The 24 Books I Read in March 🫢

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hello my friends and welcome back to another video or welcome if you are new.

[00:00:03]My name is Erin and today we are doing a very late March wrap-up. I know we're halfway through April. Okay, I know.

[00:00:13]I have no excuse. I have no excuse on why I haven't filmed my wrap-up. I know some people get their wrap-ups like right like at the the end of the month and some at the very beginning of the month. Somehow I can't do that and I end up halfway through the month and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I have to film that." I should probably I should probably do that. So yeah, we are late. I know. By the time this goes up, it's going to be time for April wrap-up.

[00:00:44]I could combine them, but honestly that would be an hour-long video and I don't think I have it in me to edit an hour-long wrap-up. I don't have it in me. We're doing it. We're doing it late.

[00:00:56]I know. I'm sorry. I'm a terrible BookTuber. What can I say? So first off, we're going to talk about my stats for the month. I have my little wrap-up page in my reading journal, which by the way, my March reading journal was very cute because look, I had alien Snoopy's.

[00:01:15]Isn't that so cute? OH MY GOD, I LOVE IT. I went with like a little cryptid alien Snoopy kind of theme. It was a very fun very fun. So Oh yeah, I had some zombie stickers too. I I'm sure no one cares. Anyways, so I read a total of 24 books in March, which sounds like a lot, but a lot of it was manga because towards the end of the month, I didn't have it in me to start books. So I just read a lot of manga and that bumped my reading total up high. So my top genres for the month were manga, romance, contemporary, thriller, and mystery. Honestly, the manga makes sense. The contemporary floored me a little bit. I don't know where that came in, but I read a total of 6,693 pages and my average rating was a 3.66, which honestly is very very typical.

[00:02:18]I feel like I can't get above a 3.something usually a 3.4 or 3.7. I feel like I always fall in that range. That's all the stats I have inside my journal.

[00:02:28]New here, I use Fable, StoryGraph, and Goodreads, which is insane, I know, but StoryGraph is really where I track my stats. I think it has the best way to track things, so that's what I use. So I tag a lot of my books on StoryGraph to keep track of what I'm reading in my physical TBR and out of the books that I read, I read 11 manga. Again, like I said, >> [laughter] >> the manga really upped my total. I did not read a lot in March, but my manga total was high.

[00:03:05]I read five books for my TBR, five books that I had recently purchased, which I mean, at least it's even, I guess. I wish the TBR was a little bit higher, but I mean, what can you do?

[00:03:20]I read two books from Aardvark and one book that was sent to me. So not the greatest, but not the worst. I'm not super disappointed, but I'm also not super happy with those. So like I typically do, we're going to talk about the books that I read in vlogs first. I go into the least amount of detail on those because I go into a lot more detail when I read them in reading vlogs and if you want to see full thoughts and reviews and my experience, I'll link those vlogs that I'm going to be referencing down below, but we'll do those books first to get them out of the way and then we'll move on to books that you may not know I had read in March. So in February or was it? It was February {slash} the beginning of March. I read five, four, something like that. I read a lot of new thrillers and one of them was Adrift by Will Dean. This is one of the Aardvark books that I had. So personally, I gave this three stars. I was really disappointed because it didn't feel like a thriller. This is about a husband This is about a husband and a wife and their son. They live on a canal boat and their son is being bullied. The husband is very very abusive and it's really about that. It's about the husband and the abuse that the son and the wife are enduring. It's about the bullying that the son is getting at school. It's not really thrilling because you know exactly what's happening. From the very beginning to the end, it's it's just laid out in front of you and it was just not a fun read. It wasn't an entertaining read. It was just like kind of a chore for me to get through. I could have I should have given it lower than a three star, honestly, but I was feeling generous because it read really really quickly.

[00:05:26]The chapters were really short, but it's not a thriller.

