January 2021 Wrap Up

I haven't been blogging much anymore and that's honestly not a surprise. But I've been really wanting to get back into it and even though I would love to redo my blog I think I'm just going to stay on Blogger because so far I haven't been able to make a new blog that will hold everything I want. I really want to combine my blogs together into one and call it ShayKay's World and then have a page for books, a page for the Disney Sims, and a page for the Berry Sims. Then on the home page, I would showcase whatever's being published that week plus some real-life stuff and even a creator showcase. I just haven't been able to figure out how to make that all possible and make it look good. Since thinking about that I've started not being all that happy with the way my blogs look now either.  I haven't even returned to my Sims blog yet. I want too but until then I wanted to get back into blogging over here. Right now I'm only doing the monthly things such as my book hauls and wrap-ups. I have a couple other things planned too but I don't know when they will be released yet. So let's jump into this month's reads! 

The Stats

I have read so many books this month and I am so proud of myself! I've read 5, and hopefully 1 more by the time this post publishes in January. This month I had 2 eBooks and the rest all physical books and I own them all. Most of them I already owned before this month. I actually bought 1 of the eBooks just so I can read it. Three of the books were written by authors that are completely new to me and I would honestly read more by those authors too. I managed to read a book by JD Robb, the third one in the series (and if I finish the book I'm working on now will be two in the series), and two Book of the Month books! So my yearly goal was at least accomplished this month. I honestly read books that were right around the same amount of pages, the most pages in a book was Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade that had 394 pages and the least amount of pages was 296 in Immortal in Death by JD Robb. Three of these books were contemporary/romance/chick lit, however, you want to categorize them. Only two books were standalone!? I thought I honestly read more standalones than anything but this month that was a negative. But to be fair a lot of the chick-lit books come off as standalones but are actually series and they follow different characters in each book. Finally, there were 2 three-star books, 2 four-star books, and one 5-star book, I'll update whichever category my current read goes into if I complete it tomorrow. I'm going to go into how I got these statistics later because I started using CAWPILE. I also want to talk about my yearly goals at some point. So let's get into what these books are! 

The Books

I started the year off with a reread of Immortal in Death by JD Robb. One of my yearly goals is to read an In Death book and a Book of the Month book every month. I have been having so much fun being back in this world and I feel like this was the best way to start the year off on this year. This is the book that Eve and Roarke get married and we finally get to see PEABODY! I think Peabody had the worst possible start at being showcased in this world because of the things that happened in this book. I just wanted more of the Peabody I love. Now that I'm thinking back while writing my wrap up I really wished I had more of her and the wedding. I talked about both over on my Instagram. I think I ended up giving this one either 4 or 5 stars originally but this time around I gave it 4 stars, borderline 3 stars. I love this series but there are over 50 books in this series so there are going to be some amazing books and some alright books but I love how the background ties together throughout all of them. Anyways my first go around with this book was with the audible book and the person who narrates these does such an amazing job and I love them! But I also think they have encouraged me to give the books a higher rating than I would have if I read them on my own which is another reason why I wanted to reread the series. 

The next book I read this month, and the one after this one, were Book of the Month books! I actually started out with a backlist one that has been on my bookshelf since summer! I was introduced to Riley Sager's books this year and my goal was to read all four of them in publication order however, I cannot get into Lock Every Door. I've tried and I've DNF'd it and it has pushed me not to pick up Home Before Dark but this month that changed because I really wanted to read it this month. Since reading Home Before Dark I want to give Lock Every Door another chance but I have until this summer when his next one comes out. Anyways I ended up giving Home Before Dark by Riley Sager 5-stars, but now thinking about it I think it would really honestly be 4-stars. But I'm leaving everything the way they are because I used CAWPILE to get the ratings and I wanted to keep to it this year. Now that I'm thinking about Home Before Dark I keep linking it to American Horror Story's first season Murder House! The stories are completely different BUT I think the vibes that both of these creations give off are the same and that is my all-time favorite season of American Horror Story. 

After I was done with this heavy thriller book I wanted to pick up something light and fast read so I picked up this month's Book of the Month pick, The Dating Plan by Sara Desai. I have never read anything by Desai, and I think this one actually her debut novel. It focuses on a girl who is incredibly smart but is working a job that is below her because she doesn't like to make ties. I was first pulled to this book because of Daisy. I wanted to see how this book would pull her, her life, and her culture into this book and I LOVED IT! She was my favorite thing about that book. Liam was amazing too but I kept getting frustrated with how much emphasis was put on Daisy's prom and I get to some people that is a huge milestone but for me, I was just never that tied to my prom so it being such a huge event for her was hard for me to relate. Now I did relate very heavily to being abandoned by her best friend and it was really showing me why prom was such a major thing Daisy and helped me link to even though prom was getting annoyed for me. I loved the part where Daisy's coworker was like it's just prom!? I so related to him. I also had an issue with the whole brother angle. I get how Liam was her brother's best friend and that's how they were introduced I just feel like if the siblings were as close as it sounded that he would know more about everything that was going on with Liam and Daisy and potentially get involved in the story earlier on in the book. I loved the writing and I would honestly pick up more from Desai but I ended up giving this book 3-stars. It wasn't bad, it was a solid read, but it wasn't a new all-time favorite read for me.

