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Bookstore because I think it'd be fun to ride a horse to a bookstore.
I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
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Hey everybody, my name is Michael, and thank you for
tuning in to the June Epic Reads Book Haul.
I'm wearing a very summer themed pineapple shirt for this video.
I hope you will enjoy and appreciate that.
And as always,
I'm gonna start off by talking about the year of Epic Reads Reading Challenge.
So if you don't know, the year of Epic Reads Challenges are weekly, monthly and
quarterly challenges where every challenge has a different theme and
there's a Facebook group that explains this all down below.
I do the monthly challenge.
And the June monthly challenge is to read with pride.
And so the book that I have chosen to read for
the month is Like A Love Story by Abdi Nazemian.
So this book is set in New York City in 1989,
against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis.
And it follows a boy named Raza who is gay.
But with everything that's going on in society,
he's too scared to admit that to even himself, let alone other people.
And he just moved to New York City with his mom to meet his stepbrother and
stepfather.
And so, it's really a different lifestyle for him.
He's Iranian-American.
And he meets Judy and Art, who are two really fantastic kids at the school,
who the story also follows.
And Art is the only out and proud gay kid at the school, and
Judy's just this fantastic, bubbly, lively personality.
And he sort of becomes friends with them.
But being that he's gay, but not able to express that to other people or
himself, he sort of ends up romantically entangled with Judy.
But he kind of has feelings for Art, and it's just this really emotional,
passionate love triangle.
And also, it's about the ACT UP movement, because Judy's uncle
Steven has AIDS and he is teaching Judy and Art to be activists.
And Reza wants to get involved but he's kind of scared.
And it's just this really touching emotional,
beautiful book you guys have to check out.
Next up we have [LAUGH] The Rest Of The Story by Sarah Dessen,
the queen of contemporary, which is the perfect beach summer read.
That you can also read other times of year.
So this book follows a girl named Emma Sailor whose mom died when she was 12.
And this summer, she's surprised to find out
she's being sent to live with her mom's family at this lake.
And she's actually finding herself enjoying it.
There's this boy named Roo there, who was her best friend when she was younger, but
like nowadays is low key kind of cute and she's kind of into him.
And he's sort of part of this lake experience and
meeting all these new family members, and she's really enjoying it.
And then her dad shows up.
And he wants to stay at this resort that's separate from where she's been living and
working with her family.
And it sort of creates this dichotomy for her and
she has to decide like which half will win, which half has her heart..
And so, it's this family story but also a romance,
but also just the perfect summer contemporary story, you guys.
So the next book I have here is a very powerful contemporary, as well.
It is, This Time Will Be Different, by Misa Suguira.
And it follows a girl named CJ, as depicted on the cover, who has never felt
like she fits in with her mom's type A personality or the family in general.
But what she does feel like she fits is at the family's flower shop where she creates
flower magic.
No magic was actually used in the making of this novel.
To create the perfect bouquet for different people and different situations.
And she's doing this with her aunt and she loves it.
And then her mom announces she wants to sell the family flower shop to the people
who took it during the World War II when the Japanese were into interment camps.
And it creates a rift in her family and her community.
And her mom has her own reasons, but CJ's not happy with it.
And for the first time, she is finding her voice and
the ability to speak up in what she believes in.
This next book is the swooney,
the fairy tale inspired, The Beholder by Anna Bright.
And this is sort of like The Selection but overseas.
It follows a girl named Sella,
who proposes to this boy she's been in love with since she was younger.
She never explicitly told him, so
it's a little rough that she tells him in front of the entire town and
proposes to him in front of the entire town that her dad is the leader of.
And then gets excruciatingly publicly shut down.
And to make matters worse, her low key evil stepmother then sends her
overseas with the threat to find a suitor or possibly never return home.
And so she's in this new environment.
She's sent overseas to meet these different men who she's to marry.
And it's romantic and funny.
But also very stressful for Sella.
And I definitely recommend you check out this beautiful book.
The next book I have here is the Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Stephen and
this follows a girl named is Izzy who she knows who she is.
She knows what she wants to do.
She's funny, she wants to be a comedian.
And she thinks she's got things figured out until a video of her in
a compromising position with a politician's son is leaked.
And she's sure it'll blow over.
She's not gonna let it affect her because she's got some strong skin.
But then she finds herself in the middle of a national scandal, and
people start labeling her nasty things and telling her what she is.
And it's the story about her getting through this and
not letting other people define her.
