Reading ONLY Book of the Month Books for a Week || spoiler-free reading vlog

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hello, my sweet book besties. Welcome to or welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Bree and welcome to a little reading vlog where for this week, I am only going to be reading Book of the Month books. This is in no way, shape or form sponsored by Book of the Month. That is like a dream sponsorship by me. So, I'm going to I'm going to keep manifesting that for myself, but this is not sponsored at all. I just genuinely love Book of the Month. I've been a member for almost three years. That is crazy. I love how they just kind of get new books on my radar. They get new authors on my radar. They do like a lot of debut novels, which I think is really, really cool. And they just do kind of like push me out of my comfort zone and they, like I said, introduce books that I haven't really heard about before, which I think is really, really cool. And it's always like new releases, which is awesome.

[00:00:54]That being said, I have been slacking on my Book of the Month books a little bit.

[00:00:59]I've been getting a few in my boxes lately, so I'm just getting a little bit behind. Currently, I have four Book of the Month books on my physical TBR and I have another two coming in the mail any day, so we need to get that list down.

[00:01:13]So, it is my goal to read at least three Book of the Month books this week. You know, split my physical Book of the Month TBR in half by that. And I'm super excited. Like the four books I already have, the other two books I have coming, I am genuinely so, so, so excited for.

[00:01:30]So, without further ado, should we just should I just show you the first book that I'm planning to read in this video?

[00:01:36]It is Yesteryear. This is a very new release. Like it just came out in April and I have seriously been eyeing it up for months because like it has been on the 2026 new release list and like I have just been so excited for it because the premise of it just sounds so insane.

[00:01:55]Basically, we are following this tradwife influencer and she ends up getting sent back to the 1800s and actually having to like live real trad wife life. Because obviously like what we see on the internet these days of these trad wives, like it's not it's not 100% trad wife, you know? So now she has to try and survive real trad wife times and I think that sounds so fun. I have been seeing so many positive reviews about this book lately, like everyone seems to be loving it. So I'm sad that I'm a little bit late to the hype, but like trust me.

[00:02:29]This has been on my physical TBR for like a month and it has been in my mental TBR for like six months probably.

[00:02:36]So I very much wanted to get to this sooner, but I feel like there were just like other books thrown at me and like other books that I had to read for like other videos or other you know, commitments. So I'm getting to it now and that's just going to have to be good enough. I'm so excited for this.

[00:02:53]Like it's so cool how it's going to be kind of like a mix of just general fiction and then historical fiction, but also like that magical realism element cuz she's literally like going back in time. So you have like sci-fi in there kind of. So I think it just sounds like such a fun time and I'm hoping to eat this up. I have to run to an appointment, but then when I get home I am coming back and planning to sit with this for as long as I can tonight. My husband also has Dungeons and Dragons with his friends tonight, so he'll be gone all night, so I can seriously read this like uninterrupted. Hopefully my brain keeps me uninterrupted. But let's get reading.

[00:03:56]>> Okay, let's start talking about yesteryear a little bit. Yesterday, I got about halfway into the book and then today, I've just been reading like a few more chapters here and there. So, I've got a good chunk of it done. This is like longer than I thought. Like I feel like just looking at the book, it doesn't look that long, but this is about 400 pages. So, I think I have I have probably over 150 pages to read still, but I'm really liking it.

[00:04:26]Honestly, I just am really loving the writing style. It is like a first-person point of view and I think it's such a good writing style for this book because it is following our main character, Natalie. She is this influencer who portrays the life of a tradwife. She lives on this farm with her husband and her five kids. It's honestly giving like Ballerina Farm. If you know anything about Ballerina Farm and like the lore of Ballerina Farm, that is 100% what it's giving to the point where I'm literally picturing Ballerina Farm's husband as the husband in this book. So, Natalie is a very, very popular tradwife influencer. I think it says she has like 5 million followers on Instagram. She has these nannies that work for her. She has these tutors that she hires for her children.

[00:05:19]She's just really selling that tradwife life even though like she's not fully living like the real tradwife life. Like she hires helpers for the farm. She hires these people to watch her children and teach her children. She hires a producer to help her make content. So, it's like she's kind of selling the idea that she's doing it all, but like she's not. She's not doing it at all whatsoever. And then Natalie gets sent back to 1855, I think. She wakes up like at the same ranch, which is called Yesteryear, but obviously like over a century earlier, almost 200 years earlier, where she is actually having to live the true Treadway life with her husband and her kids that she has in like this timeline. Very very kind of like mind twisty, I guess. So, this is a dual timeline book. You are seeing basically Natalie's life how it was before she met her husband and then like after she got married, once they start having kids, once they buy this farm that, you know, she's now living on and doing the content creation. And then you're having the other timeline where she is in the 1800s and literally struggling to stay alive. She is just this very very religious, traditional woman, which I have nothing wrong with whatsoever, but it's just like kind of funny reading her inner thoughts because she'll like say something and then she'll be like, "Forgive me, Lord."

