June Book Report

Hi sorry for no episode last week life just got busy after being on vacation. Hope you enjoy this book report episode. I got back into a book series in July cannot wait to finish it in August. July was a great reading month for me.

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Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Let's Talk Podcast. And if you cannot tell by the title of this episode, you know what time it is. It's book report time. And I'm gonna be doing it how I decided to do back in April. I liked how the layout went. I remembered a lot more things. I'm just giving reminders because people forget things, let's be honest. It's summer, people forget things. I know, even though I am young, I still forget things as well. I have a beautiful lineup of books I will be reading for this month. I am so excited to be reading these books. It might be a mix of physical TBR and digital TBR, depending on what my month unfolds to be. Because if I'm going to the pool, I will be switching to a digital book and reading a digital book. But at the current moment, I am trying to get through as much physical TBR before my butt is sitting at the pool for the rest of the summer. And I don't know if this is not just my pet peeve or if other book nerds are the same way as me. But I have to share this thought real fast before we dive into the first book I read. And this is a really hard one for me to talk about because I flinch every time people talk about this since I have become more of a book nerd over the last couple months or since really the year began. Because I wasn't as big of a book nerd until after college. I just read books for fun, but I've slowly becoming more of a book nerd since college has ended. I've been out of college officially two years. That is really crazy to think, even though I am still on the job search. If you're wondering, if you want to hear how that's going, you have to listen to a simple discussion podcast. I will never talk about it on this podcast, FYI. But one of the things that irks me, and people do this all the time if they're not a big book nerd. Oh, once you finish this book, I'm gonna take it to the pool. I don't know how some people feel about this, but I hate when people hate slash despise when people take good books to the pool and the water destroys them. I must be slowly doing a better job of taking care of books, even though I still dog ear pages. That's for me to just keep track of stuff. I'm not a bookmark person. I just preferred to dog ear. People can get on me on that. But what when this person said, can't take this book to the pool, I about almost wanted to lose my freaking mind. I'm like, what? Like, I just spent good money on a book and you want to take it to the pool? I was I don't know what I was gonna feel. I was like very stone faced, but I had a lot of emotions going through me of like, please don't bring this near the water. Please, please don't. Please don't destroy it. I just barely bought it, was what I was thinking. And I was just like, really? There are people that refuse to read outside of pool season or lake season, and that they have to be in water to read. Whereas I am one of those that can read any time of the year. You can find me reading anywhere and everywhere, is what I people have saw me do. But when I hear about these people breeding in the water, I'm like, I'm about to lose my freaking mind because I treat my books with so much like beautifulness, and I then hear someone else tell me to spend my money wisely, and then they're going to take one of my books to the freaking pool. Come on, yo, come on. We could do better is what I am getting at. But yeah, that's that's one of the things I've been crippling with is the fact of do books belong near the pool when reading? That is always a good summer debate to have with book nerds because everybody is gonna have some very mixed opinions on this topic, and I foolheartedly feel that they do not belong unless you're sitting out in a lawn chair and reading. That is how I feel. You can feel very differently than me and say, no, if it's a paperback, it's fine. I'm like, but you want a book to last so you can read it over and over again, is what my thoughts are is there's sometimes you fall in love with a book and then you let someone borrow it and they read it by the pool and then it's not the same, and you were hoping to read it over and over again because it was such a good book. And I was just like, Oh, I have so many hard feelings of who do you trust to borrow books? But it's not my place to say, but I have some very strong feelings about this as summer has kicked off, summer reading plans are going on at your local library. Go support your local library, go check out books, and they should be giving fair warnings to people of please don't read near water. Because I'm curious to see how many books y'all will read this summer. But going into the summer season, I have read 15 books, just finished my 16th book. That's wild, and just barely started my 17th book. And I am here to talk about my 16th book after getting off my rant about talking about do books belong at the pool or lake. Of I just finished my 16th book, and this is crazy of how long it took me to read this book. I literally started it close to the end of May, thinking I would finish it before May ends, and I'd have a fourth book read for May, which sadly did not happen. I did not have a book ready to be finished by the end of May, and it got finished in June. It's mine boggoline of how many books get finished. I'm like, there's some people that can read really, really fast. I am not a fast reader. I try to be, I'm slowly trying to become that. I know some people are like, so how fast can you read? I'm like, I don't know. I am curious to see how fast I can read a book because other people around me are reading fast. And this book I was reading just I just literally finished the other day. Took me four days to read. I have not finished a book in four days in a while. I don't remember the last time I finished a book in four days. Yeah, I don't. Unless it was one of those books I couldn't put down, and that's why I finished it. I really don't remember. That's really hard. It might have been from a couple months ago, it might have