[00:05:30]So it was fine. Then I read It's Not Her by Mary Kubica. I actually really enjoyed this. I've had hits and misses with this author, so I haven't loved every book I've read. So I was a little unsure about this one, but I ended up enjoying it. I gave it four stars. Did I already just say that? I gave it four stars. The main character, Courtney, she is on vacation with her family and she ends up finding the dead bodies of her brother and her sister-in-law. Her sister-in-law is also her best friend and they have three kids. The oldest daughter is missing and the son is found asleep unharmed and it's basically her trying to figure out what happened. It was good. The twist I didn't expect. I I I just found this like a really sad thriller. It was I don't know. Like at the end I was just kind of like, "Oh.

[00:06:23]>> [laughter] >> Okay." But I did like it. It did shock me. I felt like I couldn't predict everything. Uh the only thing I didn't love is that we get POVs from the eldest daughter, Reese, who's missing and she was so annoying. I know she's a teenager, but holy crap, she drove me insane. I wanted to like slap her and I just >> [sighs] >> reading from teenager POVs sometimes, I just can't do it. So I did not enjoy every aspect of this book, but I did have a good time for the most part. The next and I think this is the last vlog that I will be talking about. I did a TBR Slasher. If you don't know what TBR Slasher, it's my version of trying to read every book off my physical TBR.

[00:07:09]It's a lot of fun. We have a good time and these are the books that I read in that reading vlog. So I actually DNF'd This Girl's a Killer by Emma C. Wells.

[00:07:18]This is one of the books that was sent to me I think last year. You're reading from the point of view of a woman who kills a bad man, but this was so aggravating. It felt so childish. The main character was she was just kind of dumb and I did not get very far. I I did not get very far. I was just like, "I can't. This is cringe. I can't keep reading this." So I DNF'd it very early on. I want my books like this where you're reading about women who kill bad men, which I love that trope. I love that kind of storyline, but I want it to be something like a good for her. I want to be rooting for the female character and in this, she was just so annoying and so aggravating that I was like, "I don't want to read from you. I don't want to I don't even like you." I don't like that. I don't want to dislike the character, so this wasn't for me. It was supposed to be funny, but I didn't really find it funny. It was just really cringe. I read We Live Here Now by Sarah Penborough. I thought this was a thriller because the other Sarah Penborough book I've read from her was a thriller. So I went into this expecting a thriller. It's definitely more like horror. Okay, it's horror, but it reads like a thriller. Like I feel like there are a lot of thrillery tropes in here and it was kind of aggravating because it just made for like a more irritating read, I think and I just I didn't love that. To be honest, this is your typical storyline where a husband and wife move into like this house and weird stuff starts happening. It feels haunted, but only the wife is hearing and experiencing things and the husband's like, "You're crazy. You're losing it.

[00:09:03]You're making it up. Blah blah blah blah. It's all in your head. Blah blah."

[00:09:07]I just I hate that trope so much. I hate books where the husband and wife don't even like each other. Again, I said this so many times. I don't like that trope.

[00:09:17]Why are you married if you don't even like each other? Why? Okay, why? It's so stupid, okay? And I hate the crazy trope. I hate when everything makes the woman feel crazy. I just it makes me so annoyed. So this was really kind of just aggravating. I didn't care for the twist. I didn't I don't know. It just wasn't that engaging to me. I It read really really short though. Like it it flew by. So I have to give it that. I think I just gave it three stars. I don't know. I was just kind of annoyed the whole time.

[00:09:49]>> [laughter] [gasps] >> I just wanted it to be over even though it was really quick, but I was just like, "I don't like these people. Get them off my Get them out of my sight.

[00:09:59]This was one of my favorite books of the month, and that is Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher. This is a retelling reimagining of Snow White, and it was so clever, so fun. I had the best time.

[00:10:14]Ooh, my voice. I had the best time. So, in this book we're following Anya. She is a healer. She deals with like poisons, and the king comes to visit her, and he's like, "Hey, my daughter Snow, I think she's being poisoned. I need you to come try and figure out what's going on with her." And she's like, "Okay." And a whole bunch of stuff happens. It was so good. T. Kingfisher did such a good job of taking all the elements of Snow White and making it her own, making a a completely totally different story. I didn't even know what was going to happen, which is crazy because you you would be like, "Okay, Snow White, you know the story. You know what's going to happen." But again, she did such a good job that I did not predict anything. I loved this. The only thing I didn't absolutely absolutely love was the romance. It just felt very it just felt kind of rushed. In T.

