Reading Wrap-Up — April 2026

追加: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Hello friends, and welcome back. Today we're going to be discussing everything that I read in April, and fair warning, it was really not very much. I was traveling for at least a third of April.

[00:00:08]I was not in my home, I was traveling.

[00:00:10]And sometimes when I travel, depending on where I go or what I'm doing, I still have plenty of time to read. So, like when I went on the Joco Cruise, I still was able to get in at least an hour or two of reading every day, so I was able to still do some reading. This trip that I went on that was like 11 days long, I did not have a single moment of reading that entire time that I was gone. So, my reading this month was much less than other months. But I think it's still worth doing a reading wrap-up. Even though I read less this month, I still read some really good things that I wanted to tell you about. And I think it's also good to acknowledge that sometimes I don't get to read as many books as I want. I feel like when I post reading wrap-ups at the end of the year or even at the end of the month, I often have people commenting and like, "Oh, I how do you get to read so much? I wish I could read this much. I wish I had time to read this much." And I think it's important to note that sometimes I don't have time to read as much as I want to, and that is okay. Before we get started, I do want to say a quick thank you to the sponsor of my channel, Allplay. More on them in just a moment. But in the meantime, grab yourself a tasty beverage, get comfy, and let's talk about some books. Okay, so first up, I want to talk about The Far Away Inn.

[00:01:02]This is by Sarah Beth Durst. Now, I will say this book was actually really not on my radar. I haven't been reading as much cozy fantasy lately as maybe I did in the past, and I think that's because I realized that I have to give myself space in between the cozy fantasies that I read because a lot of cozy fantasy out there can kind of start to feel a little samey to me, but I still love the genre, right? So, the way I found to combat the fact of feeling like kind of like I'm reading the same thing over and over is that first of all, I try to look for cozy fantasies that are a little bit different in some way, that have some sort of like thing that makes them just a little bit extra special. And also, I take pretty large breaks in between each cozy fantasy that I read. This was actually not on my radar at all, and I was reached out to by a local Barnes & Noble here in Orlando, and Sarah was coming to the store, and they asked if I wanted to do like a live Q&A with her before she did her book signing, and I said, "Yeah, that sounds great. I'd love to do that." So, in the week leading up to us meeting and having that panel or Q&A or in discussion with, whatever you want to call it, I read this book, and I'm really glad that they reached out to me. Not only because Sarah was a delightful, and it was wonderful to get to talk to her, and everybody that came to that talk was absolutely wonderful.

[00:02:02]It's just a great experience altogether.

[00:02:04]But I also like really enjoyed this book a lot. Right off the bat, what I feel like made this a little bit more special was that it is a young adult book. And a lot of cozy fantasy is aimed at adults.

[00:02:14]And I think there's a few different reasons for that. I think a big part of it is that a lot of cozy fantasies deal with like what happens when the adventure is done. Or even more so, a lot of cozy fantasies deal with like retirement, keeping your life exciting and whimsical even after you retire from the big battles and adventures, right?

[00:02:30]Like that is where cozy fantasy lives a lot of time is in those spaces, which are just generally going to be more geared towards adults. But this is young adult, and it deals with a character who just got through a bad breakup, and so for her summer, she goes to stay with her aunt, and her aunt lives in this inn, a far away inn, which I believe is in Vermont. And she goes there, and she's like, "Listen, I have nothing to do with her summer. I'm happy to help.

[00:02:50]The inn is a mess." She went there when she was younger, but now she's there, and it just is a mess. She's like, "Let me let me help you run this place. Let me help you get it back together. I've got all this energy, I got nothing to do. Let me help." And her aunt is like staunchly like, "No, you need to go home.

[00:03:02]You're not welcome here." So, of course this girl kind of like works her way into getting to stay there a little bit longer. And the longer she stays there, the more she finds out that this inn is not just any inn. It is actually like a very special inn with some magic, and there's some there's some things going on here. And I think there are a few things that I loved about this.

[00:03:16]Obviously, this is special because it is very like whimsical and magical, and it has very like Studio Ghibli vibes. But I also love really the core themes here of this book are dealing with asking for help and offering help. So, on one side, it's talking about how some people it's really hard for them to ask for help, and it's really hard for them to accept help. And even when like everything that they know and love is crumbling around them, they have a really hard time letting people help them. They just are so stubborn that way. And the aunt in this book is very much that way. Like she doesn't want help, she can handle it all her own, she's got it all under control. The inn is going out of business, mind you. It is falling apart, mind you. But no no no no no no, she's got it all under control. And on the other hand, we have our main character.

[00:03:54]I think her name was Kalista, and she is like this character that just like always offers help. She always wants to help others, and I think it's really cool. First of all, to see a young person that is just always willing to help and is looking to make the world a better place, and is looking to do whatever she can, even when she doesn't have the skill set to help in the way that she wants to help. Early on in the book, she accidentally like breaks the porch, like she steps through it cuz the wood is weak. And she wants to help rebuild it. She doesn't have the skills to do that or any means or way to do that, but she you know, she wants to help. And I think that's really lovely.

[00:04:21]There is also a little bit of romance here. It's a YA book, so no spice or anything like that. I wouldn't say that, except there are some weird people out there. I'll be very clear, this is a young adult book, and they'll still be like, "Is there spice? No. This is young adult book, you weirdo. There's no spice in it." That's a weird question to ask about young adult books. Please stop doing it. But anyway, there is a very cute like little romance story in this book as well. I also really appreciate that you know, I'm I'm not going to spoil too much. I'm going to try to be very vague here, but there are magical creatures or magical peoples, I should say, staying at this inn. Magical creatures as well. Both of those words work in this case. I really appreciated that none of them were like what you would expect from magical creatures. It would have been very easy for Sarah to be like, "Okay, well, one of the people staying here is a werewolf, and one of them is a vampire, and one of them is ba ba ba ba ba." And Sarah really goes kind of above and beyond to make these magical creatures like their own thing.

