Hello and welcome back to my channel I am Jourdan and today i'm here with a wrap
up slash tbr. I'm combining the two because
i don't think we need two different videos for it, to be honest.
and yeah we're gonna be talking about all things books but
[again] I'm Jourdan, if you haven't already definitely click that subscribe link you
won't regret it! And also engage with the channel. You
know I always write back. I love the conversations below
let's talk about it [the books]. So if any of these books pop out to you, let's discuss
them. Without further ado let's get into...
Should I do [the] wrap up first? or what I plan on reading?
All right, so let's actually get started with the books that i read this month
okay so i'm gonna go in the order of the books that I love the most to least
so the book that I loved the most was Caste! Spoiler alert [laughs]. You guys probably
already saw my standalone review. If you haven't, go check it out.
Because this is a wrap up, I can only talk so much about the book
just know that I really liked the book a lot. I recommend that you read it. I
purchased it to own, so you know I really liked it.
But Caste is the follow-up to Isabel Wilkerson's um
novel The Warmth of Other Suns. I probably shouldn't say that, because the
two are not related. But it's been 10 years since we had a book
from her and i'm so glad that we have one and that it was amazing
Like this was written so well. I was definitely scared to read it
because my mental health is very important to me
and y'all 2020, it's a whole other beast. The level of pain and ridiculousness
that black people have had to face for centuries and that we're
continuously facing and that 2020 is now compounding
in our face constantly, i can't even get into.
So I was scared to read it, but i read it. And i'm gonna reread it. So that lets you
know that even though it's heavy topics discussed
it's very important. Like it's very important. The precipice of Caste is
really because Isabel Wilkerson felt like the word
racism was not strong enough. She wanted to talk about the origin and
the foundation of what our country was built upon and what
it currently operates within. It's literally blow for blow non-fiction
facts of the history of our country from the
origin to where we are today and drawn parallels to other caste
systems to kind of make that argument if that
makes sense it's impossible to sum this up in a
one-liner in a quick concise manner for a wrap
up just know that this is very well written
I said it in my standalone review and i'll say it here
that Isabel Wilkerson, I think she has a writing style that is
unmatched. Like the way that she is able to write nonfiction
in such a literary narrative beautiful way
even when it's dark and grim and she somehow
sums everything up where it's so clear and hard-hitting
that's that's that's a description of its own. I don't know what you would
classify her writing style as, but it's definitely
distinctive. It's not the same format as the warmth of other suns, so if you're
expecting that, don't. But I will say it's a very
engaging read. Yeah
read this the next book that i'll talk about is "You should see me in a crown"
Lighty--Liiz Lighty who is a young teen girl who's
applying for colleges and you know she was banking on this money coming through
and the money's not coming through so she still needs to pay for college
because she wants to go and aha a bright idea she'll run for
prom queen because in her small town they
take prom super serious where they give scholarships out to the prom king and
queen but you have to run like a full out campaign and she is gonna have to
put herself out there which is very scary for her because she
is one of the only black kids within her
school and she has already been targeted based on her differences so this makes
her scared to do so and we're navigating that
she has a support system she has her friends she has her grandparents she has
a loving brother but she has her own
things that she's going through but the love romance comes in where a new girl
moves to her school which kind of rocks her world and sends her on a different
shift as well I love this book because it showed
like this girl who's finding her own and finding her voice
and not cowering in the shadows anymore and
really coming into her light. And Lighty-- do it the Lighty way! They
say that throughout the book, because her name is Liz Lighty and
i feel like that exactly what the book makes you feel like. A little smile that
some black girl out there found her light and found her joy
yeah I enjoyed the book a lot! So the next book i want to talk about
is "I wanna be where you are". This is a debut novel and I solely picked
this up because it said black ballerina. I know nothing about the book Chile, but
I was like "that sounds happy" and with reading Caste I needed something
happy! So I really like this book
it's a young adult romance, go figure. And it's
featuring a young ballerina who really wants to go to this audition to try out
and to make it into this program with one of her dream instructors
it's loosely based around Alvin Ailey, which I thought was really dope. And the
author herself is a former dancer, which brings a whole different
perspective because I never-- I never did dance. I always wanted to
as a young person. Like you know, I thought that [Dance] would have been cool but
I-- I decided to do gymnastics. That's neither here nor there...