And defining herself regardless of the situations that have happened to her, and
the sort of toxic masculinity that gets into our society.
And great, you guys, so great.
The next book, Return to Zero.
I don't have a final copy of, but I'm going to make appear with my legacies.
Yep, that was super powers, but it's not the super power of editing.
This is the final book in the world of Pitacus Lore's I Am Number Four.
There were seven books in the original series.
This is a spin off series that has three books in it, and this is the third and
final book.
And to give you guys a little bit of context without spoiling everything for
you in this ten book world that's also got some side novellas.
At the end of the first series, things happened.
And normal human beings, people in our world, were gifted these powers.
Random people were gifted these powers that aliens have that came down to earth.
And this series has been a spin off about them, these people who are given
these super alien, I guess I can call them, abilities called legacies.
And there's sort of a war brewing in this final book.
We don't know who the heroes or villains are.
The line is blurred, and it's bound to be epic.
The next book I have here is Shadow and Flame by Mindy Arnett.
This is the sequel to Onyx and Ivory and follows the events of those books where
this girl named Kate has this dangerous forbidden ability.
And she sort of has to use it and
team up with the prince who she was once in love with.
Until they sort of had a falling out when her dad tried to kill his dad, the king.
So they're not doing too well and
they have to end up together to stop this impending darkness.
And that was book one.
Now we're in book two.
Things have gone down.
Kate is now the Wilder Queen and they have to stop another impending war.
So epic fantasy is right here.
So this next book is the Language of Fire by Stephanie Hemphill.
And I just have to say I am loving the color scheme we have going on this month.
It's fire. It's straight fire.
I'm sorry.
And this is a Joan of Arc retelling of sorts.
And Joan of Arc is a real person.
A woman who was super courageous and powerful and
fought in a time where women didn't have power.
And she did some really bad ass things.
And this is a poetry re-imagining of her life, so definitely check it out.
So the next novel I have here is Ordinary Girls by Blair Thornborough, and
this follows two sisters who are very opposite.
And one girl is sort of an outcast and
has always felt in the shadow of her older sister.
And both sisters have felt a bit in the shadow of their late father who was
a famous novelist.
And at this point in their lives, things aren't going perfectly.
A lot of things just go wrong around the house.
They're down on family finances, but the outcast sister sort of finds peace and
solace in a cute boy she wasn't expecting.
And she finally has this person as a secret of her own, but
it sort of takes her away from her sister and her family at a time,
especially when her sister needs her.
And it's just a really touching emotional fun story, you guys.
The next book I have here is Girls of July by Alex Flynn.
And it follows four girls who you probably guess are together in the month of July.
And they rent this house out in the mountains together.
And sort of get away from society and get away from it all.
And in the process things happened and they sort of realize that even when
getting away, it sort of takes you back to who you really are on the inside.
And it's a very touching emotional story.
The next book I have here is Sorry For Your Loss by Jesse Ann Foley.
And this follows a boy named Pup who is the youngest in the family of eight and
who has always kind of felt like he's not spectacular, or
he's not excelling in life.
And the only person who did make him feel otherwise was his older brother Patrick
who unexpectedly passes away.
And when this happens, he leaves a family full of just broken people.
And then Pup has this photography assignment which unexpectedly
sort of reveals his own grief to him.
And he really succeeds at it when he thought he was gonna fail.
And meets people that take him out of his grief.
And at the same time sees other people who are stuck in their own and
it's just this really powerful, fantastic story.
And then before I go I'm going to talk about some books we have from other
publishers this month.
The first which is Again, but Better by Christine Riccio who's a Booktuber on
the YouTubes [LAUGH] that you're currently watching, PolandBananasBOOKS.
And this follows a girl who doesn't feel like she's thriving in college.
And so she decides to go away on this European program that might
not be the best for her major or for her life, but she wants a second chance.
And so she's trying to do college again, but better.
You get it.
And then I have Kings, Queens, and In-betweens by Tanya Boteju.
And this is about a girl who is tired of this sort of small town where she doesn't
feel like there's a lot of expression until she
gets dragged into the drag scene on the other side of town she wasn't aware of.
And there she meets macho drag kings, magical queens and new love interests and
allies.
So it sounds like a really beautiful, fun story.
So thank you guys so much for watching.
This was our June Book Haul, it's bound to be a fantastic month.
And I hope you enjoyed watching me talk for this long.
And please comment down below with other books that you're really excited for
in this month so I know what else I should try reading.
I will see you guys next month in July.
All right, goodbye.
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