[00:05:07]Obviously, they have some basis in things that we're familiar with, but they all feel like significantly different from your average run-of-the-mill magical fantasy creatures or fantasy peoples, and I really appreciated that too, because it made it more interesting to get to know who they were. I think if they had just been like a vampire or a werewolf or whatever, like when you learn that, you just like, "Oh, okay, well, I know everything I need to know now." But because they're like kind of these offshoots of these magical entities, learning about them is just more exciting cuz you're like, "What is this person? What is their deal? What is their magic? Where are they from?" And learning all of those things about the various characters is really really exciting here. I do think this still falls into the cozy fantasy tropes. It's you know, it's pretty low stakes. There are stakes, but for the most part, they're pretty low stakes. It is a very overly lovely, overly positive book that feels like a warm hug. I say all of that because if you're in the mood for that, I think you're going to love it. If you're looking for higher stakes or books with a little bit more tension, this might not be for you, and I think that's okay either way. I'm someone who sometimes is looking for one and sometimes the other. Sometimes I want something that is just going to stress me out to no end, which is why I would read something like An Ember in the Ashes, which is just like stressful from start to finish. And sometimes like life is really busy, and things are really hectic, and I need something that's just really like calm and peaceful, and this is the perfect book for that. I'm just really glad I read it. I like I said, I think sometimes I'm very fortunate in that my job talking about books and games on the internet sometimes offers me the chance to see or be put in touch with books or games that I may have just let fly under the radar and just not even like really checked out because there's just so many things out there.

[00:06:33]And sometimes a book will come my way because maybe I'm doing a promotion for it, or maybe you know, maybe I've been asked to do a discussion with it. And as luck would have it, it turns out that I end up just loving it. And that was what happened with The Far Away Inn. It was sort of like a happy accident that it was flung into my life, and then I got to read it because I ended up really really enjoying it. It was a great way to start my month, and it was one of my favorite books that I read this month.

[00:06:53]So, yeah, Far Away Inn. I know a lot of you are big Sarah Beth Durst fans because of The Spell Shop and her other works. She's written like 30 something books, which I had no idea. As far as I knew, I knew that she'd written like a trilogy that was not cozy, and then I thought she wrote The Spell Shop and that series that's kind of ongoing, and then this. That's all I knew. And as we were having this discussion at Barnes & Noble, she was like, "Yeah, I've written like 30 31 32, maybe 34." I can't remember the exact number. It was 30 something books, and I was like, "Whoa!

[00:07:18]That's bonkers bananas." And so now I want to read more of her work because I love her writing, but I also love that her writing seems to be very like varied. Like she's not just writing cozy fantasy, she's written some darker like more mature fantasy, she's written some epic fantasy. She's written cozy fantasy, and that makes me really excited to check out more of her work to see how she navigates those different genres within the fantasy like umbrella.

[00:07:38]So, yeah. Let me know if you've read this one or any of Sarah's other books, and what did you think? We interrupt this video for two very important updates. Number one, you look amazing.

[00:07:47]Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

[00:07:49]And number two, let's talk about our sponsor. Today's video is sponsored by Allplay, the makers of board games, tables, and shelves. And whether you're a board game fanatic or just getting into the hobby, Allplay has something for everyone. They've got strategy games, games about goats, word games, two-player games, fishing games, witchy games, and more, including a wide range of excellent games from the best partner publishers out there. They also make gorgeous yet affordable tables for any game night, and highly customizable shelves that let you choose which cube goes where. Shelves which are perfect, by the way, for both books and board games. So, whether you're on the hunt for excellent board games, shelves, or tables, head to allplay.com for all your gaming needs. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming, I guess. Next up, I read Age of Swords.

[00:08:30]This is the second book in the Legends of the First Empire series. Fair warning, I am going to talk about what I'm going to be reading in May, but that slide is going to look kind of empty because I really want to focus on getting through this series. I've started book three, I haven't finished it. This is probably a good time to tell you that well, no, I'll tell you later.

[00:08:44]I'll I'll tell you later. But I'm basically in the middle of two other books, one of them being the third book of this, and I contemplated waiting until I finish those to talk about my April reads, but I just don't think I'm going to have them done by by the end of April. So, they will be things I'll talk about next month. But I am really really really loving this series. In May, I have way more time to read, thank goodness. And I think I'm going to dedicate a lot of that time to just reading through this series because I really love it, and I really kind of just want to like barrel through it. And what I love about it, I I mentioned this, you know, last month when I talked about Age of Myth, this is the second book in the series. It really does feel like it's doing what Rings of Power or even like The Silmarillion is trying to do. So, it feels like The Silmarillion in that it's telling kind of the origins of the legends of this world. So, this takes place, this is by Michael J. Sullivan. It takes place in the same universe as The Riyria Chronicles, which I also love, but those take place like thousands of years later. And so, you can read them in either order, but you know, reading both series, there will be little fun little Easter eggs between them, but you absolutely don't have to read one to understand the other in any way, shape, or form. But it's really fun to see not just that world kind of come into being and the stories and legends of that world come to be, but just any world.

[00:09:50]What I discovered in this book is that I really like stories of characters and peoples kind of coming into like maturing as a a community. I'm trying to think of the best way to say this. So, let me explain what I mean and then maybe you guys can give me better wording for what I'm trying to say here.

[00:10:05]In this book, we watch a community of basically humans, dwarves, and elves, and then giants and some other things.

[00:10:10]They have different names in the book and they even have different names for each other just depending, but whatever.