After I finished The Dating Plan I was in an eBook mood. eBooks are just really easy for me to pick up and read since they are always with me whether through my phone or iPad plus it's easier for me to read them before bed so I can be lazy and not have to worry about turning the lights off since they are already off. Anyways that being said I knew I wanted to read something I just wasn't sure what so I looked through everyone's end of the year favorites and recommendations on Instagram, and ended up buying Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade. This book was another light, fast read but with its own spin on things. I honestly wanted something written kind of like Evelyn Hugo or Red, White, and Royal Blue that had a lot of excerpts and mixed media in it. I definitely got that in this book but unlike those other books, I didn't like the cutouts in this book. I really liked the story between April and Marcus but the excerpts from their fan fiction or scripts just confused me and pulled me out of the story. There was an excerpt between almost every single chapter and normally I would love that but this one for some reason just did not click with me! I related more to April in this book and found her amazing. She was the star of this book. I ended up really wanting more of April, Marcus was okay but he was just eh. He was one of those characters that you don't want to root for, or even really hate him. But I just didn't really care much about him. I ended up giving this one 3-stars. I liked it overall. I just didn't love it. It was a solid read though.

Then finally my last book of the month is Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey. This is actually the second book in her Hot and Hammered series. But it was the first one that I read. Most series like this one can be read out of order because each book follows someone introduced in the previous book. Like the first book in this series follows one of the characters you see in this book and the next one follows another side character in this book. I think I would love to read the first book to see how Rosie and Dominic were in that book I ended up giving this one 4-stars but I feel like it may have been more on the 3-star side of things. I loved the book overall, but I think if I had to compare it to the other two that I read this month that were similar it would be tied between all three of them. But I do want to read the others in this series. I already have the first one, I just wanted to read Rosie's story that's why I picked up this one first.

ShayKay's Review of Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

 Synopsis

Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything.

Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous - and addictive - than even Wade dreamed possible. 

With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest - a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. 

And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants.

Wade's life and the future of OASIS are again at stake but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.

My Review

So I should've done a little post about what I thought about this book before I picked it up but I'm going to do a little brief thought on it before I picked this one up. I've been dying to read this book since it was announced because I loved the first one. I really wanted to know what happened to the OASIS after the High Five took over. I thought it would be interesting to see what happened to this world and how the gang handles it. 

Well, this book doesn't do that really. It starts off a week after the first one ends and the beginning was so STRONG! There was just so much information in the first 50 pages and I was loving it. I just felt like it was so intense and there was just so much info that I was loving it. But then it kind of teetered off and I was so aggravated with Wade. I get that he had some rough times but I feel like he was just a completely different person this whole book and it started right after those first 50 pages. I just felt like things were emphasized when they didn't need to be. This time there were 7 stages to this quest and the first 4 were amazing and had so much speed and information and it was perfect. But then The 5th stage until the end pretty much was just so frustrating! I ended up giving this book 3.5 stars because of that. I was a solid read and I really appreciated a lot of the things that happened. Even the ending I kind of got a glimpse of what happened to this world but I don't like how it felt like a stereotypical ending for a sci-fi book. I just wanted more from it. So let me know what you all thought of this book so we can talk about it because I really want to love this book but this is all I got right now. 

ShayKay's August 2020 Wrap Up

This time I think I'm going to start with my 5-star reads and work my way down. I think it will be interesting to see how it goes. I've been in a reading mood all month, however, I started a new job plus school started so I just don't have as much time to read as I did. This month I also wanted to do the rainbow challenge and I kind of did it until I picked up Midnight Sun and I've been in this bubble almost all month since this is a chunker!

5-Stars

This one shouldn't be a surprise to anyone but I loved this read. I did have a hard time getting into this book, but you can read about that here since I did make a post about it. I learned that I really loved the audiobook versions too. I started reading this one and I was just in a reading slump that I wasn't feeling it so I ended up putting it down and came back to the audio version. I'm really trying to get through my backstock of Book of the Month books so whenever I get the audio version I love it and helps me fly through them. But even then first 50 pages were a little rough, but I got into it eventually and just couldn't stop reading it. I hope to finish Lock Every Door this month too but we'll see. 

