Hey guys, it's Emily! For today's video I am doing my March wrap-up. So this is
going to be a slightly abridged March wrap-up because I am pre-filming this
because I'm going on vacation, which I'm very excited about. But I still wanted to put
my wrap-up out around the time that I usually do, so I'm just going to take any of
the books that I read in the last few days of March and just tack them on to
my April wrap-up. So you'll get those rambling reviews eventually! Let's
get into the books that I have already read in March. The first book that I read was
The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano Lesnevich. I did not want to talk
about this book, if I'm being quite honest. It was the most upsetting book
that I have ever read. This is half true-crime, half memoir. Lesnevich
examines a case that made her re-examine her stance on the death penalty. She was
working at a law firm that was working on overturning death penalty cases, so
commuting (I think the is word commuting) them to life in prison sentences, as
opposed to death sentences. She comes upon a case that brings up some of the
demons of her own past, and she's forced to confront the fact that this man, whose
case she's learning about, whose confession tapes she's watching, who is a
convicted child molester and a convicted child murderer--she wants him to die. And
so confronting that involved confronting her own past in which she was a victim
of childhood sexual abuse. It is beautifully written, deeply, deeply
upsetting. I don't think I could in good conscience recommend this to someone.
It's beautifully written, it's incredibly powerfully written, and it has an
intimacy to it which i think is what I found so upsetting by it. I think
sometimes true crime books and documentaries have this kind of distance
to them where it's more the detective hat. It's not the case here. It is very, very,
very intimate, extremely upsetting. I still felt compelled to finish it, which
is something. Because I was so upset and unsettled after finishing The Fact of a
Body, I wanted something in the complete opposite direction. So, I
picked up a romance book! And that is An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole. This
is a romance book, if that was not already abundantly clear.
It's set during the Civil War. We follow a black woman named Elle
Burns. I should also say it's written by a black woman. Elle is a Union spy who is
pretending to be a slave in a Confederate household in order to gather
information to then give to the Union to try and win the war. While she is
placed in this home, she encounters another Union spy, and guess who her love
interest is... Not a Confederate soldier. That's fucking gross. It's a union spy!
And it's really, really fun, and I loved it. The history nerd in me was just like,
"Oh my god this reference. This reference! I'm so happy!"
Alyssa Cole clearly did her research, and in addition to being this fun romance
book it has all of these amazing historical elements that I really, really,
really loved. I will say, by the final third I was kind of like, "I don't really
care about the plot." So I kind of skim read that a little bit, but I still
really enjoyed it! It brought me out of the kind of emotional pit that I was in,
in all honesty, after reading The Fact of a Body, and for that I am extremely
grateful. I loved it, definitely recommend it. next I read March vol 1. I'm going to
read the names because there's three of them. Obviously John Lewis, this is his graphic
novel memoir... Autobiography? I don't know the right word to use. Why do you use
memoir versus autobiography? Someone please tell me. Educate me in the
comments. This is by John Lewis, obviously, and Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell.
It's phenomenal! I really loved the structure of it. We
meet Lewis as he is getting ready, presumably, for the inauguration of
Barack Obama. You don't ever officially read that it's
Obama's inauguration, but it's pretty clear that that's what's going on. In
contrast to the inauguration of Obama we learn about Lewis's childhood and about
his early involvement in the civil rights movement. I loved it. I thought the
art was gorgeous. I'm super excited to continue this series. I have a box set
which I recently hauled in a book haul, which I'm really now it's like kind of
redundant to say... It's so good! I'm so excited to continue reading this. Next I
read Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray. This is book 2 in her Diviners series, which is
a why a paranormal historical fiction book set in 1920s New York in which
certain people they're all teenagers because this way have
mystical magical abilities and realize you said all the people with those kind
of abilities are teenagers not true we just only follow teens it's
a really big cast of characters and I really loved that in this book we follow
two characters that were kind of in book one Henry and Ling Henry's gay and Ling
is she's half chinese half Irish that's what it is I was blinking there for a
second and she also has a disability she has some trouble walking due to a
childhood disease associates or leg braces I loved their characters and
loved getting to read so much from their perspective I also really really liked
that in this book Brae leaves in to Evie being unlikable so even the first book
is a bit of a showboat and not the most likeable character she's little selfish
little full of herself but still very endearing and in this we see her bad
behavior and her bad habits kind of put on display and we look at the
consequences of that and I really liked that because I think it makes for a
great character arc she still is likable I think I really like her anyway but
she's kind of at a rock-bottom type point and I'm really excited to see
where her character goes I wish we had more of Memphis who's a black teenager
living in Harlem and he has the ability to heal people sometimes and I'm hoping
we get more from him I think I just spit a little bit and hope if we get more
from him in later books because I really like his character but at the end of the
day I just love this series I love how rich the world feels liberal break
clearly knows her history which is always fun for me I don't know if I said
this already but I listened to it on audiobook the audiobooks for these are
fabulous I have the next one hold from the library so I am super excited to
continue with this series next I read Emma by Jane Austen I enjoyed this but
not as much as I think I struggled with this a little bit because we're reading
from the perspective of a very entitled person for the most part I thought Emma
was a fun character and I liked seeing her learn but I think the inherent
classicism of Regency era Britain is a lot more apparent in Emma because at the
end it's kind of like oh all things are resolved and I guess I can't be friends
with this person anymore because they married
me and oh well bye things are good it's like very weird to read in the 21st
century and I think in print and Prejudice because you're reading and
rooting for Lizzie Bennet and she is not at the upper tier of society it's easier
to overlook some of those things I also had issues with the fact that a lot of
the side characters in this are caricatures so they're so over-the-top
ridiculous that I would skim read anytime I saw their names on the pages
you got a little bit of this important project I keep comparing the two but
that's just my frame of reference for this with the characters of mr. and mrs.