[00:11:07]Kingfisher's books, I really like that yearning, that like little moments you get between the female main character and the male main character, and how they build up. And I just love those, and I feel like we didn't get as many of those in here because I mean, the plot was more important, which of course, of course. But I just wanted a little bit more in the romance. So, I did give this a 4.5, but I really love this. I'm not surprised. I love T. Kingfisher. I also read How to Survive Camping the Man with No Shadow by Bunny Quinn. This is really cute. It's a really fun cozy horror.

[00:11:46]It's about these camping grounds that have like monsters and creatures and demons and supernatural things that are like going on, and the main character Kate, I forgot her name.

[00:12:02]Kate, she has to take care of all the guests who stay at the camping grounds, and she just has to take care of the grounds itself and keep everything at peace. It was a very very cute. I can definitely see myself picking the others up as soon as they come out. I don't know when this author is planning on releasing more because it definitely feels like a series. I can definitely see there being more of these. So, I can definitely see myself picking these up and just like reading them as little palate cleansers.

[00:12:30]They were really cute and fun. I gave this four stars. Another artwork book I read, this is Whitby by T. Kingfisher.

[00:12:39]I wanted to love this so bad. I was so excited when I got this in my artwork box. I was so excited to read it in the TBR Slasher video. I just thought I was going to absolutely love this book, and it's just not it's not what I expected it to be, and I was really disappointed.

[00:12:58]I was really disappointed. So, in this book you're following three women, Bertie, Lindsey, and Mary Beth. And the one thing they have in common is they're all connected to Calvin, and Calvin is a Calvin is a child abuser, and Bertie and Lindsey were two of his victims, and Mary Beth is his mother.

[00:13:21]Now, I thought I was going to like this because I thought it was going to be kind of like Saving Noah mixed with Notes on an Execution, which it is, but in all the ways that I didn't like.

[00:13:38]>> [laughter] >> I hated the perspective of Mary Beth because she is the epitome of a boy mom.

[00:13:44]She is a ride or die for her son, even though he is a disgusting vile like he's gross. And she just puts all the blame on his victims, and she just won't accept that her son is an abuser.

[00:14:00]Holy cannolis, it's just as aggravating as Saving Noah. If you've read that one, then you know what I'm talking about.

[00:14:06]But I really did not want her POV. I felt like it was super unnecessary. I felt like it was really gross. I didn't like reading it. I felt like this author made Bertie and Lindsey very unlikable, and I'm assuming that is because you don't have to be perfect to be a victim.

[00:14:21]You don't have to be super likable to be a victim. There is no perfect victim, right?

[00:14:26]But some of the things Bertie says is really upsetting, like the way she talks about Lindsey, how their abuse was very different, and it just it they're they're not the same. And they made Lindsey very ditzy, like stupid. And I just didn't like the way this book went.

[00:14:44]I just I I don't know. I think there was supposed to be a deeper meaning, and it was supposed to be like profound, but I just didn't really get the point of it. It felt really I don't know. I just I didn't like the way things were handled in it, but that's just a personal preference. I'm sure a lot of people will love this book, but for me, it didn't work out. I did give this a 2.75.

[00:15:05]Okay, on to things that I read that you don't know about. This is Hyperventilation.

[00:15:13]This is supposed to be a high school reunion, and two guys hook up. It's so quick. It's just my I felt like there was no real story here, and by the end I was like, "That's it?

[00:15:29]That's it? Nothing else? Okay." It was just too quick. I I to it wasn't fun. I don't know. I I really needed more. I think I gave this a two, two and a half, something like that. But this was disappointing. This was really disappointing. Then I read The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Soto Yum Bao. This is the same author who did Water Moon. I loved Water Moon. I know a lot of people didn't, but it was Studio Ghibli vibes. I loved that. This one has Spirited Away vibes and kind of um something else, kind of like The Boy and the Heron. It kind of gave those kind of vibes to me.