4-Stars

This is technically the first book that I finished this month and I loved it! I got it for my birthday and I really wanted to finish it before I watched the newest season but it kind of coincided with one another. Anyways I hate rating comics since they are really short and I didn't have a lot of experience with them. However, my collection has gotten really big and I've started to learn a little bit more about what I like and don't like within the comic book world. But that being said I only have like 4 series in my collection. I really want to read Avatar the Last Airbender series but I don't have any plans for that right now. I ended up giving this book 4-stars because there were some parts that I just got bored with but I love how different this is compared to the show. I really like both for their own unique reasons and they really are completely different from one another. I want to continue on with the series eventually but again I don't have any plans as of today to pick up the next book yet but it will happen soon, and it will probably be closer to Christmas. 

3-Stars

This was my Book of the Month pick this month and I was so thrilled for it because the synopsis of this book sounded amazing! It literally should've been a 5-star read for me. It had mixed media, talking about celebrity life, and really reminded me of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones both books by Taylor Jenkins Reid. But obviously, I didn't love this one. You can read more about my feelings toward this book here. But long story short, I loved the beginning of this book. It really was set up for success. I loved the characters, it really didn't do go in the direction that I thought it would but I loved these surprises. However, it started losing me towards the middle and by the end, I was just dragging through the book. I feel like it really tried to use everything but it didn't need it. I think if they would've gone more tragic back towards the middle of the book it would've been better. Like with Alex. If you read this book you know pretty early on that something tragic was going to happen to him, but I felt like it was going to be very tragic and happen pretty soon. It took the whole book for it to happen and I was so aggravated by it. Unfortunately, I think if something horrible would've happened it would've been more interesting for me and worked better with the story. Then the whole thing went way downhill and took turns that I feel like made no sense. So really thinking about this book now I feel like 3-stars was really generous and should've been more 1-2 star. Or whatever I gave Daisy Jones because that wasn't my favorite book either. I might have to rethink Reid like I've had to do with Greer and Hendricks books. But unlike their books feel like Daisy Jones isn't something that I can really rate Reid on since it is written totally different than her other books and just doesn't work for me. 

2- Stars

Head Over Heels is another Book of the Month books that I picked up this month and to be fair it wasn't a horrible book. It was a light read contemporary book that I picked up because I needed a pick to get the add ons. But as I was looking into it after I had it I felt like it was something that I would love. It was chick-lit, about gymnastics, and kind of like a comeback story. But this book just let me down. Like I feel like it would've been better if there was more growth in it. You can read about my disappointment here. 

ShayKay's Review of The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan

 

This review is going to be really different than normal since I picked it up and read it as soon as I got it and didn't make up the template for the post at all so we don't have a before I read, halfway through, or even a synopsis this time around. I got this book through Book of the Month club which has opened my eyes to so many adult books that I would never have found or picked up on my own and honestly is usually a really great deal. This is actually my August pick so you'll see it again in my end of the month book haul. So let's jump into it.

I loved the synopsis of this book and had so much hope for it. To be completely honest the synopsis reminded me a lot of Taylor Jenkins Reid's Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones books. One I absolutely loved and the other was just okay. So I picked this book with a lot of optimism that it was going to be an amazing book! After I ordered people in the groups I'm in were raving about it too and some were also linking it to Reid's work. I really wanted to love it and expected too. But that's not what happened.

First I feel like the beginning was really good, the middle was good too, but then it took a wrong turn and just failed by the ending for me. I loved how the book started. Throughout the book we go between Cassidy's experiences starting her singing career, during her career, and the downfall of it. We even get to see behind the scenes and at the beginning of the book I lived for these moments because they were so interesting. In the other part of the book, we would alternate between the three other women's points of view. This shifts by the end and we'll talk about that in a minute. This first third of the book was an amazing build-up and definitely leading towards a 5-star read for me. This part really had some curveballs too which just added to my love for this book starting out. Without giving any spoilers we were reading an event really in the beginning that should've gone one way since this was supposed to be Cassidy's prime but then it did the complete opposite and we watch her deal with the disappointments.

So as I said the beginning of the book I really loved Cassidy's point of view more than the others but towards the middle or maybe a little bit before that, I started appreciating these points of view. Their views happen current day so we see the way after their prime and how they are barely even celebrities anymore. All three of them are living completely different lives from one another and even the one they lived with Cassidy. Most of the format of the book we would see them explaining what they thought about what we just read about with Cassidy or foreshadowing what is about to happen in Cassidy's story. I really preferred the foreshadowing. The biggest foreshadowing that I was really thrilled about was about Alex who is a love interest in the book and it made a sound like he was going to die or something catastrophic was going to happen to him really soon in the book. By that point, I was ready for some drama because Cassidy's story was really slow-burning and I loved their story together. But no that didn't happen how I was hoping. There was something that happened to him that was horrible but that doesn't happen until the end of the book! Which took forever because this book is a chunker! The things that happened with Cassidy started to not make sense to me anymore and I started getting really aggravated with her because I wanted more and was hoping for it. Towards the end of the middle of the book, it took a massive 180 that just felt like made no sense whatsoever, and I'm going to have to use spoilers to explain this part so if you want to read this book without spoilers I'll see you next time! If you don't care scroll a little further down and we'll talk some.

