June 2023 Reading Wrap Up

 Well June...it was not a good reading month I have struggled to give my attention to anything and really even finishing off something that I started was a bit of a task so...

                                                             eBooks

Audiobooks

February 2023 Read Wrap: An Audiobook Only Month!

I only ended up reading audiobooks this month. I made a mistake with my buddy read so that ebook didn't happen but I did manage to read more than a book a week which is very exciting! I didn't do any reading during February half term becasue I was too busy with life admin and I've also been trying to catch up on Oscar nominated movies I haven't seen yet. Overall, what I'm trying to say is that, although this wrap up is short, I'm happy with it!

November 2022 Reading Wrap Up: Netgalley and Nonfiction November

 November wasn't a bad reading month for me but everything I read seemed to be very long and so in terms of getting to the things that were actually on my TBR it wasn't great but in terms of reading Netgalley and Nonfiction reads it was great!

Physical Books

Audiobooks

Review: London With Love by Sarra Manning

London. Nine million people. Two hundred and seventy tube stations. Every day, thousands of chance encounters, first dates, goodbyes and happy ever afters.

And for twenty years it's been where one man and one woman can never get their timing right.

Jennifer and Nick meet as teenagers and over the next two decades, they fall in and out of love with each other. Sometimes they start kissing. Sometimes they're just friends. Sometimes they stop speaking, but they always find their way back to each other.

But after all this time, are they destined to be together or have they finally reached the end of the line?

Review: Firstly can we just take a moment to appreciate this stunning cover? I just adore it and I love all the insight it gives the reader into the transport theming of this book. I love underground systems in different cities and have spent some time just exploring the London underground and so I really appreciated the fact that each chapter in this book was themed to a different station on a metro subway network-genius. 

I also love a dual narrative and a book that dips in and out of characters' lives over a longer period of time and so this book was just perfect for me. It revisits Jen and Nick over the span of 20 years. The pacing of this novel was spot on because each time you leave one time frame or one character you’re desperate to get back to them and get back to see what their reaction was to the last thing that happened to them. 

I loved getting to meet Nick and Jen because they are both very relatable and both have their own fully formed lives and thoughts and feelings but they're not perfect and I think that’s what made them so relatable. I didn’t always like them or support their choices but I was intrigued by them and by their relationship and they definitely made for a page turning read!

I did part of this book in eBook form and part in audiobook and I enjoyed both formats. As previously mentioned, I loved the idea of each chapter being the name of a metro station in one city or another and this worked really well in the eBook because of the illustration around the name of the station. I will say that you had to be listening closely with the audiobook not to miss the name of the station but the narrator definitely helped to identify which character we were currently visiting with. I enjoyed this book and I do recommend it. 

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US

August 2022 Reading Wrap Up

August was a great reading month for me. I listened to audiobooks during road trips in the car, had the time and the headspace to sit down and read not only eBooks but physical books too AND I attended a ton of book events which always motivates more reading. 

So here's everything I read. I'll also include my videos with some of the reading processes for you to see. 

eBooks

Physical Books

Audiobooks

My Videos

June 2022 Reading Wrap Up-Pride Reads and Audiobooks

June was a longer reading month for me because I wanted to incorporate all of May half term in there. I had some very specific reading in mind this month and I'm happy to say that I'm really pleased with my reading this month. I've achieved most of my goals!

Ebooks

Audiobooks

Review: Get Rich or Lie Trying Symeon Brown

Discover the truth about the billion-dollar online economy that made the internet's best known stars

Being an influencer is now the top future career choice for children. What if you could spend your life adored by fans, receiving freebies and countless riches. What if you could bypass the worst job market for generations?

But as Symeon Brown explores in this searing expose, the reality is much more murky. From YouTube pranksters in LA to Brazilian butt lifts, from pornographers on OnlyFans to fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes, these are the stories that lurk behind the filtered selfies and gleaming smiles.

Exposing the fraud, exploitation, misogyny and environmental destruction at the core of the influencer economy, Get Rich or Lie Trying asks if our online race for fame and riches is costing us too much. A revealing window onto a broken financial model that often resembles a pyramid scheme, this incredible blend of reportage and analysis will captivate and horrify you in equal measure.

Review: I didn’t really have any expectations going into this book, which is sometimes the best way isn’t it? I knew that I wanted to hear what this writer had to say about the influencer economy, living so much of my own life online as I do, but I had an open mind about what else they were going to throw at me. I feel like I learned quite a lot from this book, some about brands I had heard of and others from a world that was completely new to me. 

There were a couple of sections of this book that didn’t appeal to me as much as others, but that's the great thing about nonfiction that’s broken into sections like this, I could skip over the end of a chapter or two and still be connected to the text. I think I expected a broader look at more brands and more corners of the internet and what I got was a deeper look at a few choice brands in key areas. I did like that though because it meant I got to learn more about people/brands I hadn’t heard of. 

I didn’t expect as strong a message of the fact that the influencer economy, like so much of the world, is incredibly misogynistic and led by the male desire and patriarchal rules. I like the way this book exposes that by looking at particular money-making schemes and ways people can grow their brand quicker that are just more successful and an easier way to live life if people are exploited along the way. This book was definitely uber depressing in places and showed just what a raw and cut throat world influencer culture is. I enjoyed this book on audio, although it would have been good to be able to skim the chapters of a physical book beforehand to see what appealed to me first.