[00:10:15]The human characters who are called runes in this book, they start out in book one very primitive, like very very primitive people. And in this book, you see one of the characters basically discover the wheel. And then you see another one of the characters discover like taking stories and putting them into a form of text so that they can be kept and retold for longer. We see a character discover the bow and arrow.

[00:10:37]And I realized as I was reading this, I really liked that. I really liked watching a people, a group of people discover technology. It kind of reminds me of like video games like Minecraft or like if you've ever played Civilization.

[00:10:51]Really, this book reminds me a lot of like a fantasy Civilization or Age of Empires or things like that. You're watching these people go from knowing like nothing. They know how to like build a hut and that's it. And you're watching them discover these little things that are giving them like tiny technological advances. And what's interesting about that is on the other side of this, you have the elf-like people who basically view the humans as like big old nothing burgers. Like one of the elves literally says they're like cattle. Like they have no respect for them. They think they're so incompetent.

[00:11:19]We don't need to worry about them.

[00:11:20]They're not going to fight us. They're nothing. They don't nothing. They're like they're nobodies. And then to watch these humans like slowly slowly start to grow and learn technology and improve themselves one step at a time. And on top of that, what I really love about this and ironically is the biggest thing that people are complaining about on Good Reads cuz after I finish a book I really love, I love to read the Good Reads comments, especially like the low ratings. I'm always so curious. Like when I love something, I'm so curious like what the other side of it is. And sometimes when I do that, I find really interesting points. Like, "Oh, I didn't I never even thought about that. That's such an interesting thing to think about." I love that like counterpoint moment where you're like, "Oh, I didn't think about that way." What an interesting way to look at this story.

[00:11:56]There are a lot of different characters in this book, but this book in particular, the main main characters and the ones that are really moving the plot forward are all really strong female characters. And I love that. I love seeing the big like main like plot A of this book is this chieftain's wife who has now become like the chieftain of her people. She and several other female characters along with a couple of dwarves, they go on this journey to like the dwarf kingdom to try and get the dwarves to give them swords so they can better defend themselves against the elves. And she takes with her her little entourage is all like strong female characters. The two dwarves are with them, but they're not really like central to the plot. They're kind of like side characters. At least they're not central to the plot yet. They might become central to the plot. But anyway, she brings these like really fantastic female characters with her. And one of them is like a mystic. One of them is the one that is discovering like how to write and how to like keep track of information. Another one of them is the one that discovers like the bow and arrow. And so, it's really cool to watch not only characters make these interesting discoveries that further the technology of their people, but I love that's all being done by like strong female characters. I think that's great.

[00:12:55]So, I mentioned the Good Reads thing because there are a lot of straight men who are very very angry because they correlate strong women making technological advancements with the author hating men. That's the correlation they make, which I think is so I say funny, the word is disgusting and gross, but it's also like funny in like a not funny way. Does that make sense? Anyway, it's all beside the point, but I say like to say like that was one of my favorite parts of the book and it's interesting to see that so many people were put off from the story because of how many like strong female characters there are. And the thing is like none of that strength feels unearned. Like you kind of watch these women going from being like the most unimportant characters in their village and kind of being sidelined by the men in the first book and kind of thought of as like nobodies and can't lead and aren't strong enough in the first book and you're slowly watching them just taking things into their own hands and they're becoming smarter by their own means and they're becoming stronger by their own means. You see the female character who comes up with the bow and arrow, she ends up defeating a man in combat and he is so sure he's going to win cuz he's the toughest, strongest guy in his tribe. And she shoots him with one arrow and that's it because she's the only person who has discovered bow and arrow so far. And that one advancement puts them leaps and bounds above like the strongest of the other tribes. And anyway, all of that to say it's really interesting to watch this little community growing and becoming stronger and smarter throughout this story. And so, I'm really excited to continue reading this series. This book also goes a lot deeper into the actual magic system of this world and I found that really interesting. In the first book, I found that magic is talked about quite a bit, but there was actually very little magic in the first book. And I that was something I actually loved about the first book was that a lot of times the big scary thing that we thought was magic the whole book ended up just being really like natural or very human and that was always like a fun surprise. But in this book, we are definitely learning more about the magic system here and it is deep and intricate and really interesting. So, I found that to be a great like shift from the first book of actually like diving into that magic system rather than kind of like sidelining it, which is what the first book did. I loved this. I give this five stars. Like I said, I'm really going to spend a lot of May just like reading through this series. I'm enjoying this a lot. But I worry like mini-series, if I put it aside for too long, I'm just never going to get back to it. So, I'd really like to read through the whole thing as soon as possible. So, I'm going to really devote a lot of May to reading this. The other interesting thing I'll mention about this and then we'll move on is I liked this so much that I was like I if I love a series or a book, I really want to own like the hard cover of it so I can like put it on my shelf and make it like all pretty. And I found out that the hard covers of this are like out of print. And so, I went onto the author's website and he would just happen to be selling like the final hard cover copies signed of these books. And he was selling all of them for like $10 each. What? So, I ended up buying all of them except one. There was one I couldn't get a hold of cuz they were out of it on the website. So, I bought all of those and then I found the one that I was missing at Powell's, which is I think in Seattle. Is that right? You guys can correct me if that's incorrect.

[00:15:39]It was a used copy, but I got it and it was basically like new. So, now I have like a full hard cover set of the books, which is really exciting. But also, now that I spent all that money on getting them, I need to make sure I actually read them.

[00:15:50]>> [laughter] >> So, this is going to be a big thing that I focus on in the next month. But have you read The Riyria Chronicles? Have you read The Legend of the First Empire?