***** Spoilers Below *****

Okay, above I mentioned that towards the end of the book something happens with Cassidy that made no sense to me and this is when she starts having feelings for Rose and her for Cassidy. Up until this point, Rose has been horrible to her and obsessed with the fourth member that Cassidy actually replaced in the band. Up until this point, I had vibes that Rose felt that way towards that other member and I loved it but never thought these two had any chemistry. The only interactions we saw was Rose being horrible to Cassidy. Also up until this point, Cassidy was questioning her feelings towards Alex and I got it. He was her best friend that connected her to her old life pre-stardom so she didn't want to let that go even though she wasn't really feeling those feelings towards him anymore, if ever. But she never acted like she was attracted to females ever in this story. If it wasn't Alex she was talking about it was Stephen which I get he was horrible and definitely not good for her. But these were both guys. I get that it is hard to express her feelings completely in a book but would it have been so hard to show her questioning her sexuality somewhere between the beginning of the book and the end of it? I mean it was like a switch flipped and boom she was all about Rose and wanting that relationship and just made 0 sense to me. This really annoyed me but I was already getting annoyed with the book at this point. 

I hated how the today perspective warned me about how some horrible thing was going to happen to Alex, which it did don't get me wrong and it was Cassidy's fault sort of. But it took the whole book for this to happen, and I felt like the foreshadow should've been faster since it was all really one thing was talked about and then boom it would've happened. I just felt like this was all really problematic and now every time Alex showed up in the book I was expecting something was going to happen and kill him off and when it happened it was disappointing. 

When I finished with the book I decided that it was more like Daisy Jones since it was about a band, the start of it, and the demise of it. But I feel like Daisy Jones did it better and we all know that wasn't my favorite Reid book. Since I really loved the beginning of this book I ended up giving it 3-stars. I just didn't love it like I thought I was going too and it really was more of a let down than anything.

ShayKay's June Wrap Up

June was a fantastic reading month! The summer months always seem to better reading months for me than any other time of the year. I don't typically have school or anything else going on other than work so it leaves me with a lot more free time. But this summer has been sort of flipped. I have online classes but I'm still looking for a new job so I have some free time to read. Anyways this month I've read a total of (9 how many books)! That's amazing! Out of those books, there were (audiobooks), (6 comics), (ebooks), and (3 physical books). I think I read so much over the summers because I love going on the boat or just float somewhere and read while my dogs and family play in the water. It's just relaxing and I can't take my electronics so it's freeing and it leaves me with just physical books to read. 

A little more break down before we jump into a little detail of what was read, I had (how many 1-stars), (2-stars), (3-stars), (4-stars), and (5-stars).

Each of the sections is broken down first by their star ratings, and then in order of when I read them. I did the lowest ratings to the top-rated this month.

The links to all of the Goodreads pages for each of the books listed below should be on the picture, just have to click the picture of the book to be taken to the Goodreads page if you are interested in the book itself, and I'll list out the ones that have blog posts too. This month I think I blogged a lot! I think the HouseCupAThon really helped with that.  

2-Star Read

I actually had a 2-star read this month! I didn't hate this book! To be honest my review came from the fact that the synopsis gave everything away! If that didn't happen I would've at least gave it 3-stars because I did enjoy a lot of the book. I also hated how Bailey and Porter had so many chances to come clean and tell each other who they were so many times that it drove me nuts! Then there was some pretty cringy parts that I don't think needed to be in the book, it could've been like assumed instead of went through if that makes any sense. They had some intimate moments and I'm not opposed to that stuff in books but I don't think this book needed it, at least not how it was done in this book. To be completely honest I totally forgot that I even read this book until I looked back on my Goodreads to see what I read this month to make this post. Like I said in my review for the book I was really looking forward to this book and I went in with full intentions to love it but unfortunately, that isn't how it went and I'm just done talking about this thing now. 

3-Star Read

Since I just wrote the 2-Star read for June I was thinking maybe this book should've been a 2-star but then I was comparing the Safe Place and Alex, Approximately and I'm sure this book is still a 3-star read for me. I did a full book review on this one as well. Again I had so much hope for this book because it was an ARC and I love it when I get ARCs, and only apply for books that I know that I want to read. This book sounded so fun and interesting to me and as I was reading it I kept getting The Wife Between Us vibes, but it fell short of that and I definitely hated how the book ended. I just felt let down there. I go more into detail over on my post about it. 