[00:16:08]But the one thing I don't like is I hate these sprayed edges, okay? I love sprayed edges, but these just feel so childish, and I I don't like them. That makes me feel so bad because I actually am a lover of sprayed edges, but there's something about these, like it's just giving little kid. I don't know. I don't like that. That makes me feel so bad.

[00:16:30]This is about a train that offers refuge for people that are adrift and kind of gives a sense of belonging and peace for people that just feel a little lost. And it's about the main character who ends up on the train. I will say I did not love this as much as Water Moon. There were times where I was kind of confused.

[00:16:51]I felt like I wasn't following along at some points, and I was like, "Whoa, so much is happening. I don't know what's going on." cuz it just kind of bounces really quickly, and I felt a little distracted and a little lost. But it's very cozy, very cute, made me very emotional, especially at the end. I do love this author's writing. I love love the Studio Ghibli vibes. I just they're so comforting and warm and just nostalgic for me. So, I will read probably everything that's that this author puts out. But I definitely didn't like this one as much as Water Moon, and I but I still gave it four stars. So, I still really liked it. Then I read two volumes of Perfect World. This is a manga series about the main character who runs into her crush from school, and she finds out that he was in an accident, and he's now in a wheelchair. And it's really them navigating their new relationship with him having a disability and her learning uh to cope with that and the challenges that lay ahead for her and him as a couple. It's a very very sweet. It's very very sad. Oh my god, it's so sad.

[00:18:11]It made me emotional immediately. I was like, "Whoa." I didn't know this was going to make me want to cry. I did give both volumes five stars. These are the only two volumes I own, so I'm going to have to get them all because this was just so so cute, and I'm excited to keep reading it. Then I read Open Wide by Jessica Gross. This is a story about obsession.

[00:18:32]>> [laughter] >> I didn't like this, okay? I am not the biggest fan of weird girl lit. I just don't think I'm the target audience. I always want to love it, but >> [laughter] >> like there's just things about it that I can't do. And this is just about this woman who wants to get really close to the guy that she's dating, and I mean like really really really really close.

[00:18:56]She becomes obsessed, okay? This is for the girlies who want to wear their man's skin or like be inside their man. Like you want to wear your man's skin, you know?

[00:19:07]But like to the extreme. And look, I feel that way about my husband as much as the next girl. But this this was too much for me, okay? And the stuff with the dog, I know some people don't care, okay? I know some people don't care. But there is a scene in this book where the main character lets her dog lick her used vibrator, okay? Like immediately after using it.

[00:19:36]I'm sorry. That is animal abuse. I don't care. It's disgusting. I don't care that this is weird weird girl lit. I don't care. Can we stop including weird things with your dog or cat or any animal? It's just it's icky, okay? It gives me the >> [laughter] >> icks so bad, okay? Stop.

[00:19:57]I gave this two stars. I did not like it. No, thank you. Then I read the first volume of Rent-A-Girlfriend. This was actually gifted to me from my husband.

[00:20:06]He picked this up cuz he thought I would like it. And it's exactly what it sounds like. The main character rents a girl to be his girlfriend. That's her job.

[00:20:17]Like the idea of it sounds funny, but the main character is so icky and it's just like I don't know. He judges her so hard for it. He judges her. He's like, "I can't believe you do that. You're so disgusting. Blah, blah, blah, blah."

[00:20:31]Sir, you hired her.

[00:20:34]So, you like her for her services, but you're going to berate her for doing it?

[00:20:40]No, I just don't like it. I didn't like it. The The main character gives me the ick. He's annoying. I can't read this. I have another volume, but it's getting unhauled immediately. I'm not even reading it. This just turned me off so bad. I was like, "No, thank you. It's not funny. I don't like you. Bye." So, I think I gave this two stars, too. This is The Poet Empress by Shen Tao. I think that's how you say the author's name. I could be saying this wrong. This was an intense fantasy book. A very intense. I think a lot of people who like The Poppy War will really like this. There were a lot of similarities, I feel like. Not exact similarities, but I think if you like fantasy that brings up the same sort of topics, I think you'll really like this. This is about the main character who, because of her family starving and just like how bad they have it, she decides to offer herself as a concubine to the heir of this uh house and he's very very cruel. It was a lot. I I can see a lot of people not liking this because it is I wouldn't say it's super dark, but I do think there are darker themes to this fantasy than just your typical average fantasy. Um but I did really like it. It was very interesting to see how it played out. I gave this four and a half stars. I did see some things coming and I was a little like, "I wish that wouldn't have happened." but I did really enjoy this. I would definitely read more from this author because I I just like anything that gives the same feeling that The Poppy War did. So, I think this it just felt similar to me and I liked that. All right, then I read five volumes of A Sign of Affection.