[00:06:46]Because she just said like a terrible nasty thing. I don't know. It's just like a really really I enjoyable, digestible writing style, I guess. And obviously it's very intriguing. Like, how did she get sent back in time? Will she be able to go back to like her present-day modern life? Will this teach Natalie a lesson?

[00:07:05]I don't know, honestly. Um just based on Natalie's character, I I really don't know if she will end up learning a lesson from this. But I also think it's so interesting because I I don't call myself like an influencer. I call myself a content creator. So, it's really really interesting seeing it and reading this book through a content creator's eyes because it's like I I understand what she's talking about and what she says about content creation, but she is like she's definitely taken it too far. But I am really really enjoying it. I feel like I'm just really taking my time with it and like trying to analyze everything to see if I can maybe figure out what's going on. And like I don't even know if there's anything to figure out. Like this isn't a mystery thriller book, you know, it's just a general fiction. So, there might not even be anything to figure out, but I'm like trying to piece things together as I'm reading it, which I think just taking like a slow time with a book is the best way to do it. And honestly, I think that just makes it like a more enjoyable experience overall with the book. So, so far I'm really, really liking it. I don't know if it'll be a five-star. Right now, I'm feeling around four-star. We'll see what happens with the ending and if there is like anything that happens, like anything that we are putting together at the end.

[00:08:25]But, it's super good. I can definitely see why people are hyping up this book right now. And I'm just going to keep chugging along at this a little bit.

[00:09:32]All righty, yesterday I ended up finishing Yesteryear. So, let's talk about my final thoughts on that.

[00:09:39]Honestly, I don't even remember what I already said to you because it was a few days ago, and I feel like my life has just been so chaotic, and my brain is just like overwhelmed with so many things right now that I just can't keep everything straight, but I really, really enjoyed this book. I'll just cut through to it. I gave this a four-star rating, so I definitely really, really enjoyed it. Definitely was like a twist or like the reveal at the end like was not what I was expecting whatsoever, which to be fair, I don't really know what I was expecting because I hadn't really like had any theories on like if she was going to get out of 1855 and like back to the future or like I had no idea what was going to happen. Like I had no idea where the book was going, but I was very, very surprised with like what the truth actually ended up to be and just how that played out and this book is so good. It is so I just like a unique book right now, and I feel like there's just so many books nowadays where you can read a book and then you can kind of compare it to another book, but with this book, I feel like it is just so unique. Like Natalie, she is a very [laughter] I don't know. She's just definitely an unlikable character, definitely a bit of an unreliable narrator, which definitely becomes more apparent as you continue reading the book, but I just loved like getting to see her whole journey, getting her whole life story, you know, when you start and then you get up to the point where she is then sent back in time to live out an actual tradwife life, and I just think it is so interesting. So, one thing I do want to maybe talk about a little bit is I am a Christian housewife, right? And this book, Natalie, is a very, very religious Christian housewife. And I will say how they talk about religion and also kind of just being a housewife. I can see how it could maybe be offensive to you if you're also like a Christian housewife.

[00:11:42]But for me personally, I did not find it offensive. I kind of just read it like satire. Um and the book also like raises concerns of like this family vlogger lifestyle that a lot of people have these days and like showing their kids on the internet and just making like this mommy content. Like obviously it is a big deal and having a camera shoved in front of your kids' faces all the time like is a big deal. So then it kind of like makes me think about not only the Ballerina Farm, but also like what is it called? Eight Passengers?

[00:12:14]Can I speak passengers? What is the daughter's name? Sherry Frankie, who has like come out and you know, wrote a book and talked about the terrible things that her mother did. Like it definitely gives that kind of vibes as well as Ballerina Farm. It is just such a great book. I would definitely recommend it.

[00:12:32]And then you saw that I decided to pick up The Ending Right Itself. A lot of the other Book of the Month books that I have on my TBR are like general fiction.

[00:12:43]So Yesteryear was definitely kind of like a general fiction historical fiction. But before jumping into just like another general fiction book, I kind of wanted like something to break it up. So The Ending Right Itself is more so of a mystery thriller. It does read quite a lot like just a general fiction book, though. But I think where I'm at now, which is about 100 pages, is I think it's going to start getting a little twistier, a little more mystery-er, thriller-ier. This one is about six authors who have been invited to the estate on a remote Scottish island of a very very famous author. Now this author has passed away. So these other authors were invited to his estate on the remote Scottish island to basically compete to write the ending of his last book that he never got to finish before he passed away. So, these six authors, they have 72 hours to write the last 10,000 words of this novel, and they're all competing with each other because only one author can win. And there's a bunch of different authors.