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US

Guest Review: The 12 Days of Christmas by Poppy Alexander

The most magical time of the year...

For the first time in ten years, Freya is back in the little village of Middlemass for Christmas. The streets might be twinkling with fairy lights, but after the recent loss of her mother, she's never felt less festive.

Forced to sleep under the same roof as her handsome neighbour Finn, Freya realises she's going to need a distraction - fast! So she sets herself a challenge: to cook the '12 Days of Christmas'. Her delicious food soon brings the villagers together, and as each day passes, old friendships are renewed, memories stirred and there's even the flickering of romance...

She was only meant to stay for the holidays, but could Middlemass - and Finn - steal her heart forever?

Review: This is the first book from this author that I have read. I am always looking out for new titles and writers when it comes to Christmas books, and when this one was recommended to me, I was pleased to add it to my list. I purchased the audiobook, which kept me entertained on a long car journey this December. It proved to be a compelling story, that helped make the miles pass in no time.

The main female character in the story is Freya, who finds herself back in her home village of Middlemass for the first time in many years. She has been living in Paris, where she is a sous chef in the kitchen of a world-renowned but demanding Michelin-star chef. Time off at Christmas is strictly forbidden, but this year, it is imperative that Freya makes her way home for the most tragic of reasons - to see her dying mother one last time. Feeling completely desolate after her mother’s death on Christmas Eve, Freya bumps into old schoolfriend Finn, who offers her somewhere to stay. To give her something to occupy her mind, he suggests that she could apply her cooking skills to making a dish each day that follows the gifts in the 12 days of Christmas song. Day after day, she produces amazing food along the lines of the song, culminating in a large gathering for old friends on 12th night. As the days pass, there is a growing attraction between Freya and Finn, but she’s not sure if this could become a lasting relationship. 

This is a wonderfully uplifting and heartwarming festive story, beautifully told. The characters are all well-developed and they and the situations are completely believable. We meet Freya at one of the worst moments in her life, but she is lucky enough to meet up with Finn who is so gentle and wholly understanding of her needs. I found the whole story very moving and so much more than a simple Christmas romance. The concept of cooking dishes connected with the words of the song was brilliant, and a clever way of distracting Freya from her feelings of guilt over staying away so long as well as her grief. Of course, the descriptions of those wonderful dishes had my mouth watering all the way through the book, and how kind of the author to add the recipes at the end. I can definitely recommend this book; I shall be on the lookout for more from its author.

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US

Review: How to Save a Life by Lynette Rice

 More than 15 years after its premiere, Grey's Anatomy remains one of the most beloved dramas on television in the US and the UK. It continues to win its time slot and has ranked in the Top 20 most watched shows in primetime for most of its 17-season run. It currently averages more than 9 million viewers each week.

Now it's time to hear from the people who made the show happen.

A cultural touchstone, it introduced the unique voice and vision of Shonda Rhimes, it made Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh and T.R. Knight household names, and injected words and phrases into the cultural lexicon like 'McDreamy,' and 'you're my person.' And the behind-the-scenes drama has always been just as juicy as what was happening in front of the camera, from the high-profile firing of Isaiah Washington to Katherine Heigl's fall from grace and Patrick Dempsey's shocking death episode. The show continued to haemorrhage key players, but the beloved hospital series never skipped a beat.

Lynette Rice's How to Save A Life takes a deep dive into the show's humble start, while offering exclusive intel on the behind-the-scenes culture, the most heartbreaking departures and the more polarizing plotlines. It's the perfect gift for all Grey's Anatomy stans out there.

Review: I was sent a copy of this book for review but I bought a copy of the audio so that I could listen to this on my commute to work. I want to start out by saying that I think this book would be better enjoyed in either print or eBook form because the majority of it is done in interview style and the audiobook does not change narrators for each person being interviewed. The audiobook has one narrator and she does a great job but I think that at times it was harder to distinguish between who was being interviewed and just which question they were answering. The physical book also has photographs in it which were great to be able to flick through. Often audiobooks do have supplementary material but unfortunately this one did not. 

This claims to be a book for Grey's stans and I do think that it is a great companion to the long running series. I definitely had the desire to go back and start the whole thing from the beginning again whilst reading this book. The in depth analysis of how it got off the ground and where it all began is really good. I will say though, if you are a super fan, there will not be a lot of new information in here for you. A lot of the information focuses on the behind the scenes and the gossip side of thing, most of which came out in the tabloids or were mentioned on Shonda Rhimes's book The Year of Yes. Therefore a warning to all super fans out there that this will be a lot of repeated information. 

What this book definitely does give though is a sense of nostalgia and a look back at where the series has come from, the barriers it had to break and the way in which the beginning would look very different were it to begin filming now. I would have loved to have seen as much time and depth given to these later series as to the first couple of series, the way they are written about in the book because for me, the show has gone from strength to strength and I really love the things they are covering in these later series. The book does touch on the most recently completed series and how it deals with covid but I would have loved some more time spent on that and how challenging it was to create and write, never mind record during this time. 

Overall it was an enjoyable listen and definitely worth my time but I think it could be elevated to a great read with just some minor alterations. 

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US