[00:22:25]These are all the volumes I actually own, so I am going to have to buy more, unfortunately, because I also really, really enjoyed this. I gave every volume four stars. And this is about the female main character who is deaf and she meets this guy who pretty much just is enamored with her and starts to learn sign language to communicate with her and it's very very sweet. It's very cute. Pulls at my heartstrings. I loved it. I can't wait to see more from this couple and see what happens in the rest of the plot. I think a lot of people will really like this as well. I've heard really good things about this one, so I'm not surprised that I also really enjoyed it.

[00:23:09]Then I read Suspicion by Seicho Matsumoto. I think that's how you pronounce this author's name. This was actually sent to me. It's a very very very short and I was very excited. This is like a mystery. This is about this journalist who is convinced that the wife of this elderly man killed him. So, she lived in this car accident. They ended up falling like crashing into a pier and he drowned and she lived. And this journalist is convinced and his his work causes pretty much everyone else to believe that she is guilty. So, that's pretty much what the story is about. I was disappointed because I thought this was going to be something really snappy, punchy, and something that hit me with a huge twist and it didn't. I felt like it was really predictable. It was kind of slow even for being so short and I just wasn't really that interested in the story. This came out in 1982, so I think for the time this would be really like big, but I think because I am reading it 2026 and I've read so many other mysteries that this just didn't do much for me. Then I read Butter, okay? I have been dying to get my hands on this book because I heard so many people love it.

[00:24:31]I've heard so many people hate it and I heard it was like a a a mystery with crime and a serial killer and like there was cooking involved and I WAS LIKE, "OH, WAIT. This sounds like it'll be right up my alley." Okay? This is about a journalist who writes to a woman who's in prison for murdering several businessmen with like her cooking. She said to like have lured them in with her delicious cooking and then she like killed them, right? And this journalist is very fascinated by her and she wants to talk to her. So, they start up this communication. It takes a while for the woman in prison to decide she wants to talk to the journalist, but then it's the journalist like communicating with her, learning to cook. It's it's uh it it's not what I expected, okay? Like it wasn't bad. They spent a lot of time talking about food. Like a lot of time.

[00:25:30]There's a lot of talk about butter, like obviously, cooking, uh a lot of descriptions about flavors melting together and when you take a bite of food and all the flavors that hit your mouth and experiencing cooking and like that one That was fun for a little bit, but it was so often that I was like, "Okay." I think I thought it was a mystery and it's not really that because it says it's a unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance, and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan. Which like I just see all those things, but I think for me I was like, "Oh, this is going to be like a crime mystery. I I'm so excited." It wasn't that.

[00:26:13]>> [laughter] >> It wasn't that. I think there were a lot of good points made about misogyny and honestly about fatphobia. I think those things were great. I just I I think it could have been shorter. It was just really long and it was kind of boring and I kind of wanted to end and I'm sad because I bought Hooked by this author.

[00:26:33]This Hooked just came out and I bought Hooked before reading this and I'm hoping I like that one more because I didn't love Butter, but I gave it like a 3.5, I think. It wasn't bad, but I was a little disappointed. I ended up reading volumes three and four of Orochi. These are the last two like deluxe editions in the series. I've had these on my shelves for so long. I read volume one and two like two years ago >> [laughter] >> and then I've just been putting these off.

[00:27:07]I don't love these. I'm going to be honest. I think I gave both volumes a three. I It's just not my kind of horror. I I just find them kind of boring and I don't know. It was fun.

