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Hi friends! How are you all? What have you beeen reading??

May was an incredible reading month! It was the month of novellas and short stories, as well as a shit load of five and four star reads! Here’s a snapshot of my Storygraph for this month:

My most read genre was romance (11) and contemporary (9) and I read a few ebooks this month (35%) which might be the highest number of books I’ve read digitally in a long time.

I also had a variety of ratings this month!

• One 2.5 star
• Three 3 stars
• One 3.5 star
• Eight 4 stars
• One 4.5 star
• Six 5 stars

So literally everything on the spectrum. Since I have so many books to talk about, I’ll be racing through them. For those books I have already talked about in a previous blog post, I’ll just link the post for your further reading enjoyment! I don’t want to get repetitive!

I’m going to organsie this wrap up just in star ratings, because we have so many, so I hope that’s okay!

Let’s get this started.

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meh (?)

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒐𝒏’𝒔 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒃𝒚 𝑲𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒕 was my first foray in to 𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒕’s work. I’ve seen her everywhere on BookTok and I wanted to know what the hype was about. I should have just let sleeping dogs lie. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great. The writing was average and the characters were one-dimension. AND THE SEX WAS BORING????? How is this considered super spicy??? Other than the fact that the male protagonist (a dragon) had two penises, the sex was vanilla as fuck and lowkey boring. It had so much potential! The world building, if any atention was paid to it, and the fantasy element could have been such a great addition to fantasy romance. But this did not give me much joy. 2.5 stars.

The next two books that I gave 3 stars I have already talked about at length so for more discussion pertaining to 𝑨 𝑺𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒚 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒑𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒅 and 𝑹𝒆𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒕𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒚 𝑱𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒏 𝑰𝒇𝒖𝒆𝒌𝒐, click here and here.

The next 3 star was a short story by 𝑺𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒄𝑮𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆 that acted as installment 4.5 in the 𝐖𝐚𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, called 𝑱𝒖𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒔. I won’t say much about this story because it would be incredibly spoilery for book four of this series. But it was good! It highlighted the reasons why I love this series and 𝑺𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒄𝑮𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆 in the first place: her writing and her storytelling.

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ohh yeah

I wrote about my feelings concerning 𝑩𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒆 𝑮𝒆𝒕𝒔 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝑻𝒐𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒌𝒂𝒛𝒖 𝑲𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒈𝒖𝒄𝒉𝒊 here. But basically, it was good with a unique premise but not amazing. 3.5 stars.

So four of the books that I gave 4 stars to were part of the 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐍𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡. This series is a solid romance series that I highly recommend! For more of my thoughts, I dedicated an entire blog post to this series so you can read that here.

I also have 𝑹𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒚 𝑱𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒏 𝑰𝒇𝒖𝒆𝒌𝒐 4 stars, which I talk at length in my dedicated blog post regarding this duology here.

I finally read the fourth book in the 𝐖𝐚𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 by 𝑺𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒄𝑮𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆, 𝑰𝒏 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝒃𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑫𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎. This installment focuses on Katherine Lundy, a character we had not been introduced to at all in the previous three (from what I remember?) and this novella felt slightly different to the others in this series. I think it’s because there is an inherent melancholy throughout this story. It is heartbreaking. You finish it and just stop for a second. i reread the last page three times. Katherine begins lonely and ends lonely, in a way. It hurt my heart.

I then read a romance novella! I was so exicted to finally read 𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒇 𝒃𝒚 𝑨𝒍𝒊 𝑯𝒂𝒛𝒆𝒍𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒅 which is book one in the 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐬and oh my god, I loved it. Considering that it was only 100 pages, it was such a well written and wonderful romance story. There was great character development, pining, and a gorgeous romantic development between the two characters, Mara and Liam. I just love Ali Hazelwood so so much!

My last four star read was 𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑵𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒃𝒚 𝑨𝒈𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒂 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒆. I really enjoyed this one. I think this might be my favourite 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒆 yet. There was drama, scandal, romance, murder! Literally everything I want in a book. There are some random racist shit sprinkled throughout which is…not fun to read. But everything else was a grand old time.

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fantastic, amazing

The only book I have 4.5 stars to this month was a book that was a complete surprise! 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝑾𝒉𝒐 𝑭𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝑩𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒆𝒂 𝒃𝒚 𝑨𝒙𝒊𝒆 𝑶𝒉 was truly brilliant. I can’t stop talking about this book! It was such an adventure and it had such a beautiful focus on family and friendship. I cried! But…the fact that an immortal being falls in love with a 16 year old????? Suspicious.

I reread the 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜 𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧, all four of them, and gave them all 5 stars because obviously. I truly love these graphic novels and they mean the world to me. They’ve become comfort reads! I love Charlie and Nick with all of my heart.

One of my most anticipated books of the year was 𝑰 𝑲𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒚 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒚 𝑴𝒄𝑸𝒖𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒏 and holy fuck, I loved it. 5 GIGANTIC STARS. I found it absolutely wonderful. It is a story centring the rivarly and eventual romance between two young women in their last year of high school. Shara Wheeler was fascinating. Here is a young woman in a young adult novel that is selfish, manipuilative, kind of terrible when she wants to be, blackmails friends and is all round a complex human. Chloe Green, the main character, lives in a bubble, caught up in her own mind and also being slightly selfish. This book centres two queer women who are messy and have the capacity to be terrible. I loved it.

The last 5 star read of the month was a short story, 𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒂 𝒃𝒚 𝑴𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑴𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓. This absolutely blew me away. I love 𝑴𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑴𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 so I’m pretty biased when it comes to her stories, but this one was absolutely fantastic. It reminded me of 𝑪𝒊𝒓𝒄𝒆 purely because it centred a woman, a survivor, taking back her own agency and free will. It was a gorgeously written and I cannot wait to read whatever 𝑴𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑴𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓comes out with next.

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And that’s it for today, friends! What was your favourite books of the month?? Let me know!!

Until next time, happy reading!

All the love,

allie

xx

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𝓽𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓮𝓻

𝓲𝓷𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓶

𝓰𝓸𝓸𝓭𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓼

𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓱