to strip of their rights. Very logical. 

Full review HERE

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The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth was another read for Queer Lit Readathon and I used it for summer vibes and not a coming out story prompts.

This book was a solid 4 stars read and I recommend it to every lesbian out there. It was a very bittersweet read about summer romance, living by the moment and letting go of things. The main character's feelings resonated with me deeply since I've had two members of my family suffering from dementia as well. 

Full review HERE

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The next book is Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters. I picked it up for Read Your Gays and it fulfilled the prompts for camping badge and nature badge.

I rated Ghost Wood Song 3,5 starts. I'm not a big fan of magical realism books due to the fact that they often rely on the atmosphere instead of crafting an interesting world or likable characters. That to be said this was still one of my best reads from that genre. Despite the secondary characters and love interests being flat and having no agency on their own, I really did like Shady and her family as well as the imaginary and how neatly everything wrapped up at the end. If you're a fan of magical realism I absolutely recommend this. This book absolutely deserves more ratings.

Full review HERE

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Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas is another Read Your Gays book and I used it for the art badge prompt, which was a book with an illustrated cover. Needless to say, it was my favorite book of the month.

Oh my gosh, you all, this BOOK. It was a SOLID 5 stars and I adored it so much. The characters were amazing, the romance was adorable and I loved absolutely everything. This book is pure gold and you all should absolutely pick it up. I think Julian is one of my absolute favorite book characters this year.

Full review HERE

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My next read for Read Your Gays was Wilder Girls by Rory Powers and it was for emergency preparedness badge. 

I gave this book 3 stars. I loved the concept but sadly the pacing and the characters left much to desire. The beginning was very slow and barely anything happened while the ending was rushed and didn't really explain anything. Not to mention the characters had barely any personality and if the names were erased I wouldn't be able what was the line said by the love interested ad what was the line said by the friend. I'm still gonna pick up the author's other books since this was a debut and I know there is a lot of room for improvement.

Full review HERE

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And the last Read Your Gays prompt I fulfilled was the bird badge prompt and for that, I picked up The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher. 

I gave this book 4 stars. It's a Snow Queen retelling but with sapphic romance. Do I need to say more? I'm a big nerd for fairytale retellings especially if they're queer and the writing in this was so magical as if you were reading an actual fairytale. 

Now to the other books that weren't a part of any readathon, I just picked them up either because I needed to review the ARCs or because I liked how the series was going.

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Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust is the first book I've picked up outside of the readathons. My goal was to read most of my queer ARCs in June which... Didn't exactly work out in the end.

This book I rated 3,5 stars. I did love the concept and the inclusion of Persian mythology which was a very interesting and original setting for a YA fantasy. Sadly I did not really like the direction the book went in and I felt like the protagonist was one of the most frustrating characters I've read recently. I also feel this book would do much better as a duology. Nevertheless, I'd still recommend it, especially if you like interesting villain/MC dynamics.

Full review HERE

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Better Than People by Roan Parrish was an ARC I requested on a whim because the summary was cute.

In the end, I've given it 4 stars and I have to say it was a heartwarming, steamy romance with a real feel-good vibe. The kind of book that just puts a smile on your face on a rainy day. I absolutely recommend, especially if you love romance that includes bonding over characters' pets.

Full review HERE

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The Shirke and the Shadows by Chantal Gadoury and A.M. Wright is a long overdue ARC and I kind of missed the release date of.

Sadly this book I rated 1 star. It was supposed to be a dark retelling of Hansel and Gretel but instead, it was a very sexist retelling of Hansel and Gretel. Not to mention barely anything happened throughout the whole book. I really wished I loved this book but sadly the portrayal of women here just killed it for me.

Full review HERE

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The Fairytales of Folkshore by Lucy Tempest is a series of fairytale retellings with great, fierce heroines, sweet romance, and a ton of magic. Currently on my way to recommend them to everyone. The following books are all parts of the series.

The first part of the series is the Cahraman trilogy. It's a genderswapped Alladin retelling about a girl who's stolen away from her home by a witch and blackmailed to enter a competition undercover as one of the girls trying for the prince's hand and steal a mysterious lamp. You all, I got the first book in this series as an ARC and I absolutely did not expect to love it as much as I did. This book has a badass main character, great relationships both romantic and platonic and multi-layered villains and antagonists that always have a reason for their actions. The worldbuilding is very solid, which I didn't expect at all and it's an absolute delight to read. The first two books in the series are a solid 4,5 stars with the last one being 4 stars.

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Another part of the series is the Rosemead Duology. Both of those are 4,5 stars as well. They're a Beauty and the Beast retelling, which is always a win in my books (unless it's like... really really bad). I've actually read the first book, The Beast of Rosemead last year since I had an ARC of it and was planning to continue at some point but never actually have followed up on this until now. I've re-read Beast and immediately got to Beauty. 

Those books follow Bonnie who's Ada's (the girl from the previous trilogy) best friend. Bonnie and her father got stolen away by the which as well but they ended up in a completely different place than Ada. When they're found by the local hunters, Bonnie finds herself having to rescue her father who'd been sacrificed to calm the local Beast that'd been supposedly stealing away people. In this duology, I enjoyed the romance more than in the previous trilogy, it took longer to be set up and I loved the character arc the male love interest goes through. I also loved the Faerie, which is something that wasn't included in the Cahraman trilogy. 

I'm planning on reviewing both of the series as well as The Princess of Midnight, which is a Cinderella retelling from the same series, fully on the blog as I think they're really underappreciated so keep an eye on that!

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Most of the books were ARCs provided by the publishers through NetGalley and Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review, so thank you for that!