I read/listened to You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen really late last night and I liked it. It was okay, but it wasn't The Wife Between Us level. I don't think it had that shock value that the first book did. Now I did enjoy this one more than An Anonymous Girl. I think their books are just something that I need to listen to through audiobook to enjoy, but I don't think I'll love them like I did The Wife Between Us. That book had its dull moments too don't get me wrong but they were for a reason and it picked up really fast. This book I think was good, but not something I'm going to reread. I got really annoyed with Shay and the whole time we knew something was going on with the sisters. The 'big reveal' I don't think was shocking, it really fell flat for me. I kept saying that this book was going to be the tiebreaker for me since I loved The Wife Between Us and I hated An Anonymous Girl. I decided that this one was going to tell me if I will continue with the authors or that my love for their first book is just a fluke. I think if I do continue with them it will be through audiobooks since I really seem to like them through audiobook more than reading it myself, but the new book needs to sound really good and have amazing reviews before I pick it up. 

4-Star Read

 

Saga has quickly become my favorite comic book series and I've never left one without loving it. Even though this is a 4-star read it doesn't mean I didn't love this book. I just finished what the series has out and I was incredibly lucky enough to by the last 6 volumes that I didn't already have so I could just binge read them all. There is literally 9 volumes and my lowest rating for any of them is a 4-star and even this one I still loved. I just got a little bored with it and to be honest, not all of them could be 5 stars. I did a little post about the whole series a little more in-depth a couple weeks ago. 

5-Star Read

This was the perfect book to start June off with! I had so much fun reading the Beach Read and my only regret is if I would've read it while I was at the beach because I so wanted a picture of it on the beach, but I got married instead. I did a book review for this too and it was such a fun read. It was just a light read and it was the perfect one to start June off of with. 

   

I talked a little more about this series above and also in its own post from a couple weeks ago but here are the other four that I read this month. I loved how the last one ends even though it is sad and a huge cliffhanger. I hope there are more for this series but it has been a while since any has been published for it. But I'll be hoping for something else for it! 

Oh, Bea! I definitely adored this book so much. I've made a post about my reading experience and I would check it out because my book went through hell pretty much, hint it involved a river. I Was lucky enough to finish it and I'm in love with this book! It was so fun and cute. But as you can see in my review I struggled with how to rate it even though I loved it so much! Since my other post is so long I'm just going to leave it with the fact that I loved it overall, but we had some rough moments in the end.

This is the first Riley Sager book that I've ever read and it definitely won't be my last. I really enjoyed it and had so much fun reading it! I really could not put this book down. I've ranted on and on about this book over on a review post for it. So I won't put much on here since it just came out the day before. It was such a great way to end out this readathon. I had so much fun with it. I have one more book that I'm trying to finish before the end of the month so we'll see if it makes onto this list. I can't wait to read Home Before Dark now since I already have it. 

May 2020 Wrap Up

Since it has been a little hard getting content up I'm going to start doing a little wrap-up post at the end of the month because I don't always talk about all of the books that I've read throughout the month, especially my audiobooks. This is something that I've probably should've been doing all along but oh-well let's jumps into it! 

In the month of May, I've read 9 books! I've been in a big reading mood plus I went on vacation this month. I went to a local beach for a weekend to get married so it wasn't a huge vacation, it was a nice small getaway. Out of all of the books I read this month, there were 3 comics, 1 audiobook, 3 ebooks, and 2 physical books. As for star ratings, there were 1 3-star, 2 4-star, and the rest were 5-stars! Here I think we only talked about one of the books so there were a lot of miss opportunities for me to post about but I couldn't help it. I'm a mood reader and none of these were the books that I planned on reading for the month. For the month I planned on at least finishing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because I had a lot of fun things planned for it but I haven't finished it yet, hopefully, June will be the month for that. 

Let's break these down into star ratings this month!

3-Star Read

My only 3-star read for the month was a book that I had to read for school. I had to do a book report and in complete honesty, the book wasn't bad. I really loved the historical spots of the book, and this book is How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. The book talks about different ways that democracies can be torn apart throughout the world and it was really interesting. This first part of the book was definitely 5 stars for me, it was hard to put the book down. But at the same time, this first part was very historical based. The last half of the book was rough getting through it. I've honestly just tired of hearing and reading about Trump I have no opinion of him as president and I'm just really over politics in the United States right now and would rather focus on news that's not about celebrities or politics. This was an e-book the physical book that I got for this assignment I felt like it didn't fit well so I switched to this book instead of finishing the other one. So I guess we technically have a DNF for the month, I'll post it at the end of the month.