[00:15:56]What are your thoughts? Feel free to let me know. I mentioned this in my TikTok or short of reviewing this book, but I feel like I have never seen anyone talk about these on BookTok. And that's not to say that they aren't because everybody's for you page is different, but I have never on my personal for you page seen anyone else talking about these. So, I would love to know that there are others of you out there who have read this series and enjoyed it as much as I currently am. Okay, so next up this is This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews. So, interesting story.

[00:16:22]This book just just came out. It's very new. It's funny cuz I don't typically read, especially in the past couple of years, I've stopped reading like super new books with a few exceptions here and there. And this month I actually read like two brand new books, The Faraway Inn and This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me.

[00:16:35]So, what's interesting about this is while I was at Barnes & Noble doing the talk with Sarah Beth Durst, while she was signing, I walked around the store and I looked at some books as you do and I came upon this book. And what struck me about this was that it was brand new, hard cover, beautiful, whatever. But also, I had just read, if you might recall, my first ever Ilona Andrews book I read last month, which was Magic Bites, which is part of the Kate Daniels series. And I really enjoyed it. So, to see a brand new book starting a brand new fantasy series from this author, I was like, "This is crazy timing. What a coincidence." And then I went on Good Reads just to check it out cuz a lot of times when I'm browsing books at the bookstore, I only have so much time. I only have so much time to read. So, I often like check reviews when I'm like at the bookstore to see if it's something I want to further investigate.

[00:17:16]And obviously, reviews on Good Reads can be very skewed for different reasons.

[00:17:20]So, I just used that as like a base point to kind of like be like, "How are people feeling about this?" This book has a crazy high review score. So, I was immediately like, "Oh, interesting." So, I decided to pick this up and I started to read it like basically immediately after I got it, which I also don't really do all that often. And what I discovered was a book that is just fantastic and I can't wait to see where this series goes. This is a portal fantasy very much in line with the isekai genre if you've ever read any manga or seen any anime that follow that trope. But essentially, this woman wakes up and she's like completely naked in a gutter and realizes that she has been transported from our world to a fantasy world. Even more interesting is that this fantasy world is the world from her favorite set of books. So, she in our world was in love with this series of books. It's a fictional set of books.

[00:18:03]And it was supposed to be a trilogy, but after two books, the author basically ghosted and never finished the trilogy, which you know, I I think we can all think of a very popular fantasy series or two where that has happened. So, she is now navigating this fantasy world which she knows a ton about because she's reread these two books over and over and over and over and over again.

[00:18:21]And now she is using the information that she knows about this world to navigate this world and basically to stay alive. She also finds out, this is not a spoiler because it happens in like the first chapter, that she cannot die.

[00:18:32]Well, she can die, but she comes back to life. So, this becomes a thing that is like a big part of this series is called The Maggie the Undying series and that's why. So, Maggie kind of starts from nothing and slowly uses the information she knows to work her way up in society.

[00:18:48]People think that she can like tell the future, that she has like magical powers because she'll meet someone for the first time and she'll be able to tell them everything about their family life and secrets that they don't think anybody else knows, but she of course knows because she's read the books. And we see her become kind of embroiled in the politics of this world, kind of get to know some of the like leading players and main characters of this world. She starts to come up with plans to keep the characters that she loves from having the horrible things happen to them. So, imagine if you got transported into Game of Thrones knowing everything that you know about Game of Thrones if you're a fan of the series and knowing who's going to die and win and then for your favorite characters trying to find ways to stop it. That is essentially what this book is about. And what's interesting, too, about this book, this is something I didn't mention in my short review of this, which I wish I had cuz a bunch of people in the comments were kind of obnoxious about. They're like, "It's just stealing from bur bur bur." It's not stealing. Like portal fantasy has been around for a long time and a new portal fantasy does not mean that it's just like stealing from other portal fantasies. It's just that we haven't had something new as big as this in America for at least a little bit, I feel like. I mean, there that could be wrong. There's always new books being published. What do I know? I should say this is a better way to say it. I have not read something new in the portal fantasy genre in the United States or like in English, a more western version of that kind of genre in a really long time. I've seen a lot of like anime and manga and stuff like that that is in this genre, but I haven't personally encountered anything that's more westernized in this genre for a while. I say all of that to say that what I also found really interesting is Maggie is very self-aware. Like she's very aware of the type of story she's in. I think she uses the word isekai to describe what is happening to her, right? She's aware of the genre tropes. She's aware of the type of story that she's kind of fallen into. And I also found that self-awareness to be really, really interesting, like a really interesting take on this type of story. Because most of the time when characters when this happens to them, they're not aware of what's happened to them. Sometimes they are. Like I guess I should say like I recently read Heretical Fishing, the first book of that, and that also had this like portal fantasy self-awareness vibe to it, and I really liked that. I don't like books where they go into like a very common fantasy world or something and they're not aware that that thing has ever existed. I always find that kind of weird. But here she's like very aware of the tropes and the mainstays of the genre that she has found herself in.

[00:20:58]I will say I get I think maybe my one complaint is it's hard cuz it is kind of a complaint, but it's also not. So, I do think towards the back end of act two of this book does go on a little bit longer than it should have. Like this book could probably have been edited down a bit. There did get to be a point where the back half of act two does start to drag a little bit. It's a pretty long book, actually. It seems deceptively short when you see it in the bookstore, but the font size is so tiny.

[00:21:22]It's actually pretty long book. And what I found was that towards the back half of act two, I was starting to feel like, "Okay, okay. Let's Okay, let's move it along." But at the same time, I didn't want it to end cuz I was having so much fun. So, it was kind of this mixed feeling where I was like, "Okay, well, from a structure standpoint," because you know, when I read books, I'm reading for the fun, I'm reading for the vibes, I'm reading for the story, but I also I'm like constantly thinking about what I'm reading. I'm thinking about character development. I'm thinking about structure. I'm thinking about writing. I'm thinking about the process.