[00:27:20]There They're about this girl, Orochi, who has these kind of powers and she gets enamored by people's lives and so she kind of like follows along on the journey they're going through and she just kind of like watches things happen and it's just not that interesting to me. I don't I don't know. I know that a lot of people love these, but I will probably be unhauling all of them because I just won't reread them. I know I won't.

[00:27:46]Second to last, I read Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson. This is the second book after Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. I've had this on my TBR for a while, too. I just bought the third book, Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief.

[00:28:00]How much I loved this author's writing.

[00:28:03]I just have such a good time with these mysteries. I'm in such a mystery mood lately. I've just been such a mystery mood. And this one was fun. This one wasn't as fun as the first one. I was kind of like I mean, I know that the first one was like really groundbreaking for me, so of course the second one wasn't going to like beat it, but I was a little disappointed, okay? But I mean, it's exactly what it sounds like. He's on this train for the Australian Mystery Writers Society. It's like a crime writing festival and he's there because he wrote, you know, his first book after everything happened. You know, one of them gets murdered and they have to figure out who is doing it. I will say that the the twist was that I did not see it coming who was doing it. I was still shocked. I was still surprised. I felt like there was a lot of drama between our main character and his girlfriend, which I wasn't super into because I was like, "Okay, let's get to the mystery part, right?" But he was doing some dumb things in that department, which was like irritating. But I I did like this one a lot, okay? I did like this one a lot. I thought it was fun. If you like books about writers, it's talking about their books, so that's kind of fun. But um yeah, definitely not as good as the first one, but I am looking for forward to the third one because I did give this four stars and I just have a good time with this author's writing. We're on the last book. This is also my favorite book of the month, okay?

[00:29:37]I'm so shocked because I really didn't think I was going to like it as much as I did. I know so many people have been talking about this book and I was like, "There's no way I'm going to love this book. There's no way. I did in fact love this book. It is The Everlasting by Alex E. Harrow.

[00:29:56]This book made me so emotional.

[00:29:58]>> [laughter] >> Okay? I know I'm a crybaby. I know I'm a crybaby, but this made me so emotional, okay? So emotional. This is an Arthurian time traveling romance, okay? We're talking about Sir Una who is a knight, but she meets a tragic end. And years in the future there is Owen who is a scholar. He comes back from war and he's just kind of you know, war really like did it a number on Owen, but he's a scholar now and he finds this mysterious book that takes him back in time.

[00:30:34]Oh my god. I mean, I know I love a time traveling book. I know I do. I've had such a good time with most of the time traveling books that I've read, but I really thought that I wasn't going to love this. This was so heartbreaking.

[00:30:49]I was like glued to the pages. I was like what's going to happen next? What's going to happen next, okay? It was so sad. This is a tragic romance, but I loved it and I did really love the ending, okay? I thought the ending was going to be bad. I thought the ending was going to be bad and I was going to hate it, but I loved the ending. I loved everything about this book. This is what I want from a romance. Like I want to feel something, okay? I want to feel it and I felt every page of this book, okay? I loved this. This is my my second book from this author. The first one was The Starling House and I DNF'd it cuz I didn't like it, but this loved loved loved loved five stars. And that my friends is my March wrap-up.

[00:31:39]Hopefully this isn't a hundred years long, but that is it. I hope you enjoyed hearing my thoughts and feelings and ratings on all these books. If you did, give me a thumbs up. Let me know if you've read any of these books or the manga. Let me know what your thoughts were. If you have any recommendations based on the books that I've mentioned and you want to give them to me, also leave a comment. I would love to hear your thoughts down below. We can chit-chat. Let me know what your favorite or least favorite or both of March was if you even remember because it's been eons since it was March, but let me know in a comment because I love hearing what you all read during the month as well. Like whatever. I was going to say share, but I don't know.

[00:32:21]Sharing videos, that makes me feel weird. Like share my video with your friends. Like that's just weird.

[00:32:26]Anyways, subscribe. You know the drill. And with that being said, I hope you are having a great day, night, morning, afternoon wherever you are and I will see you in my next video. Bye.