is this going to be my BEST READING YEAR EVER?! 📚 Q2 reading wrap up

Hello, hello, friends. I am Megan. I read a lot of books, and we're gonna talk about them. I'm gonna talk about what I thought of all the books, well, actually, not what I thought of all the books, because all the books I ever read are in vlogs on my channel. So in my quarterly wrap-up, which is what I did today, we're gonna be recapping my last three months of reading. I tend to do reading stats, and then the worst, and then the best. We'll finish on a high note. But yeah, shall we just dive straight into it? We're talking about my reading for April, May, June. Oh my God, my mind went blank. My mind went blank. My reading for April, May, June, how it went. It's been a mixed bag, a little bit. So let's just dive into it. Let's talk stats, baby. How are we all doing? I'm hot. It's absolutely roasting out there, for one. I just turned my fans off. That's right, fans, plural. And I'm already overheating. Give me like one last burst. I haven't even filmed the other part of this video yet. This is the first thing I'm filming, guys. Oh my God. I feel like I often spend too long on the stats. And like, do you guys really care about my stats? So we're gonna whiz through these. I mean, some of you really care. You either really care about stats or you don't. If you really don't, you skip it. If you mid-care, I feel like sometimes I talk too much. So here we go. 22 books read this quarter. I just read Kayla's quarterly wrap-up, where she read 23 books a month. Listen, I'm slumping this year. I'm slumping in terms of the amount I'm reading. However, my average rating, the highest it's ever been. The highest it's ever been. So that's great. But yeah, each quarter I've had one really slumpy month. So January I read two books. And then my slumpy month this quarter was June. So I read seven books in April, 10 books in May, which I was like, look, I'm getting back to like my normal 10 to 12 books a month. Kind of, that's my usual level. And then June we're down to five because June was stressful. I think I read most of them in the first week of June and then barely read for the last three weeks. 6,942 pages read, which averages out to 76 a day. I would like that to be a hundred. For me, that's always like my magic number, an average of a hundred pages per day. Which is like, when you think about it, reading a hundred pages of your book every day, all the time, is amazing. When the girlies do like 75 piles, like one of the challenges is like 10 pages a day. You know, when you think about it like that. You know, everything's fine. We're all fine here. I'm not. I don't want to feel, I'm filming this at like three o'clock, but it's peak heat. Why am I doing this, you ask? I don't know. That averaged out to 315 pages per book, which I think last quarter was like 400, because I read a lot of long books. Whereas this quarter, it seems a bit more average. 3.7 average rating. I think it was 3.9 last quarter, but that's still high for me. I used to always have 3.7, then I think I went down to 3.6 average rating every year. So 3.7 and above is what we're looking for. So I'm happy with that. I'm happy with my average rating. And then the average amount of time a book had spent on my TBR was 13 months. That was long this month. I had this quarter, sorry. I read some books that had been on my TBR for like 50, 60 months. Kind of crazy. I was reading some real TBR veterans, and I'm going to keep doing so, because we have to get this TBR down. In terms of the genres I read, here they are. I read three contemporary, one fantasy, two horror, nine mystery, two non-fiction, one romance, one sci-fi, one thriller. A real variety. Every genre, but like 40% mystery. I just love mystery, what can I say? And then also sub-genre, four were mystery. Can I just say also, I don't think I read any like historical, books I showed as historical, but like sub-genre, 33%, a third of what I read, read, read, read, was historical, but just not historical as its genre. And in terms of how I read the books, two were via audio book, one was an ebook, nine were physical, and 10 were physical and audio tandem reading, which I'm fine with. I think keeping the mixture bit under 50% is a good place to be. It's a good place to be. Author status, it's literally always like a third, third, third for this. Seven debuts, five authors that were new to me, and 10 that I had read before. I like reading authors I'd read from before because it means I like them, so I want to read them again. In terms of where I cry the books from, so let's talk about ones that are from the TBR. Five were ones I'd bought from the TBR, 11 were gifted to me, and one was from a book box. And then I think the one I was sent by the publisher I read straight away, so let's not count that as the TBR. I read two from Audible and two books that I'd bought for video specifically. I read 18 adult books, three middle grade, guys. Isn't that crazy? Three