[00:21:47]Like I can't break apart from all of that. Like I think about all of it when I'm reading anything. And when I was reading this, I remember thinking like, "This is so fun. I don't want it to end.

[00:21:54]I'm really enjoying this." But at the same time, like structurally, act two has gone on far too long.

[00:21:59]>> [laughter] >> We need to move it along. We need to escalate. We need to get into what's going to be the third act. And when it finally did, the third act of this book, I think, is good. I think it's fine. It I think I wanted a little bit more resolution, but of course, this is a series, so it's not all going to resolve in this first book, which makes a lot of sense. It was enough resolution that I was happy with the amount of resolution I got, but I also was like, "I wanted to know what was going on." I think when you read this, you want to know how did Maggie get here? Why is she here? What is the cause of her being here? Those are the important questions of an isekai type story, right? Like why are we here?

[00:22:31]What caused us to be here? What What was the inciting moment that got us to this world? And I wanted some hint of that.

[00:22:37]Like I had visions of like the author of the series that she'd fallen into like showing up as a character. That didn't happen. I had visions of her like getting a hint of like, "Oh, this is why I'm here." Or maybe like meeting another character from our world. And like none of that happened. And that's not a bad thing, but I kind of in my brain set my expectations, I think, a little bit too high for like what the resolution and climax of this book was going to be. And when those things weren't there, I was like, "Oh."

[00:23:02]>> [laughter] >> I was a little let down. I do still think the ending is really interesting.

[00:23:06]I think the third act is really epic and crazy and the things that happen, you're like, "Whoa, this is wild." But I wanted more information. I >> [laughter] >> I because I was just left like, "Oh, I need to know more." Especially knowing that this book just came out and we're probably not going to get another one in the series for at least a year, if not more. I wanted to know more, but I guess I'll just have to wait. I guess I'll just have to be patient, which I hate, but I'll try. I'll try. I'll try to be patient. I give this five stars. I loved this a lot. I thought it was great, and I highly recommend it. It was It was a really fun time, great characters, incredible world. You really get the sense that the authors, Iona Andrews, who I I recently found out is actually two authors. I just have been saying she, but it's actually I think it's a husband and wife. And what's so interesting is the world that Maggie is in, this book world, feels so real that it made me want to go back and read the books that she read that then she fell into, but they don't exist. They're fictionalized books. So, basically, these authors It feels like they wrote an entire like two-book series to be able to know all the things and the timelines and everything. And then they wrote another book on top of that within that book, which is really cool. Yeah, but it made me want to go back and read the original book they wrote, and it's not available. Maybe someday it will be, but right now it's not. So, I guess my complaint about this book is that I want more of it, which I guess isn't really a complaint. So, yeah, five stars. I loved it. It was really good. And then, of course, my Animorphs journey continues.

[00:24:16]So, I read two Animorphs books this month, Animorphs number seven, The Stranger, and then Megamorphs number one, The Andalite's Gift. So, Animorphs number seven was probably my favorite in the series so far. We get introduced to a new character that's called the Elimist. And this character reminds me of the Watchers from the Marvel Universe, if you're familiar with those at all. But it basically he shows up and he's like, "Hey, I can take you and your families to a planet where you'll be safe from the Yeerks. And all you have to do is like leave the Earth behind and say, 'Oh, well, I guess it's going to be taken over by Yeerks.' And in order to try and convince them, he shows these kids a possible future where the world has been taken over. They lost the war.

[00:24:56]And Rachel, who this book is about, we see a future version of her where she's like been taken over by the Yeerks, and so she now works for them. So, it's like a pretty bleak future. And we kind of learn that maybe the Elimist cuz the Elimist doesn't want to get involved, doesn't take a side, but maybe actually the Elimist is like in their own way trying to manipulate events to try and help these kids like fight harder. We're We're really not sure. But I really liked the way that this world is like expanding more. It was interesting to see one possible ending that might happen here. It was interesting to see how these kids handle a chance at basically like a get-out-of-jail-free card, like take you, take your family, get out of here, be safe on another planet where you can start over. And the kids essentially say no. Like we're going to stay here and keep fighting, which is pretty cool. Rachel as a character kind of stresses me out. She's very much the character that's like, "I'm going in. I'm going to do it." She like makes a lot of bold, crazy choices, very like stupid teenager choices of like, "I'm just going to go to the zoo in the middle of the night and touch a bear." Crazy.

[00:25:53]And so, she is a very stressful character to read because she's just a little too bold, and I want her to be a little bit safer. She's stressing me out. And then, Megamorphs is interesting. So, I really didn't know what to expect going into the Megamorphs series. I've talked about a lot how Animorphs feels like watching a serialized like Saturday morning TV show. So, I'm going to compare it to something like Digimon. I've compared this series to Digimon. I've compared it to Power Rangers, but I think it compares to Digimon the best. If the normal book series is like the regular episodes, then the Megamorphs are sort of like either season finales or like kind of offshoot movies. Like the Digimon movie would be like the Megamorphs of the Animorphs series. I don't think I phrased that right, but you get what I'm trying to say. So, Megamorphs is interesting because it is a slightly longer book than any of the Animorphs books. And whereas the Animorphs books each deal with the perspective of one singular character, in Megamorphs, we get the perspective of every single character. So, it like bounces between them between chapters.

[00:26:49]And I will say at some points that does make it a little repetitive cuz you end up seeing the same moment from different characters' perspectives, which is like a little annoying in a book that is still pretty short. Like I don't need to see this scene three times, but thank you. And in the book, the Yeerks have basically captured this scary monster that looks like a sand tornado type of thing, like a whirlwind. And it can detect when they're morphing, and then it hunts them cuz it can detect the energy that is put off when they're Animorphing, and then it can hunt them and try to attack them. At the same time, something happens to Rachel, she loses her memory. So, she's like on the run trying to figure out who she is.

[00:27:20]However, there's like this thing that's like hunting them that's like a sandstorm thing that like comes after them. And unlike the other Animorphs books so far, this book doesn't really add too much to the canon of the story.

[00:27:31]It is a fun adventure. It is much more action-packed than the typical Animorphs books. It is much lighter on the teen drama and the family drama and much heavier on the just action big moments, which is fun, sure. But what I love about the regular Animorphs books is they have like three acts, and the first two acts are really like family, teen drama, and then the third act is like some big moment dealing with like the Animorphs and this war between the Animorphs and the Andalites and the Yeerks. And this was just all like action, action, action, big moments, big moments, big moments. I don't know that I don't know. I say I don't know that it was necessary to read, but I also don't know that it was completely unnecessary.

[00:28:10]Like I think it was worth reading just for the story that it's telling and the kind of continuation of these characters. And it does kind of feel like the pinnacle of everything they've learned so far. Like you get to see them really put into action all the things and the animals that they've learned so far throughout this series in order to defeat maybe like their first like big bad. Like this is the first time we've seen them really like defeat a boss.

[00:28:30]Throughout the other books, we're kind of seeing them like narrowly escape, right? Or like, yeah, they get the better of the Yeerk leader, but they're not defeating him. This is the first time we're seeing them like defeat a big bad. And I think that is important to the progression of their stories, even if this doesn't have any big reveals or big like huge step forwards for the like overall narrative. So, interesting enough, I'm going to keep reading. You know, I said at the beginning of this Animorphs journey that I was going to read all of them, right? I'm going to read all the Animorphs books. I'm going to read the Megamorphs books. Whatever else we find along way. I know there are a couple other offshoots. We're going to read all of them. The good news is they're all so short. So, even if I read one that I'm like, "Eh, kind of meh" about, they're so quick. They take me like an hour and a half to read each.

[00:29:07]Megamorphs took me like maybe closer to two hours to read. They're the quickest reads ever. So, even when I read one that I'm like, "Nah, that wasn't really necessary," it doesn't feel like I wasted my time cuz they're just so easy, quick to get through. And I'm still having a lot of fun in this world with these characters and seeing how this story evolves and progresses as I go.

[00:29:24]All that brings us to the last book that I read this month. I just finished it yesterday, which was Strixhaven: Omens of into my trajectory or thrown into my vision. I don't know what the correct way of saying it is, but this is not a book that was on my radar. Thrown onto my radar. Yeah, that sounds correct.

[00:29:37]Let's go with that. This is thrown onto my radar because I did a collaboration this past month with Magic: The Gathering, which is not a game that I was really familiar with. I think we played Magic Commander once, like 12 years ago. Like so it's been a hot minute and we played it like one time and I don't know if we played it right and I don't even know that we finished the game of it that we played. Magic reached out to me and they were like, "Hey, we have a new book coming out.

[00:29:57]We'd like to send you like a package with a book and a bunch of other fun stuff." And I was like, at first I was like, "Well, we don't really play Magic.

[00:30:03]I don't know." But then I looked into the book, Magic the Gathering. If you're not familiar, it is a card game. It's a trading card game and people play against each other. It's been around forever. And when they come out with a new series of cards, a lot of times there'll be like a story attached to it.

[00:30:15]So the story of this series has to do with a magical school with various different colleges and when you go to the school, it's called Strixhaven, go to the school and then you eventually get like, for lack of a better word, sorted or you choose like which college you want to go to that best fits the type of magic you want to study. And in this world we're also dealing with these things called the omen paths, which are basically like pathways in between these different like realities. It's almost like they're portals between these different planes of existence, right?

[00:30:42]And these different worlds. And so in this book we find that these main characters get brought into this school from their various worlds. They get brought across the omen paths into this school to study and hopefully like find their place at this school and find, you know, which college they eventually want to go to. And this got presented to me by Magic and I looked at it and I was like, well, I love everything this book is trying to do, right? Like I love the magical school trope. I liked the idea of kind of having a good entry point into Magic the Gathering because lore and things like that are really important to me when I'm getting into like I love the story of things, right?

[00:31:15]Like even like Dungeons and Dragons or different things like that. My first inclination is not to like play the game. My first inclination, the first thing I want to do is like read the lore. I want to know more about the lore. I want to know the stories that exist in this world. I want to know like how this world works. What's the magic system? All of that fun stuff. So this seemed like a really great place to jump in. So I said, "Sure, why not?" And I just finished the book last night and I will say for me this was a very solid three out of five. There were things that I really enjoyed about it and there were things that I was like, kind of a miss for me. I will point out it's written by Seanan McGuire, I think that's how you say their name, has written some really great Wayward Children series I think is what they wrote and I've read a couple of those and those are excellent. And so that made me even more excited. The thing here that's interesting is it does have that magical school vibe. I really loved the like first half of this book. Like all the setup of this school and these different worlds and why the people in this world called Arcavios, they really are kind of against like new kids coming from different worlds. Like this is a program that the school is trying to set up where they have, you know, young people from different worlds coming to this world to learn in this school and they're kind of trying to create this like unity system of like, "Oh, we're all in this even though there's a lot of worlds are kind of being like blinked out cuz there's like invasions happening and like one of the characters her world is like gone. It has been like wiped off the interplanetary, interworld map, whatever you want to call that. And there's also like a lot of discussion about like the politics around these omen paths and the danger of like traveling them and all of this interesting stuff. I also really appreciated that I didn't feel like I needed to know anything about Magic to jump into this story. I think this was a really inviting book. I think it really did a good job of making me learn about the story and the world without having to know anything going in. I thought that was really cool. And I will say right off the bat I really, really loved the characters. The characters and the cast are very diverse. It is a very queer normative world, which I love.

[00:32:55]We've got queer characters, we've got trans characters, we've got like it just is like full of that, like full of diversity in just like the most, just the coolest ways. I loved all of that. I have two big complaints about the book.

[00:33:04]Two things that I think really held this story back for me. One is that this book, the main character is 19 and I think this book is meant to be like an older YA right? Because of that and there are there's even like a little bit of romance. And while there's no like spice, there is one scene where I'm like, okay, this definitely feels like it's geared towards older, like an older YA audience. Not quite new adult, I wouldn't put it in that category quite yet, but I would say like older YA, okay? However, it feels written most of the time the writing and the way the characters talk to each other and the and the storytelling feels very middle grade to me to be honest. And you know, I love middle grade, okay? I this is nothing against the middle grade of stories or books. I love middle grade books. My favorite book of last year was Skandar, middle grade. But I think who you're aiming a book at and how that book is written, I think are important, right? On the other side of that, I wouldn't like if Skandar, a book marketed as a middle grade story, was written like it was written for adults or new adult. Like that would be weird, right? I found the writing and especially the way the characters talk to each other. I think that was really where this came from. It just felt like I often had to check. I was like, is the main character 19? Is this are they like older teens because this feels like I feel like I'm reading 12 and 13-year-olds the way they talk to each other. And that kind of drove me a little crazy. Especially like later on, like some of the things the characters deal with and some of the things they're going through, I'm like, you are too old to be acting like this. And that that kind of got on my nerves the further and further into the book I got, it got more and more on my nerves. The other issue I have is that the pace of this book feels very slow. I think that would be okay with me. I listen, I love like a slow pace, like slow burn, but I never felt the stakes rose to the level that I thought they should have. There's some pretty bad things happening in this world kids are dealing with like adversity of like other kids like basically like saying, "Get out. Like you don't belong here. Go back home to where you belong." Which feels, you know, very relatable to the world we're living in right now, but I never felt like the stakes were high enough. I just never really felt like these kids these characters were in danger. I felt often like the worst thing that was going to happen to them was they were going to get like detention. And that's not the worst thing that could have happened to them in this story. There were some really dangerous things happening, but it just never felt that way. The other thing, so I guess I have three major complaints cuz that was number two.

[00:35:12]Number three is hard because I love that I could just jump into this book without knowing too much about Magic, but I do think at a certain point there is so much lore dumping to try and, you know, offset that, right? Like cuz this book is really inviting. It is a great starting point if you don't know anything about Magic the Gathering.

[00:35:28]However, the offside of that, unfortunately, is that there is just like constant lore dumping to kind of get you caught up to speed with all of the crazy things that are going on and I mean Magic has been around for years and years and years and decades. And so there's a lot of, you know, things that they have to be done to kind of get you caught up on everything that's going on.

[00:35:45]And early on in the book I was okay with that, but I remember there was like a big lore dump moment like pretty late in the book, like another one. I'm like, "Oh my god, I don't need any more information right now. Just tell me the story." And it felt like that never stopped. Like the author was trying so hard to give you all the information you needed to know to understand this world and what was going on and try and like get you to understand like why things were happening the way they were happening, but at a certain point it was just too much for a book that's like not all that long. So those were kind of my big complaints. Like I said, there were things that I liked, too. I really liked the characters. There's a found family element. I like the way that this school is kind of built and I like the different colleges and why you would choose one or the over the other and I thought there were some really interesting mysteries and elements at play here and like all of the different characters kind of has their own secret thing that they're trying to accomplish for their family back home. I thought all of that was really interesting. I did find the book to be really predictable. Like I think I predicted sort of the ending maybe like, I don't know, 25 to 30% in. I was like, "Okay, well, this is what's going to happen and this is going to be the thing." Like I kind of figured it out and that was again like, "I don't know."

[00:36:50]Like I don't want to be able to predict that this far in the future. And so there are good things and there are bad things. I would love to see more books come out from the Magic series because I would love to see them do more with this. You know, when Bloombarrow came out last year, I collected some of the cards. Was it last year? Maybe 2 years ago. I've lost track of time. But Bloombarrow was very much like unapologetically based on Redwall, so it had like little animal creatures in this magical world and I loved that. And if they had released a book in that series, I would have lost my mind. I would have been so excited. And I know that they released like some online fiction stuff, but not like a physical book. So I would love to see them keep doing this. I would be open to reading another book in the Magic world. This did not put me off completely. I just I think I wanted a little bit more. I know that Magic, obviously they're going to aim a Magic book at like a young adult, possibly middle grade, possibly young adult. It's hard to say, really. It's hard to say audience, but I think I would love a book set in this world that was like written for adults. I think that would be really cool. And then you could really go to some of the places I feel like this book wanted to go but couldn't because it was kind of held back by the this is the age range we need this book to be for. So yeah, that was Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos. I don't think I even said the name of this book. I just put it on the screen and said, "Let's talk about Magic the Gathering." This book was called Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos.

[00:37:59]And now we've talked about it. Wasn't that a fun time? And that brings us to my read of the month so far since I started kind of this new format for my reading wrap-ups, which is what you're seeing here. I feel like every single month that I've done this and I've had a read of the month, it's been like a really clear winner. This month was this, Age of Swords and The Faraway Inn were all really, really, really close. I really enjoyed all three of those books quite a lot, actually. However, this is the one that has stuck with me the most.

