Welcome back everyone! Now that we are all caught up in discussing my previously read books of the year, we can keep up each month now, starting with my May reads. Find a seat and something warm to drink, or cool, since the weather is getting warmer, and we can get into it.

**I stare at the books that I piled on my table. Wow. I actually read a decent amount this month. Well, I did read three or four books by mid-May, so no wonder the stack is a bit taller. I wonder what it will be like next month.**

The first “book” I finished this month was actually one I picked up for free comic book day. I had no idea that was coming up, and I never participated before, but I was at a store that was giving them out, so I decided to grab a few. The one I read was Unico: Awakenings. This was a short snippet of the comic that will be coming out later. Seeing as this was only about twenty pages and not a full length story, I cannot accurately convey my thoughts. I did count it as a book read, because I did spend time reading it and there is a place on Goodreads for it, but I don’t have much to say. I did not love it, but it was only a short snippet, so who knows what the full comic will be like. 

The second book I read, and the first full length book, was Strawberry Fields For Never by Kate Watson. This one follows Jane, who is CEO of her own marketing firm, as she takes on a job to rebrand a southern farm. Unfortunately, the owner’s grandson does not want the rebrand and tries to get in her way. This is a closed-door, adult romance that was also independently published, so you should go check it out and support a smaller author. I have been trying to read more indie authors and give them a chance, so when I saw this one, I wanted to pick it up. As someone interested in marketing, I wanted to see what Jane would do with her marketing career and I loved the idea of a cute southern farm. I love episodes of shows that have a farm or small town episode, like the ones featured in the shows Monk and Psych. The verdict on this one is that it was just okay. I felt like I was a bit bored while reading this one and it felt like it took forever to get through. Mind you, it only took about five days to read, but it felt much longer. I just couldn’t really get behind this one, though I did enjoy the discussions on marketing and branding. This book ended up being a 3/5 stars for me.

The next book I finished in May was Again, But Better by Christine Riccio, a young adult contemporary, coming-of-age story. I love finding books, or any content really, about people who are unsure of what they want to do in life, especially when the characters are somewhere around senior year of high school or college since that is a time with a lot of big decisions. I feel like in so many stories, the characters have everything figured out, so it’s reassuring to see characters who are uncertain about what they may want out of life or are afraid of chapters in their life ending and getting older. I would love to do a post about this at some point, though I need to read more books like this first (any recommendations are appreciated!). Anyway, this book was one that I didn’t think I was going to love from the beginning, but I wanted to give it a try because I thought I would connect to it. To keep this from turning into a full review, I will say that I didn’t love this. I did not really care for any of the characters. I thought Shane, our main character, was too quirky. I don’t mind weird characters, or ones that are slightly childish, because with Shane only being twenty, the age where you are just transitioning into adulthood, I understood why she was a bit more “immature,” but she was also just strange. She was always knocking over chairs which was so odd and never explained. I also felt no connection to the romance. Part 2 also seemed quite boring to me. If you’ve read this, you probably understand why I think that, and I found that I stopped caring even more. I also found the scheduling to be unrealistic. How did Shane and her friends have time to travel to other countries while being full time college students? It’s one of life’s great mysteries. Anyway, I rated this 3/5 stars. I think the ideas of Shane wanting a redo and not living her ideal college experience were really the only things that really made this book for me.

Next up, I read The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston. I have been hearing amazing things about this author’s adult romances, so I wanted to give them a try and I actually liked this one. I liked Florence as a character and found her to be the perfect amount of quirky to me. I also enjoyed Ben’s character. I was not obsessed with the romance, but I know the only reason for that is because it’s with a ghost. I think knowing that the love interest was a ghost made it hard for me to really enjoy the romance, because when he was alive, I did see some connection between them and loved Ben even more (Not a spoiler. All of that is in the first chapter or two or in the blurb). I liked the small town aspect and thought this was a fun book. I do wish that there was a bit more to the story though. I feel like we weren’t always doing anything, so I wish there was a bit more to make the book feel like it had more content. Reading this book also made me realize how much I don’t like the trope of the main character who stops believing in love. I have read a few others like this, at least one that I can remember, and I find that it is never fully justified in my head, which makes the issue seem less serious than what it is made to be. I ended up rating this a 3.5/5 stars, and am interested to see what other adult romances Ashley Poston has put out.

After I finished The Dead Romantics, I picked up Just A Friend by Deb Goodman. I got this at the same time I bought Strawberry Fields For Never, and it is another closed-door indie romance. Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me (did not finish). I just could not get behind this one. It was only 235 pages, but I had to stop at page 71. I was just really bored and I couldn’t get into the story. The characters also felt immature for being in their early thirties. I thought this would be a cute romance, with puppies and milkshake meet-ups, but I just couldn’t get into it and didn’t think I would enjoy it any more if I continued. Seeing that I didn’t finish it, I did not give this a rating.

After DNFing Just A Friend, I wanted to choose a book that I knew would be a quick easy read or one that I thought I would enjoy, so I decided to read Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West. Kasie West is an author I have read from for many years, and her books are great if you are looking for a quick, cute read. They are an amazing palette cleanser in that sense. Listen to Your Heart follows a girl named Kate who loves the lake, but her parents want her to explore new options, so she lets her best friend rope her into taking a podcast class in school. Kate ends up being chosen as one of the hosts of their podcast, which is about giving advice, and starts to give advice for a boy about his crush. I thought this was a pretty solid book. Kasie West always writes cute, fun books and this was no exception. Something I really enjoyed about this one was the idea of finding something new to love, or realizing that things may not turn out as you expect them to. I would say that this is one of the author’s better works and I recommend checking this one, and her other books, out. I rated this book 3.5/5 stars.

The final book that I finished reading in the month of May was The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson. If you have read my review for one of her latest works, Promchanted, then you would have read that I really love her books. Promchanted wasn’t my favorite, but Morgan Matson is still one of my favorite authors, and The Unexpected Everything is my favorite of her books. To help you understand how much I love this book, this was my fourth time reading it, which is an obscene amount for someone who never rereads. I read this twice in 2016 when it came out, again in 2022 when I reread all of her books, and again in May. This reread actually branched from wanting to fully annotate one of my copies. By one of, I mean that I have three copies of this book, another testament to how much I like this one. I have a lot of thoughts on this one, so I think I will save my thoughts for a review to come in June, so stick around for that. 

That concludes my May wrap-up. Let me know what books you have read in the month of May or your thoughts on any of the ones I read, and stay tuned for my June TBR coming on soon. I’ll see you then.

xoxo,

Just another reader