4-Star Read

I believe this next book I've talked about on the blog already but here is my only 4-star read during the month of May, Incomparable by Brie and Nikki Bella. I love the Bella twins and to be completely honest Total Bellas, along with Total Divas, is what pulled me into the WWE world. The twins are amazing and this book was something I didn't even know about until watching Total Bellas and an ad popped up for it so of course, I had to go look at it. I had to get it and I was going to get the physical book but I was in the mood to read it, I had the money so I bought it on my kindle and tore through this thing. I never read nonfiction books, the last one I optionally chose to read was Tia Torres book about her dogs. Anyways the Bellas' book was really interesting and would take turns between Nikki and Brie's perspectives. Much like the last book my biggest complaint about this book is that I really enjoyed like 3/4 of the books, it was definitely a 5-star read. But the last 1/4 of the book just dragged for me. I loved learning about their lives and their companies that they were able to forge together but the end took a turn towards sexuality which I'm not a prude or anything, I don't care about reading about it either. But I feel like it just didn't fit into the book I guess. The whole book talked about their past and what they went through either together or on their own but then the last chapter or two just stopped and they started talking about feminism and stuff. I'm all for feminism but it just didn't fit with the rest of the book and I just got so bored reading the last couple of chapters. That's why it ended with 4-stars. I find it really hard to rate books based on people's lives too so it was just rough figuring out who to rate it. So I went with 4-stars because like I said the first 3/4 of the book was really interesting to read about but then the last 1/4 I just dragged trying to read it all. 

I really struggled with where to put this book because I had no clue how to rate this thing! I finished it earlier today (5/31) but then I sat on my rating all day trying to contemplate what it's rating is. The first part of this book I was for sure going to give this book a 5-stars and I thought it was for sure going to be my new favorite from this author! But it took a wrong turn somewhere and it just felt like the book was cramming in so much stuff that it just couldn't deliver everything. Ultimately I was left wanting more of something and less of others. I ended up giving the book 4 stars overall, but in my head, I think it is more of a 3.5-stars. I try to keep the books in order according to its GoodReads review and on there I put 4 stars because you can't do half stars, and for everyone who knows me knows I hate half stars. I prefer to always have whole stars and round up or down whenever I end up in this predicament. Especially if I loved half of the book and the second half fell flat I just meet i the middle. But with this book, I finally found a reason for a half star! I really wanted to love this book and I had so much hope for it! We even got off on the right foot but then we fell hard! By the way, the book I'm talking about is Hideaway by Nora Roberts.

5-Star Reads

Most of my books for May were 5-star reads so let's jump into the first one that I read this month. Since I've been home I've been looking into my library's ebooks and the first one I got was Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. This is a book that I know I've talked about already on here so I'll keep this short and sweet. I've been wanting to read this series for a long time but I've been wanting the physical books because they are so cute, but they are so expensive so I've just not got around to getting them. But let me tell you I loved this first book! It was so good and had so much fun reading it. Like I said in the post all about this book it is really hard to explain this book because one is so small but then two it's hard to explain because it is so different than anything else I've ever read. This book was really good I plan on finishing the series, the ones that are already out. But I have no clue when I'll get the physical books. 

My next 3 books are comics so I'm going to count them all right here. I never get to talk about my comics on here! I'm a huge comic fan I love the pictures, how fast they are to read, and I just love them. But I hate the price of comics. Since they are so short it's always a hard buy for me because I can't justify spending the money on them, most of the time they are about $15 here in West Virginia, plus tax. So when I splurge on comics I've usually gone on a Thriftbooks splurge. I love buying my comics from Thriftbooks because I feel like I'm getting a good deal for them. But this time I did buy it from the bookstore because I've been dying to read another book in this series. The series is called Saga! Saga is a comic that I found over on BookTube, I'm not sure which YouTuber I saw talking about it because it been a couple years since I got my first one. Saga is a series that follows this family that basically shouldn't exist. The mom and dad are two different species and their races have been at war for forever, so they are kind of living out their Romeo and Juliet love story just by being together. So far I'm only 3 books in and it's because I can't always justify spending the money on them. I kind of want to buy a bulk order of the 4 or 5 of them soon. I'm obsessed and I always go back and reread them whenever I get a new one, and so far they have all been 5-stars. The story is amazing and the illustration is beautiful so it's hard to not love these books. Now I will say that these are graphic comics, they are not for kids so if you are looking for comics for your kid these aren't those. 