[00:13:46]Like there are some thriller authors, there's a romance author, sci-fi author, fantasy author. And seeing all of their different dynamics now like together is really, really fun. But, I think it's going to start to be a little cutthroat as they get closer to this time being up to finish the novel. Also, this is by Evelyn Clark, which is actually V. E.

[00:14:09]Schwab and Cat Clark. I think that's funny because one of the authors in the book is actually a married couple with just like a pen name of one person, so just like with this book. So, I think that's just like a really, really fun detail to add in there. But, yeah, I'm excited for like the drama that I'm sure is going to ensue because these people are all like living under the same roof for 72 hours, but like competing with each other. Like they're kind of each other's enemy right now. This is another book, just like with yesteryear, that has been on my radar for so many months, just like in my brain, because it's a new release, but like it has probably been on my mental TBR for like 6 months waiting for it to come out. So, I'm so excited for this. I have very, very high hopes for how it's going to end. Right now, I can definitely say I'm enjoying it. It is like a little bit slow, but now that I'm 100 pages in, I think things are really, really going to start picking up. And obviously, like I think it needs to, you know, be a little more fleshed out in the beginning so you can learn what's going on, you can learn each of these authors a little bit, which I really, really appreciate. And now it's probably going to be a lot more fast-paced because I think there's like 50 hours left or something. And I'm sure like that's probably where the book will end. So, this is what I'm going to continue reading for this reading vlog.

[00:16:22]All right, guys. It is the next day.

[00:16:25]I'm currently [clears throat] in our office / storage room, so please ignore the mess behind me. But, I did end up finishing the ending rights itself. You know, these six authors were invited to the island, but there is a killer on the loose on the island. And like now these six authors are still like trying to compete and write their ending to the story, but also like afraid for their lives because there's a killer loose on the island. So, obviously very, very high stakes all around. Like high stakes if they win the challenge, obviously high stakes cuz they don't want to die from this killer. This ended up being just very anti-climactic to me. Like the whole like grand reveal plot twist, I was just like, "Okay."

[00:17:12]Like, was it surprising? I guess a little bit, but like it just it did not feel like a good answer to what was going on. It just did not feel like a satisfying plot twist whatsoever. And then there is another plot twist at the end and I'm just like I don't know. I don't want to say it was poorly written, but it felt kind of just like it was thrown there, you know? And like it just did not give me that like shocked feeling that I like to have when I'm reading a mystery thriller. Like does that make sense? Like it can still be somewhat surprising, but if it doesn't have me like absolutely flabbergasted, I just like I don't care about it very much. So it felt very, very anti-climactic to me.

[00:17:55]Honestly, like I was enjoying the book more before there was like a killer on the loose. And then once that happened, it's just like everything is so repetitive. Like I said, the whole reveal, it just feels a little bit lazy almost. So I did not end up loving this one. I still liked it. I still enjoyed it. I think I'm probably going to go with like a three ish star rating. Like maybe a three, maybe a 3.5. I don't really know. Just three-ish stars for this one. But then I picked up The Names by Florence this was actually one of the finalist for Book of the Month 2025 Book of the Year. It was not the winner, but like I said, I think it was in like the top five or something. So I decided to pick this one up because it has been on my TBR for a few months. And in this one, you are following a family. The book starts off where a mother has to name her child, like she has to go register her child's name after having him. And her husband is Gordon. He comes from like a line of Gordons, so she's supposed to name their son Gordon. The thing is though is her husband is abusive and just like a terrible person, so she doesn't really want to name her baby Gordon because she does not want him to like live up to that legacy of being a terrible person by being named Gordon. So, we get to see this family live out their lives based on like three different names that the child gets. So, one of the names that we're following is Bear and that like the older sister chose for her little brother. Another one is Julian because that's what the mom liked, that's what she wanted to name the baby. And then the last name that we follow is Gordon, which is what the dad wanted. And it's so interesting because you're following the lives of the four people in this family and how they change drastically based on what this baby is named and just like the legacy that a person can leave behind just based on their name and like the person that they can grow into just based on their name. It is just so, I don't know, definitely very, very thought-provoking. I'm really liking it so far. And I really also like the writing style of this and just like the layout of the book because you get a chapter about Bear, you get a chapter about Julian, and then you get a chapter about Gordon, and then it skips 7 years and the same thing, Bear, Julian, Gordon. So, you get to see what's happening in their lives every 7 years based on what this little boy was named.

[00:20:24]I just think that is such a cool idea of a book and yeah, like I said, very, very thought-provoking. I am a little bit over halfway through. I'm hoping to finish it today. I am definitely enjoying it, but I will say because things like are changing so often, so quickly, like because their whole life changes based on the name of the kid.

[00:20:44]So, because everything is changing so frequently, it's sometimes like hard to keep track and like distinguish each name and like everything going on the lives or in the lives from the next.

[00:20:56]Hopefully, that makes sense. So, I feel like that does take me out of it a little bit, like trying to keep track of what is happening in the life and who is is in the life, like all these side characters, like trying to remember everything definitely takes me out of the book a little bit. It's definitely a book that I've been like picking up and reading a chapter or so, and then I put it down and like get distracted on my phone, and then I pick it up again. And I'm just not like totally immersed in it and totally like obsessed with it. I'm really liking it, but it has just not like held my attention completely the whole time, I guess. So, we'll see how these last, what, like 100 120-ish pages I have left. So, let's see if I can get this finished today.

[00:22:31]Okay, I literally just finished The Names. So, you know the drill. We're going to talk about my final thoughts on it. The book just continued to go every 7 years where you are following the lives of these individuals, mainly the son who is being named in the beginning of the book, and how their lives play out based on what he's named. I don't really know why the author chose to do every 7 years. Like, I wonder if there's a specific reason for that or if she was just like, "Ah, 7 years sounds good." I definitely preferred one name the most out of all three of them. I definitely just like preferred that storyline. Some of the other storylines, not even just with like the main boy character who's being named, but like all these side characters, like some of those storylines I just found myself not caring about anymore after continuing to read about them. But one of them I really, really liked and it was really, really sweet. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like in all of these names, like there are so many ups and downs for these characters and the lives that they're living. Like one of them I definitely thought was the sweetest and it was just the one that I enjoyed reading about the most, I guess. And then the other two names I was like I could take or leave these chapters, you know. I don't know. I feel like honestly I don't have a lot to say about the book because it's obviously just like a very, very character-driven book.

[00:23:58]Like there is no insane plot to this.

[00:24:02]Like the premise of the book is really, really cool, but there's nothing like really driving the plot forward other than the characters and like the choices that they make throughout these different storylines that you get to read about.

[00:24:15]And I usually love character-driven books so much, but I feel like with this one, since we are like kind of changing POV, that's not the right word, but just because you are like changing the storyline so often, I just feel like I couldn't even get super connected with the one storyline that I really, really preferred over the others.

[00:24:36]Like you just don't get enough time with these characters in my opinion. And it's like that's so silly because it's literally the same characters all throughout the book, but it's like they're different based on what this boy is named. So it's really, really interesting and it is thought-provoking just to think about like, man, like can the name of someone really impact their life that much?

[00:25:02]And to a certain degree, I would say yes. I mean, I have never named someone before yet, but I feel like as a girl, like girls watching, I know you're going to relate to this, but like we have a notes app in our phone that we have had for years and years and years with baby names on it. Like we have thought about what we are going to name our future children years and years and years before we even think about having children. So obviously like a name is very important and is something you think about for a very, very long time.

[00:25:34]Like I have had a notes app in my phone for probably like since I started dating my husband 6 years ago. And now it's like I feel like I'm to that point where I know what I want to name my kids, but also like what if they come out and I'm like that is not their name. They need to be named this instead. And it is very, very thought-provoking to think like what if I would have named them this over this.

[00:25:57]I do think that this is a very, very cool premise of a book. I just feel like it wasn't quite holding my attention. I guess honestly, I was just like a little bit bored sometimes reading this. And I don't know if that's just because like I wasn't super interested in a few of the storylines or I don't know if it is because I feel like this author definitely has a more unique voice than what I have read from other authors.

[00:26:25]Like it is just definitely a little bit of a different writing style, I feel like, than other authors that I have enjoyed a lot. So I don't know if that was also just like kind of taking me out, like if the writing itself wasn't able to hold my attention. But I do think it's a lovely book. I'm going to go with a three and a half star rating, which like knowing that I'm giving this a three and a half star rating, I definitely think the ending rates itself is a three star rating because I definitely enjoyed this book more than the ending rates itself. Like this was still good. I don't know. Maybe I'm just also like a little disappointed because this was a finalist for Book of the Month's Book of the Year. So, I was kind of going in expecting hopefully a five-star read and I probably should not have gone in with those expectations because obviously now I am a little bit let down that I didn't love it that much. But I still liked it and it feels like a very meaningful and impactful book, I guess. But that is where I am going to end this reading vlog. I hope you guys enjoyed it. We read some good books this week from Book of the Month. If you did enjoy it, make sure to give it a thumbs up and make sure to comment down below any videos you want to see from me in the future and make sure you subscribe to see more of my book content and I will see you back very, very soon with another video.

[00:27:44]Bye.