middle grade and one YA. I can't remember the last time I read three middle grade. I might not have even read three last year. But one of the middle grades is in my top books of the quarter that I really, really loved. I read five books that were first in the series, five books that were partway through the series, and 12 that were standalone. And then the country that books were set in, 13 were set in the United Kingdom. I just read United Kingdom books now, guys. I just like books set in the UK. What can I say? I'm a girl from the UK, but I've noticed this year I've been reading far less books set in the US. Usually that is a predominance of my reading. I mean, I've gotta read the TBR, and God knows how many of them are set in the US. A lot of them. Those thrillers, the thrillers I fear are gonna be very Eurocentric. But 13 of the books I read this quarter were set in the United Kingdom, which I love. I'm a UK gally. Three were set in the US, and one was set in Iraq, and one was set in Italy. I didn't tell you my ratings. That's important, that's important. I had two 2.5 stars, five three stars, five 3.5 stars. My biggest was four stars with six of them. And then I had two 4.5s and two fives, which I would like the fives to be higher, guys. I've only had three this year. I need seven more. I need to somehow, in the second half of the year, more than double my five star output, because I have never had a year where I have only, I've had less than 10 five stars for my top 10 books of the year. I've never had it. I can't even imagine that. So we must get that up. But my average rating is good. Like, I've really not had many low-rated books this year. Very, very few and far between. So a lot of the books I'm reading are like four stars and above, really, on average. Hence the 3.7 average rating. But yeah, that's that. Okay, we will stop to do that. I'm gonna take a break in front of my fan, and then I'm gonna go film the rest of this video. So let's get into it. Okay, time to talk about my worst books of the quarter. I've gone with three that I'm gonna mention. I haven't got a full five, because one of my 2.5s I can't tell you about yet. It would spoil an upcoming vlog. And I just don't like spoiling upcoming vlogs. I don't like, you know, giving you a little sneak peek. I don't like spoiling it. You gotta go on the journey. So one of my 2.5s is a vlog you'll see next week. And then I've picked two of my threes that were most disappointing. And not all of my three stars feel like they're worthy on being on this list, but some of them are. Some of them are. So number three, the first of my three stars that I'm gonna talk about is How to Kill Men and Get Away With It by Katie Brent. I'm gonna be honest. I think I read this in April. It's left my mind. I don't remember, love. I don't remember at all. I really don't. It was an awful long time ago. This is so, I put this on the list because it is so beyond forgettable. We're following an influencer who, like, starts killing men and getting away with it. And it's kind of this, like, darkly humorous satire. It's supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be ridiculous. It's the kind of book you read on holiday. It's the kind of book you read on an airplane. You pick up in the airport and go, why not? There's not a lot of substance to it. Was it a bad time? No. Did I have a bad time? No. Has anything from this stuck with me? No, I can barely remember the plot. And I read it like two, three months ago. That shouldn't be the case. It shouldn't be the case. I am a little bit picky when it comes to portrayal of influencer portrayals in books. And that's not because I am a quote unquote influencer. Let me say it again. I don't, you know, I would feel this way if I didn't do this as my job. But it's just that it's often done in the low, you know, cheap ass, low budget way. Don't ever call me again. You are a low budget bitch. They don't do any research into how an actual influencer's career would work and how they would make money because they think they know. The author thinks they know and so they do zero research. And I didn't feel like it was done particularly well in this book. It's just forgettable. I would not recommend you picking this up because nothing about this book is gonna stick with you. On the other hand, my second place for worst book, it sticks with you. It sticks with you. It's also trying to do a kind of dark humor thing. And that is Victorian Psycho by Virginia Fato. I was so disappointed by this one because I had high hopes. This is a horror book. We're in Victorian, as you can guess, Victorian times. And we're following this woman who is a nanny to kids and where she's just gone to this new home to be a nanny. It's taking some big swings, which I do appreciate often. You know, swings must be taken. But I feel like it's taking the big swings, how to put this, like to be edgy. In case you haven't noticed, I'm weird. I'm a weirdo. And cool rather than being like the author being a true sicko. You know what I mean? I think if you're doing what this book is doing, it's very gruesome. It's very gory. It's very balls to the wall. It's like gratuitous violence to like a lot of helpless beings, be that animals, be that children. Like there's a lot. There's also gratuitous violence to adults, but like that's not as much. I don't have much of a problem with that. When it was animals or children, I hate it. I hated, hated, hated reading it. And it just never felt truly earned. It never felt like, yeah, it just felt like they had forsaken it to the shock value of it, you know? I think the author is a good writer in terms of their prose. I think there is a lot of potential there. And you kind of know the direction the book's gonna go in. Nothing shocked me, nothing surprised me. Maybe there's one reveal that is maybe okay, but the rest of it was just disappointing. So yeah, I'm sad about it because I did have high hopes. And then my worst book that I read this quarter, sadly, is a book that's been on my TBR for years and years, and it's probably like 60 months we're talking here. And all that time, I was still excited to read it. Some books on this TBR I look at and I'm like, not, I'm not as excited to read that as I once was. This, my excitement always held, and it disappointed me. And it was And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtogich. This is a horror book, a YA horror, where we're following two sisters who are going to stay with their aunt. And because things have gone wrong at home, kind of off page, and then they go to their aunt and things start going wrong there, and the trees are creeping in, and like people's mental health and stability is not all there. But this is told in a way where you feel like a bit like you're in a hallucination. You're not, things happen without you seeing them happen, and you're kind of learning through bits and pieces as to what state some people are in or what's happening to some people. If you ask me to break down the plot of this book to you, I'm not sure I could. I can't remember. I can remember the beginning. I can remember the reveal of what's happening. I can't remember all that middle section because I don't feel like a lot happens. It's just this kind of like messy hallucination where people are like trying to figure out what's going on. And the reveal. The reveal. Outrageous. When I tell people who don't mind being spoiled, do you know what? Let me just, I'm just gonna, okay. Spoilers. Spoilers on screen. Click ahead for when there's no spoilers. Okay, I'm gonna spoil this book because you'll be like, this is the kind of thing you write when you're a child and you want to write a crazy book. At least that was for me. This is what I wrote when I was a child and I was doing creative writing. I'd either like, it would either be, it was all a dream or it'd be this. So the whole book is kind of like, there's like timelines looping on itself and things happening again or things happening off screen that we have to learn what's happening, yada, yada, yada. Turns out they were dead all along. They were dead all along. They're dead the whole book. Death to all of them. Certain things only make sense once you realize they were dead all along and kind of like, re-living things and like, trying to get things right and trying to not die. And it just felt so, I was like, okay. You were dead all along. It didn't feel satisfying. Okay, end of spoilers. But yeah, very unsatisfying reveal, very unsatisfying ending. And it's so sad. Like, it's so disappointing because I was so looking forward to this. Okay, now let's end the video on a positive, talking about my best books of the quarter. We're gonna start, I've got five for you. We're gonna start with my standout four, then we've got my two 4.5s and then we've got my two fives of the quarter. So my standout four that I really think a lot of you can enjoy is The Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery. This is a historical murder mystery where we're following this guy who's like a new member of staff at this stately home. People think the world's ending because there's the comet coming past. The lord of the manor decides we're gonna like board up all the windows and we'll all live. Everyone's got to board themselves in their rooms and then once the comet passes, we'll come back out. He's murdered in his study, in a locked, he's locked in and he's murdered in the study. And it is the new member of staff trying to solve the mystery alongside the matriarch of the family who's kind of been like forgotten about and like pushed into an old room and no one wants to remember her, but she's like super clever. A whole lot of personality. She's a super fun character to follow. And this is just like a really good murder mystery. It's a really good murder mystery. I think it's in the debut or it's an adult debut and it just feels assured. I felt, I had a fun time reading it. I liked the