Monthly Wrap Up- May

Welcome to the end of the Month readers!

May was a slow reading month for me, especially after the O.W.L.s Read-a-thon. I started to feel myself to get into a little bit of a reading slump, so to combat that I did do some re-reading of my favorites and some shorter books. This month ended up being a random selection of books. I also only saw one movie this month, and as for TV; I don't watch much.

I Was a Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block

I've already done an in-depth review on Block's writing in another post. Francesca is great at making her stories super magical and this is a prime example of what she can do with her writing. This was a re-read for me, though it had been 10+ years since the first time I read it.

Ruby by Francesca Lia Block

This book was also included in my previous post about Block's writing.The beginning of the book I didn't care for, but Francesca's writing flourished into magic again as it always does. As an adult, this would definitely be a piece of her writing that I would come back to. This was a re-read for me.

The Siren by Kiera Cass

This one also already has a review! I wasn't a huge fan of this book. Cass's writing was pretty, but as far as substance I felt like it lacked a lot of it. This would be a decent summer read for somebody looking for a short book. It unfortunately didn't get me in the mood for summer, especially tied with all the rain we've been having around here.

Kings Cage by Victoria Aveyard

I'm so glad I waited until closer to War Storm to pick this up. And like everything else, there is already a review up for this entire series up until this point. I liked King's Cage way more than Glass Sword which so far has been my least favorite of the series. I'm hoping to pick up the final, monstrous book soon so I can find out what happens to my favorite characters.

A Court of Mist & Fury by Sarah J. Maas

This was another re-read! And guess what, I don't already have a review for this! Woo! I will probably post my thoughts on the series and also the Throne of Glass series, since there is some controversy around Sarah's writing. 

ACOTAR was the first book that got me back into reading and I picked it up February 2017. I actually really liked ACOTAR, I know people have problems with Tamlin and I agree, however Sarah's writing was great and it really was a great start to this series.

As everyone who's read the ACOTAR series, A Court of Mist & Fury is by far my favorite. I love watching Feyre overcome her broken-ness, and the relationship between her and Rhys prior to finding out he was her mate was fantastic.

Deadpool 2

I'm super glad I saw this in theaters. I prefer the first one to Deadpool 2 simply because the plot was better and I felt like the jokes really packed more punch. You could tell they tried to tow to make sure that the funny parts weren't too stale in the second movie. The plot was also pretty all over the place. I remember saying out loud,"Okay, so where are we going with this?" 

Ryan Renolds is still bae though.

And for the record, as far as the Marvel universe is concerned. I'm 100% team X Men over team Avengers.

Change my mind. Go ahead.

If I Run by Terri Blackstock

I picked this up on Overdrive as a quick read for the Shelflove Crate Read-a-thon. I didn't have much expectations and I didn't do much research before starting it on Audiobook. As I got halfway through the book I did some digging on Goodreads and I noticed a lot of the reviews stating there were heavy tones of religion and I was confused. There was an older woman that mentioned how prayer has helped her, which I didn't think was out of the ordinary. One of the main characters kind of word-vomits his religious believes as well, but again I didn't think it was out of ordinary or overly religious. I grew up in a somewhat religious household, my mom was christian and my dad catholic but we didn't go to church. 

Then it hit me, like a bag of cement. As soon as the narrator finished the actual story and moved to the 'Authors Notes' it was full on about religion. So if you stop the book right at the end, you wont get anything out of the ordinary.

As far as the actual book, meh. I may pick up the next one if I am looking for a short 'thriller', but I'm not invested enough to actually dive right into the next one. 

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Something people may not know about me but vaguely relates to this book, I love spontaneity. When I was at the book store, I picked this up just because. Despite reading the synopsis, I also was still confusing this with the horror movie Glass House. Despite my denial, I was presently surprised by the book. I typically don't read memoirs because I feel like they can get repetitive and stale, I prefer the creativity of fiction novels. 

Between the setting of part of the book being in my neck of the woods and how bizarre Jeanette's parents were when she was a child I really loved the first half of this book. Once they moved to West Virgina the story wasn't as carefree, but I still was invested on what happened to Jeanette and her siblings and how it circled back to the beginning in New York. By the end, despite all of the issues he battled through with substance abuse, going from job-to-job, and seeing his struggles with his own family; I really felt pity for Rex Walls by the end. Rose Walls I didn't care for from beginning to end though, she was stubborn to be stubborn. 

If anything, this book will be burned into my memory simply by my reaction to eating lard sandwiches. Ugh.

A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa

Clearly, I'm on a roll with memoirs this month. This book I picked up on Kindle when Amazon had it for free. I was already interested in reading it prior to finding it listed for Free.99. I also read this book as part of the Shelflove Crate's Read-a-thon.

This story is about a Korean-Japanese man and his life from right before 1960 to just past 1996 and his struggles with racism, corrupt government, and poverty. It really opened your eyes to how long North Korea has been stuck in the dark ages with its civilization and reigning government. I found myself reflect on the time frame that these issues were going on and the most surprising was how current the events actually were. I would recommend this book to anybody who is on the fence about reading it. It's super simple, I finished it in two days, and that was with sporadic reading, you could totally finish it in a day.  

A Court of Wings & Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

This was another re-read for me. I've already mentioned that I do enjoy this series as a whole. When I initially read ACOWAR I did feel some disappointment, and since I had also just finished Empire of Storms, I was really nervous for the ending of Aelin's story. I'll get more into that in a future post.

What my pro's for this book were; I absolutely LOVED Feyre as a fox in the chicken coop. That was epic beyond words, watching her work and be so strong outside of her magic was great. I think it really brought me back to how badass Feyre was prior to getting all of her magical powers. How utterly human and amazing she alone is. I also liked that the entire book wasn't Feyre up Rhysand's ass the entire time and just about how lovey-dovey they were. Some may disagree, but I feel like it could have been worse. My final solid pro is getting to see all the other courts and learn about their abilities. Sarah could write a novel on each of the other Court's High lords and I'd read them all. 

My cons, there isn't a lot, and most of it falls into the same theme. Between the start of the final battle, and when they finally won the war, Sarah just became a people pleaser to me.  We don't need everyone to be paired up romantically. Not everyone had to survive the war, loss and heartache is normal. And although I think she did a pretty good job with playing out the war, I also think there a tiny bit of over-the topness.

Again, I have a lot of stuff to say and I'll get to it in a future post.

Overall, I'm sad to see the story end.

The Voice Season 14

And just to end the month on a high note, I watched a TV show that 1. wasn't on Netflix or HBO but 2. Still binge-watched. I've never seen the voice, I know what the show was about but I never was dedicated to sitting down whatever day of the week this shit aired and watched it with the fam. 

The whole reason I decided to watch it past the blind auditions, which is usually what I'd glimpse through on Youtube, was because of Kelly & Alicia Keys. I think the Blake/ Adam love hate thing was cute, and fortunately it seems to have faded a bit so it's not annoying. Kelly is great, because she's just as sassy and Blake can be, I love that she sings along, and she's funny. I like watching Alicia because it's like watching your calm, beautiful, regal as hell grandma supervising a bunch of kids. 

As far as the actual contestants, I feel bad for them on shows like this because it seems like nobody goes anywhere, despite the exposure and work they put into it. I don't know what happens after the show that pushes them into this Post- Winning shadow but it's lame and makes me feel bad.

And that my friends, if the end of me rambling about stuff I did this month.

Tell me what you read below. What movies did you see. Remember when I said I was team X-men? Yeah, we can still argue about it.Catch me in the comments, how 'bow dat.