anyways, I think that perspective was so cool that she was able to tap into
that and kind of show us that light. Like that lane. And also i'm not
getting into the romance part! She [Chloe] has this
kid that she has known for a long time, Eli, her neighbor
next door neighbor. And he annoys the ish out of her
but somehow they end up on this road trip together for her to get to this
audition because her mama won't let her go but
she's like i'm gonna go anyways of course on the road trip or this
adventure, there's a romance that blossoms. But it's so cool because he's
like an artist she's a dancer and it's very cute the
only areas where I had to remember hello this is a teen
romance, you can't ding them for this, but it was frustrating
sometimes because I'm like, I want y'all [the characters] to talk about your issues. Y'all could
get over this real quick. But even adults it's hard to talk about
your issues sometimes so there was a lot of frustration i would
say on my end from that angle but all in all the book made me smile I
enjoyed it and I thought it was a refreshing story
and a solid debut the next book that i'm going
to talk about is "The boyfriend project". Romance this month, it just brought me
all the joy! Last month I read a lot of fantasy, this month a lot of
romance. And i'm here for it! So "The boyfriend project" centers around Samaiyah
who is-- let's start off here. [The book is] very entertaining and funny. It is
written in--- it's contemporary, so it's like ---it's like
the way i'm talking right now. It's just real chill
Real funny and it follows Samaiyah, who basically got played by this dude
two other girls got played. All three of them [were] dating the same guy. This is the
opening scene Samaiyah, Taylor, London. That makes them
become friends, because they have this commonality.
and they make this pack that they are going to focus on their passion project
versus boyfriends you know and take a break from men. But
somebody got this new cute co-worker who just happens to show up
Daniel. So of course she's in a pickle! But it's beyond that, because you know
it's not as simple as some cute guy comes to your job
and I just can't be there because i'm in this boyfriend project
No! There's other drama that comes on and he's not exactly what he says he is
either so of course he got a little drama and all
that other stuff. But what I actually liked the most about this romance wasn't
the romance. Because honestly I could have cared
less if they made it. I was not invested in those two
making it at all. I mean it's cool to have a little chemistry and romance but
i actually was more invested in Samaiyah's well-being
which I liked. I wanted her and her friends to be okay
i wanted things to go well at her job i wanted her
to find joy and happiness and go after her dreams
she's in the tech world a male dominated field
she's a black woman it touches on that lord it touched on this white girl who
keeps stealing her ideas it was triggering for me
i've dealt with it and i thought it was so cool to get that in a romance
it was a good timely read for me um yeah i also re-read "Salvage The Bones" by
Jesmyn Ward which i'm just mentioning to you guys you guys
probably saw my standalone review but i wanted to reread it because it was
the 15th anniversary of hurricane katrina
additionally the ninth anniversary since the release of this book
and i just felt like it was timely a timely read to reread
and i'm so glad that i did i i loved it even more the second time around um
check out that standalone if you want to know more but
this follows basically this family or these kids in rural
mississippi over the course of 12 days with 10 of
those days leading up to hurricane katrina and
that's where i'll leave it at it's this is it's a really good book i really love
this book um a lot and i talk about it in my
standalone so what i plan on reading i actually
started "Transcendent kingdom" yesterday I was so excited
because my hold from the library came up and i was like okay let's get this
let's get this cracking and i'm solely excited
about this based off of the strength of "Homegoing"
This is Yaa Gyasi's second novel. Once I heard she had a novel coming out
i was like let me go ahead and put my hold in
request it because i already know it took me forever to get to home going so
to get that hold up so i wasn't gonna play around this time so i suggest you
do the same go ahead and put that hold in if you're
getting it from the library i started it it's already starting off strong
homegirl is already starting off strong i do
appreciate i actually watch rachel's-- i think she does stand alone review i'm
gonna say it was a standalone review of the the book without spoilers and
she basically was like it's not the same structure as homegoing which i
appreciated because i was going into this like
is this the same structure because that's what i'm looking for but even
though it's not the same structure i had my i
had my mindset checked for it um it's already starting
off with beautiful writing so i'm i'm excited and i guess i should talk
about what the books about the book is actually
about a girl who's actually studying neuroscience um
because she really wants to understand how the brain works because she has had
a lot of different experiences within her life
already her mother suffers from depression
her brother suffered from addiction um an opioid addiction um he was
prescribed oxycontin i believe and you know succumbed to that
addiction and it just it's it's interesting because she wants to
know how the brain works she talks about how she wasn't interested in psychology
she really wanted to know the science behind that and also interestingly
enough it ties in faith i did not when i tell y'all i did not
catch the the cover of the book is her literally praying i didn't even know
religion was going to be something that was discussed in this book so
that came to me by surprise um but so far it's an interest in read and i just
feel like
i've been waiting for this since freaking january so i'm here for it
so the next book that i look forward to reading y'all should see my
oh i don't know y'all can probably not see my eyes because that's how excited i
am is When No one Is Watching by Alyssa Cole
y'all have no idea how hyped i am about this freaking book
my whole for some reason i'm number three
y'all got more than three copies i need y'all to let this up i'm about to
purchase it that's that's where i'm at right now i have to
get my hands on this alyssa cole i have read pretty much almost all of
her romance novels i have loved everything alyssa cole has
put out even her sci-fi um exploration so this being a thriller
slash horror i'm so amped for it so amped i can't
even i can't even express it i hope i don't
hype this up and have my expectations way too high
i'll let you guys know how it goes i know i didn't say what the book's about
but the book is i hear it touches on like
gentrification and all sorts y'all i don't know what the book's about
i don't know what the book's about the book's about alyssa colen wrote a
thriller whore i might need to do a better job y'all
don't judge me okay well anyways i'll leave you guys there 11 light and
i'll see you guys in the next one bye