twists and turns. I love having a floor plan. It doesn't take a lot to win me over, but good God, I love having a floor plan. I really like the characters. I'm really looking forward to seeing, you know, where the series goes, following these characters to solve more murder mysteries. I feel like it's a series that I could really grow into. I also love the historical setting and I love someone getting murdered in a locked room study. Locked room study, put them together. You got magic, baby. Like I love, I love a murder in a study. I love a locked room murder. I love it. I mean, I'm so passionate about it. The reveal was fun. Everything about this worked for me. It wasn't quite a five star, but I think it's a super duper solid murder mystery. Okay, number four is my bottom, I guess, of my 4.5s. My mom has this. But let me tell you the story in a second. Problematic Summer Romance by Allie, my girl, Allie. My mom thought she hadn't read this. She reads every Allie. She loves Allie just as much as I do. And I was like, mom, I'm pretty sure you've read this. Like you read every Allie as soon as I get them. Like I can read them far before I did. And I was telling her to stop this, telling her to stop this. And she was like, I haven't read it. I haven't read it, she'd read it. She'd read it, but she still has it. I need to get it back off of her. This one is an age gap romance. That's why it's called Problematic Summer Romance. He is her brother's best friend and they're on vacation, I guess, or they're abroad for her brother's destination wedding. And like, maybe we had a little something, something going on, but maybe now there's something, something going on. And it's Allie. I don't need to say anything other than that. I love Allie. I've never given her less than a four. She's my favorite romance author. No one doesn't like her. I enjoyed the character dynamics. And this wasn't my favorite, no. Like I've got a lot of five stars for Allie. This wasn't a five star, but I had a great time with it. I had a great time, you know, seeing, I preferred this character's relationship to her brother's because that's a previous book, not In Love. I enjoyed the dynamics. I enjoyed, I loved, not just enjoyed, I loved being in Italy on vacation. I love Italy. And so a book, a romance book set in Italy and just in the sun and by the sea, everyone's getting gelato and pasta, like, oh, just like the beautiful setting. Oh, I love it, I love it, I love it. So yeah, I mean, it's a romance. I don't have a ton to say about it, but I had a great time. Sorry, I'm just taking a break. Guys, it's so hot. Scully's in the cupboard over there, like ******* baking, it's so hot. Okay. And then my favorite 4.5 that I read this quarter was Gumshoe by Brenna Thumler. I've spoken about this book quite a lot lately, so I won't bore you too much, but this is a middle grade graphic novel by Brenna Thumler, who is my favorite, probably one of my favorites. Tara, like Alice Oseman, are my favorite graphic novel authors. And it's this girly who like is obsessed with male and wants to be a post, post woman? Post master, post mistress? She loves post. And she, for multiple reasons, like a confused situation ends up going on the run with this group of like runaways, children, fellow children, runaways. And they're trying to stop two gum Tilly who's stealing mail by them stealing the mail first, and then they re-deliver it. That doesn't make no sense. And it's just so fun. It is gorgeous. It is so pretty. Like, oh my God. Just the art style and the colors is just so lovely. And the story is so lovely. And the characters are so lovely. And I just love Brenna Thumler's stories. She wrote the Sheets graphic novel series, if you don't know. And I think this is my favorite in terms of the color palette and like the beauty of it, reading it. I love her art style. You know, there is some suspension of disbelief in this required. It's got kind of like Scooby-Doo logic. At times, there's things that obviously you realize as an adult reading it that maybe a child wouldn't. But I'm excited to maybe introduce this to kids in my life. I think it's so fun, so beautiful. I just love the yellows and the pinks and the blues. I can't go over how beautiful it is. And I just had a great time reading it. I just loved it. It's just wholesome, fun, funny, silly. It's everything like a middle grade graphic novel should be. And then we have my five stars. Coming at number two, this is hard because these are both standouts. But coming number two, we have Murder on the Rocks by T.E. Kinsey. Number like 13 in the Lady Hardcastle series. And this is our first closed circle, isolated murder mystery. We are trapped on an island and our murder archives on everyone is trapped in this island. I love it. We get invited by their friend to spend a weekend. Oh, it's Lady Hardcastle and Flo. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You all know this. I don't need to give a spiel about Lady Hardcastle's life. But they get invited to their friend's renovated Tudor fort with some other of his friends and stuff and murder occurs. And this was a really great one. I mean, they're all great. This is a great one in the installment. I can't believe I've caught up. I can't believe I've caught up on Lady Hardcastle and Flo. It's just a great installment. I loved it being the first take on a closed circle, isolated, because that is just my favorite thing in the world. And just like the banter is great. I think the wider cast of characters that we're with, sometimes the Lady Hardcastle book, I kind of tune out some of the suspects and I'm just like with Lady Hardcastle and Flo and having the best time. But I thought our wider cast of characters and wider cast of suspects were really strong in this. I thought the reveal was really strong. I just had the best time. I just, I just, listen, listen. I just love her. I love this series. T.E. Kinsey, what a man you are, my word. Like, it's so good. I am fearing like we're getting close to World War I and I don't want this to stop. It can't stop. Lady Hardcastle and Flo can't stop. So what are we gonna, are we gonna like write books? I mean, these are jolly and silly and fun. I'm not sure he's gonna set them during World War I, but I guess we'll see. I guess it's gonna still happen. I just love them. I don't know how much I can tell you. They're my ******* girls. And I had so much fun spending time with them in this installment. And then number one, my best book of the quarter is The Names by Florence Knapp. Whoa, this is some book. This is some book. So we are following the lives of one boy if he was given three different names. So we open up, it's in Suttinghamston. His mother is taking off to name him. His dad is incredibly abusive and wants him to be named after him. The mother has a name that she wants to give him. And in another timeline, she asked the daughter, what would you name him? And the daughter has a name that she would give him. And then we follow them like every seven years at each name, basically, in installments. This is an incredibly, incredibly intelligent book, insightful book. It says so much about like life and the joys of life and the shittiness of life. I was incredibly emotionally invested, particularly with the mother. I think my favorite timelines were very much determined on by what happened to the mother in the timeline. It's also, this is hard reading, right? Like we're dealing with severe, incredibly violent domestic abuse. And the huge ramifications that that has, in different ways, right? We explore the ramifications for these children, for him and his sister, in different ways in each timeline. But it was just so well done. There were also like reoccurring moments or things or butterfly effects, one could say, in the different timelines that really brought it together. This feels like a book that only comes around every so often. You know, this isn't your bog standard, you know, formulaic ----. This is really special and really unique and really, yeah, like once in a moment, you know? I loved it. I can't encourage you guys to read this enough. It is gorgeous, but horrible. It's those two things at the same time, right? And it shows, I don't know, I think it holds up a mirror to so much. And I loved the kind of checking in every seven years. I really liked the structure of that. That gave and the comparisons you could have between the timelines. I loved it. It was incredibly emotional, incredibly heavy hitting, but so well done. Okay, everyone, that is my quarterly wrap up for Q2. We are halfway through 2036. Don't talk to me about it. Don't talk to me about being halfway through 2036. That's crazy. Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you're all doing well. Let me know how your reading went this quarter. Did you have any favorite reads? Do you have any standout reads? Do you have any reads you hated? Let me know any stats you wanna give me. I love reading about them. So let me know. But yeah, hope, please, guys, I've been in a reading slump like a month, which is why there hasn't been a lot of reading vlogs. So I just really need your energy to get me out of this reading vlog. Also, just like last moment, for any of you who are still here, if you have any tips for getting out of a reading slump, did I say reading vlog before? I don't know what I said. Any tips for getting out of a reading slump, I need that right now. Sorry, I'm probably really sweaty. You don't wanna see that. I need tips for getting back into a routine. When reading, my routine is out of whack. I am not reading. I'm trying. I'm trying and I want to read. The desire is there. I want nothing more than to read. I want nothing more than to read, but it's just not happening. Or I'm not reading at the speed that I would usually despite feeling like I'm putting in the effort. Anyways, any tips would be greatly appreciated. I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.