[00:38:26]This book was just so wild and I felt addicted to it while I was reading it, like I just could not put it down. I was just I just had to know what was happening. I got really invested in this world and these characters. I desperately wish book two was already out or that we even had like a release date. I hope we get one soon. What I do think I'm going to do is I'm going to go back and read some of Ilona Andrews' series cuz I think actually I might really like their writing and I think I need more of it in my life. So I'm going to kind of figure out. I might continue with the Kate Daniels stuff or I might go into something else or I might try I don't know yet. I haven't decided the exact order for which I'm going to do all of that, but I definitely want to read more Ilona Andrews and this book has convinced me that I really, really enjoy their writing. I liked this a lot.

[00:39:05]I loved the world and the characters and the creatures and the politics and you know what I didn't mention about this book? This is an adult fantasy with some romance and political intrigue. And there's not really any like spice, okay?

[00:39:16]There's there's not there's not. But what there is in this book, what I really took away from this book and what I need more of was yearning. There is yearning in this book and I need more yearning. Bring back yearning, please.

[00:39:26]This book reminded me how good yearning can be and I just loved it for that. I really enjoyed this one a lot and I hope you get a chance to read it. It was a fun time. Is is it is it a little longer than it should be? Yes, it is a tad longer than it needs to be. But the thing is you won't want it to end. So you'll be like me and you'll forgive the fact that Act Two drags on too long because the alternative is that the book ends sooner, and that's a much worse fate than a longer Act Two, in my opinion. I really enjoyed this Kingdom will not kill me, and like I said before, I'll say it again, I hope you get a chance to read it. Okay, and with that, let's talk quickly about what I will be reading in May. Now, this probably looks incredibly familiar to last month's what I'll be reading if you were here for that. So, Shelf Control, I'm reading Air. I am in the middle of Air right now. I planned to have it read before I shot this video, and the timing just did not work out. I will have Air finished probably in the next few days, so I will talk about that at the end of May. For Easy Cat's Book Club, which you can join if you join my binary, if you join Easy Cat Press, it is free to join.

[00:40:26]There are obviously different tier levels that you can subscribe to, as well. That is where we do all of my publishing, and I give early access to videos there. I should also note that I now give even earlier access to videos through my YouTube subscription. So, if you just cannot wait, you want to see videos just a little bit earlier, and also it's just like a nice way to, you know, if you've ever felt like you enjoy my content enough to like leave a little tip of sorts, that is my subscription here on YouTube, and you get a little bit earlier access to all of my videos that I post. So, that's kind of fun, right? And so, Easy Cat's Book Club, we're going to be reading The Poet Empress. I've heard this book is phenomenal, so I'm very excited to read it. And then I'm going to continue on with Legends of the First Empire. I think I really just want to focus on like getting through that series. And in between all of that as like a little uh palate cleanser, I'm going to continue reading Animorphs. I intend to read more than this in May, but because the last like 3 months have literally been like 2 weeks home, 2 weeks travel, 2 weeks home, 2 weeks travel. This month, I'm going to be traveling like 2 days the whole month, so I plan to like try and get as much reading done as humanly possible, but I also didn't want to overcommit.

[00:41:30]>> [laughter] >> I want to enjoy the reading I'm doing.

[00:41:32]So, this is what I'm committing to. This is the stuff I'm for sure going to be working on this month, and then hopefully I'll also read some other fun things along the way that I will tell you about both in short-form content and in my reading wrap-ups. I should mention, I am considering doing these reading wrap-ups in a slightly different format in which I would do possibly more of them per month. I'm going to be experimenting here. You If you've stayed this long in the video, I'm going to kind of tell you the the vision. I'm going to be experimenting with a sort of wrap-up idea, but with board games because some of you have requested board game wrap-ups. I don't want to do like a monthly wrap-up just because like committing to two monthly wrap-up type videos every single month, and trying to like coordinate both of those to come out right around the end of the month sounds really daunting, but I am working on a new idea for how to do like board game wrap-up type content that I'm really excited about. And if that works, and if you guys enjoy that, I may end up doing that, but with books. So, I'd still be wrapping up everything that I read, but I might not be doing it on like a monthly basis. I might be doing it on a like every five books I read basis or something like that. The vision is there. I'm working out the details.

[00:42:31]So, we'll see how the board game one goes, and then we'll, you know, we'll shift things around to see if that makes sense. The biggest difference would be that you would see more reading wrap-ups. That would That would >> [laughter] >> Honestly, that would be the biggest change is that I wouldn't just be doing one of these a month, it might be more often than that. So, yeah, that's that's one of the things I'm working on. But, this is my vision for May, and I'm really hoping that I can get through all of these, and then maybe a couple other fun things along the way. And that, my friends, is everything that I read in April and a little sneak peek at what I plan to read in May. I am curious to know, what did you read in April? Did you read anything good? Did you read anything you loved? Did you read anything you hated? Did you read anything that I read? Uh have you read any of the books that I talked about today? What were your thoughts on them?

[00:43:09]Feel free to let me know all of that in the comments. Of course, if you enjoy my content, please consider liking, commenting, subscribing. I think you can hit like a notification bell thing. I don't really know how that works, but apparently I I see In every video I watch on YouTube, people are like, "Smash that like button and hit that notification bell." And I don't know how to smash a button with when I just have a clicker, and I don't know what a notification bell is. So, hopefully you know how to do those things and will do them. That would be very helpful. I appreciate you so much. I hope you had a fun time going through all the books that I read in April, and I hope you got to read a lot of great books this past month, as well. And I hope you get to read a lot of good books in the weeks and months to come. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and week, and as always, happy reading.

[00:43:55]Oh, good, you're back. Or you've just fallen asleep. Either way, I'm glad you're here. Listen, I know I mentioned All Play's game shelves and tables, but I should also let you know they feature a ton of incredible games from various partners on their website, as well. So, head over to allplay.com to check out their various games, tables, shelves, and accessories. Or just head on over to anywhere. Anywhere but here. You got to leave. Please leave. It's getting weird.