Bennet they're a little bit caricature ish but I still really liked them and in
this those side character types were just silly to me and I got annoyed so
there's that the end of the day I still liked it but it didn't topple Pride and
Prejudice as I'm a fav Austen next I read dear Martin by Nick stone and this
we follow justice he is a seventeen eighteen year old I forget what exactly
it's like a high school senior living in Atlanta and one day he sees his
ex-girlfriend who is visibly drunk and he decides to help her out and a police
officer sees misinterprets the situation basically assaults justice puts him in
handcuffs and even after other people show up to the situation they're like
hey officer you clearly have misinterpreted what's
going on we know these people we know it's happening he's not a criminal the
officer still leaves him in handcuffs for hours which unfortunately is not an
uncommon occurrence in the United States when it comes to black boys and black
men and so from there justice is forced to re-examine some of the own
assumptions that he had held about his own experience as a black man in the
world and about prejudice and the way he tries to process that is by writing
letters to Martin Luther King jr. and trying to like embody dr. King I'm
really glad that I read this after listening to Nick Stone's episode of 88
cups of tea in which she talks about the fact that this book is specifically for
and targeted at reluctant readers and so a lot of stones writing choices and the
structure of the book itself is based around that it's a short book I think my
ebook was like 250 pages or there and then the format switches up a
lot so sometimes we have traditional narrative prose sometimes we have the
letters to dr. King and then other times it's just like back-and-forth dialogues
as if you were reading a play and that was an intentional choice which I think
ultimately will make the book more accessible to people who are not avid
avid readers I think if you are an avid reader you might say that it's a
slightly simpler book than you would ideally want that you would want more
time with characters and so going in and expecting that I still really really
likes the book next I would echo by pen munos Ryan and this is historical
fiction and it's a middle grade children's book which I did not know
when I started listening to it on audiobook I was like why is this
language so simple I'm just a dingus and didn't realize what was going on I
thought it was a sweet story we follow three different characters from 1930s
Germany one from 1930s Germany one from Pennsylvania in the early third late
30-something thirties I think it well and then a mexican-american girl living
in California during the early 1940s during the early time of the war all of
their lives are affected when there's one particular harmonica appears in them
so it's a story about music and family and using music to overcome struggles
and it was really cute I found that the way was structured left basically three
cliffhangers for the first story second story third story and then a little too
quick and meat of a beau at the very end something that I discovered about myself
during reading this book which also happens to be one of the issues that I
had while reading it is that I am NOT a big fan of harmonica music I can like a
little bit of it like a little harmonica I don't like a lot of harmonica and the
audiobook of this I don't know if I said that I listed at the audiobook but
that's how I read this the audiobook has a lot of cool music elements and it has
a lot a lot a lot of harmonica and by the end I was like I cannot listen to
any more harmonica I just can't do this and so that kind of detracted from the
reading experience so there you go next I read chain city by Fonda lead this is
the first book of a new epic fantasy series it's so so good I loved
so much fun reading it this is like a mix of martial arts and gangster stuff
and a compelling family drama with incredibly complex characters and also
magic stuff and it was just great I filmed a spoiler-free review of this
which is gonna be going up pretty soon ish I'm not sure exactly what I'll have
it scheduled but it's filmed and edited and ready to go so it's going up
eventually this follows the four grandchildren of an aging patriarch of a
clan of elite Jade warriors which is basically like this big ol crime family
set in a city it's epic fantasy so everything is fictionalized but it's
clearly inspired by East Asian culture and in this world there are elite highly
trained warriors who have the ability to harness powers from Jade which in this
world is magical and only some people can harness the Jade but there is a new
drug that allows non trained non innately Jade wielding capable people to
harness the power of this Jade and it starts a kind of gang war over it and
it's so good it's so complex I just loved it and lastly I read win which by
susan dennard this is book one of the which lens series which is why epic
fantasy I was planning on reading wind which which is book 2 and I picked it up
and I was like I don't even know what's going on and then I remembered oh my
friend Maddie from the book pusher you should subscribe to you because she's
great she had mentioned that I should probably read the last few chapters of
truth which to try and get my bearings a little bit and so I tried to do that and
I was like I don't know what's going on still and then I tried to look up some
synopses online and I was like this is a lost cause and so I just did the damn
thing and picked up the first book and I really thought I did cuz I had so much
fun rereading this I clearly did not remember anything I really enjoy this
series it's set in a world as bunch of different kinds of witches so there are
certain witches that can like control elemental powers there are certain
witches that can sense the truth like this there's just a bunch of different
cool types of witches about super in two weeks I love what she stuff and the
other thing that I love is that this really emphasizes female friendship and
I'm so here for them I love it when books do that it's just a really fun
solid white fantasy so that's it all the books I read so far
in as of the 26th I know what Davis
definitely I'm not guessing thanks so much for watching if you like this video
give it a thumbs up hit subscribe to see more my face you can find me on Twitter
at possibly lit and on Instagram it possibly literate and I'll see you next
time
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