  

My next read I just finished and it was an audiobook. It's pretty funny how I fell into this book because I bought Aby Jimenez's newest book first, which is The Happily Ever After Playlist and I started reading it immediately and I was in love with it! I bought it at the beach and was binge reading it out on the deck all day, but the next day we were driving back home so instead of getting the same book as an audiobook I got her first on, The Friend Zone, on audiobook. I've never read anything by this author and to be completely fair I did read the synopsis of the Happily Ever After book because I was determined to buy something from this bookstore I found and was really having a hard time finding something, so since I was enjoying it so much I didn't read the synopsis to the Friend Zone. It turns out the books follow the same characters! Now you don't have to read them in order, but I will say that if you don't read them in the order you will learn things that happens in the first book, so I suggest reading them in order. I loved the Friend Zone! I had to give it 5-stars. It is definitely a romance book and it is fun to read. 

Even though I started reading The Happy Ever After Playlist first, I ended up finishing it after I finished the Friend Zone. The Friend Zone was an audiobook and the Ever After was a physical book. I loved every second of this book, and it is honestly my favorite book in this duology. I think I just connected with Sloan a little more plus the dog played a bigger role in this book and I'm a huge dog lover. But it was a 5-star read too. This book and the Friend Zone I haven't talked about on my blog so far because it was a spur of the moment read and they actually are what pushed me to post this because this is something that you don't get to see since I don't make a post about them. They are also a prime example that sometimes my 5-star reads don't end up on here. I'm just a mood reader and I try really hard to maintain the layout of my posts on here so if I don't get a 'before reading' or  'halfway check-in,' it can be hard to make the posts. So I think this helps to look back in the month just to see what I read when I read it and a little insight into why I liked it. But both of these books are something fun to read and just easy. I have noticed that I've really started loving romance books more and more now.

DNF

I have one book that ended up being a DNF, did not finish. This book I picked up for school and it was pretty interesting but I put it down because the book wasn't really fitting the criteria I needed for the book report and I just stopped reading it to pick up the book I ended up reading. It was an accidental DNF, but at the same time, I don't see myself going back to it. This book is In the Shadows by Mitch Landrieu. I didn't get that far into the book.

ShayKay's Review of the After series by Anna Todd

Normally I try to do a before reading thoughts and after reading thoughts when I do a book review because I like being able to compare what I thought about the book and what I'm left with after reading it. But this whole series I didn't do that with. To be honest I didn't expect to read them, or even enjoy them if I did read them. I've just been really wanting to read the books because of how the movie is and I've wanted to compare the book to the movie, which I didn't even do. I know I'm a terrible slacker with this whole thing. But I've really been so captivated by the story that I couldn't leave this world once I started it.

For anyone that has seen the movie you know After follows a girl and a boy and their very turbulence romance. It's very toxic right from the beginning. They are both in college, she's a small-town girl that is being thrown into the big world all by herself for the first time and he is the bad boy. Without spoiling we all know this trope, and it is a very common thing in books, TV shows, and movies. The movie ends in a cliffhanger and I've been really wanting to read the book to get closure from this cliffhanger. I say that I really want to read it but this is something that I have been looking into for over a year now. It has taken me so long because one, the books are expensive because they are adult books and I've been looking for them to go on sale but they have never been on the clearance aisle at my bookstore, or even a used copy. I can never justify spending so much money on a new book from a new author. I get too nervous about it. Plus if I bought the same book on Amazon, even the physical copy was like $10 compared to the $16-18 from the bookstore. Since there are 4, technically 5, books in the series that is a lot of money to venture out on something that I have no clue if I will like or not. I've also been watching my local library but the waitlist for the audiobook is so long and I don't tend to get eBooks because I know I take too long reading them and I don't want to hold onto them. Since we are stuck inside right now I splurged on renting the first book as an eBook from my library. AND I DEVOURED IT! Another reason it has taken me so long is that I've just been busy with school and work, which I know is my excuse for everything but it's true. 

Just a little warning there are no spoilers below but at the same time it is a little wonky format since I had originally planned just posting this on Instagram but there was just too much. At the bottom of each book, you will see me talking about tiles, that is the Spring Book of the Month challenges and I'll have that listed at the very bottom.

After by Anna Todd

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I've been really wanting to read this book because I love the movie and have been so curious about the book. If you've seen the movie you know it leaves you wanting more, at least it did me. I needed to know what happens with Tessa and Harden. However, the books at the bookstore are always so expensive since they are adult books. I am a bargain shopper when it comes to book buying and there was no way I could justify the cost of them, especially since it was an author I've never read before. Since we are stuck at home, I was able to get the eBook from my library and I could not put it down! I was obsessed with it and I had to read it! I got through it pretty fast, but it does end in a cliff hanger just like the movie, I think the whole series all pretty much ended in cliff hangers except for the fourth one. 

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. I loved it and I was left wanting to go into the next book but I don't think it was perfect. Yet out of the whole series, this one might have been the closest to 5 stars.

I ended up putting this book on the 'Book about a game.' I sort of really played with the where to put this book because I had so many different places I could put it and I honestly was leaning towards either 'Most Anticipated Book,' 'First in a Series,' or '400+ Pages.' But since the main storyline involved truth or dare, beer pong, and bets I thought it would be perfect for this one. I know this is really far-fetched, but I really liked the idea of it. I might end up moving it before I'm done with all the books, but this is what I got so far. 

After We Collided by Anna Todd

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the book that I really started finding my annoyance with the series. Even though I needed to know what happened with Tessa and Harden I couldn’t help but get so aggravated with them. I kept comparing my obsession with how everyone is so obsessed with that Tiger King show on Netflix right now. It isn’t the best writing or even the best story, but it is something that I just couldn’t look away from it. I’m trying to stay spoiler-free and to be completely honest about my annoyance with the book is their relationship. If you’ve seen the movie or read the book, then you can understand that they are very problematic, and the book just shows it way more than the movie does. To be completely honest if the book didn’t end in a cliffhanger, I think I would’ve ended it here. But I’m really glad now that I finished the series out

I ended up giving this book a 3 out of 5 stars. Even though I had a hard time a lot throughout the book I didn’t hate it and it did still have a lot of enjoyable moments so it wasn’t horrible, but I didn’t like it as much as the first one.

The book ended on the ‘Multiple POV’ because this is the first book that we start seeing Harden’s perspective and not just Tessa’s. I really didn’t question this one or even think of another place for it other than that one.

After We Fell by Anna Todd

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the third book in the After series and I honestly think it is one of my favorites. I really loved it so much, but it was still very problematic and to be completely honest I was getting really tired of how toxic Harden and Tessa are. This is the book that I really started thinking that I enjoyed reading more when Harden and Tessa weren’t together than when they were. 

Even though I really loved this book I gave the book 3 out of 5 stars. I loved the first one more. I wasn’t as annoyed with Tess and Harden in the first book and even though I loved the different point-of-view that carried into this book I was still very annoyed and just over Hessa’s relationship.

For this book, I put it on the ‘Male Main Character’ tile. I actually moved Red, White, and Royal Blue off of it and down to ‘2019 Goodreads Choice Awards,’ which works out a lot better. I was really struggling with what book would even qualify for that tile.

After Ever Happy by Anna Todd

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the final book in the series, and I believe it is the one that I read the fastest. I started reading it yesterday and I finished it just now. I can honestly say that I either love it more or just as much as the first one because I finally get an ending to Tessa and Harden and I really think I got the perfect ending. I don’t want to go into too much detail about how it ends because you literally have to go through fourth books just to get to it and I think it was really perfect. I just hated the drama between Tessa and Harden that happened throughout the whole series to get to this point, some of it I understand but most just infuriated me. Were these reads the best books I’ve ever read and I’m going to reread them all the time I do Harry Potter? No, they definitely weren’t. But they were a fun read that I didn’t have to put too much thought into and really transported me away from this world. I had to literally give my book to my husband so I could do my homework because I was so stuck in this world the last couple of weeks.

Just like the first book I gave this one 4 out of 5 stars. Like I said I either love this one just as much if not more than the first book, but it wasn’t a 5-star read to me. I still loved it though.

I ended up putting the book on ‘A Book about a Book or Book Club.’ If you have read this series, you will know why I did it and how I came to this conclusion. It might not be as obvious as it is supposed to be but, in my head, it makes sense and I really love how it fits.

Overall

I really loved this series even though they got really annoying and very repetitive. I really enjoyed the way it started and how it wrapped up. The middle I think was just really drawn out. There were a lot of things that I really like and thought fit it, but then there was just as much that I think could've been left out. There is another book in this series, but I do believe that I will not read it. Even though I really liked the series I think that the fourth one is where I'm done with it. The last book, from my understanding, is a prequel and I don't normally like prequels. I would rather read the prequels first. I want the story in order versus reading something, finishing the story, and then going back. One tip that I will give you as a new reader to these books is to just jump into them. I didn't read any of the synopsizes for any of the books and I  went in with very little information outside of the first book and I loved it. I loved not knowing what was going to happen and just going with the flow. I literally picked the first book up just a couple of weeks ago and completed the whole series. I don't read a lot like I used too anymore and I really enjoyed being able to just plow through them like I did.

Any book-related posts that I read between March and May I'm going to add the following image because I'm trying to complete the whole table. BOTM is the Book of the Month, and one of the groups I have for the subscription service on Facebook was doing these Book Goals so I turned them into this grid below and been adding everything I read to this lately.