been in Bridgerton. I don't actually remember. It mind boggles me. I can't even remember the last book I finished. But this is a book I started back in 2022. Yeah, 2022. And I got X amount in, wasn't feeling it back at that time, put it down and said, I'm never reading this. I DNF'd it. I told myself I'm never gonna read this again. And then I am like, I need to get through my physical TBR. I said to myself just recently, I didn't tell anybody, I was just talking to myself in my head. Who else talks in their head? Because I don't want to be the only person that just talks in their head and says the most randomest stuff, and I'm not crazy because I know I'm not crazy. And this book was there, and I'm like, do I finish it? I don't know. Because it was one of those books I bought at Barnes back in college because my college town had a barn. It's not far from my apartment. It was like a 10-minute drive, close to a 10-minute drive. And I loved going there if I was bored on a weekend. I loved going to Barnes. I could have bought way more books, but I didn't. I could do I can do damage at a bookstore between high-price books and Barnes and Noble, or even a local bookstore. I can do damage, which I did do. I I did go to a local bookstore just recently as well and added to my physical TBR because we have read through some of my physical TBR and we needed to rebuild. I'm very tempted to go back down and get some more books, but I'm trying to hold out and save some money up and get another like three or four books because I always like supporting bookstores. Hopefully, y'all do too. It's very easy to get a couple books and go shopping at the bookstore, so yes. But getting back on track, let's talk about the book I went and bought. I heard about it on a PBS show. PBS gets the most interesting people that write books, and this one caught my interest. I don't know if I was dead tired or looking for something interesting to read, and this popped up. I don't know what happened, but this book popped up. And the name of this book, I know I've been talking and avoiding saying the title was Olga Dives Dreaming. I thought this was an interesting title for a book, and that's why I grabbed it. I had never heard of the author, and I'm not even gonna say the name because I feel like I'm going to butcher it. So don't even ask me to try to say the author's name because I already know your home girl's gonna butcher it. So please do not ask me to say it. I got like 50 to 70 pages in the first time I read it, and I was like, I'm not feeling it. And I might have had too many books going at the time, and that's why I put it on the back burner. But now here I am. I have finished the book. It was a very eye-opening book. The beginning is hard to get through. I will say that you almost need to sit for a couple hours and get through the beginning part to finally get to the depth of the book. How many times have I tried starting this book? Only two times. The second time was the charm and got me to read the whole book, which is very exciting. I'm always excited to finish a book, always am, and I'm glad I finished this. And I heard about this book through PBS. And what is this book about? It's an interesting story plot. It's about two siblings of Puerto Rican descent. Their parents slash family members had came from Puerto Rico and they were born American. It was like their great grandparents came from Puerto Rico and their parents were born in America, and they're talking about making the American dream throughout the whole story. The sister is a very well-known wedding planner to the point of she appears on TV once or twice a month giving wedding advice to the brother is a politician up in DC. It was just a very eye-opening story of how did they come to be? Because the brother still lives in their childhood home when he's not in DC. And the sister comes around when she can when she's not in the big part of wedding season. And the sister does some interesting things with being a party planner. I don't want to go into detail and ruin that for you, but her brother is also, this is interesting for being Pride Month, a closeted gay man. Did not expect that in the book. He refuses to accept the fact that he's gay. He married a woman for a short period of time to have a kid, then divorced her just to please the family because he was scared about coming out. He was very, very scared. And then the sister has a hard time falling in love because of situations of she has had some psychological damage done to her, which you later find out from the mother as the book carries on. And who is my favorite character? That is hard because I go in between characters in the book as I was reading it in a four-day span because it was very interesting. I liked the layout of the book. I would say my favorite character would have to be the sister, because her world is very interesting because of who she knows, what she does on a daily, and who she falls in love with. Because she didn't know what she wanted out of a lover until she met Mateo, which you'll find out about Mateo as you read the book, which is is why I also was in between of do I like Olga, Prieto or Mateo? Those were the three I was in between of. Who do I like? Those were the three characters I really liked. There was one character I pretty much did not like, and he was a very rich man who swore he was very much in love with Olga when Olga really was not in love with him. She was just flirting with him to get his business and help get contacts to grow her event planning business. She was like almost just using him as the best way to describe it, and that he will later do something to her that she did not agree to after she's fully committed herself to Mateo, and he will not accept no for an answer, you'll find out, which is very, very sad. I'm surprised she didn't report him to the police. He should have been reported because she went really down in the dumps with what he did to her, and he he blames her for a lot of things as well, which is very sad. What city does this play take place in? I totally forgot this, left this out completely, and I should have said this. It takes place in New York, mainly Manhattan, Brooklyn area, because that is mainly where most of Puerto Rican descents live and have all their businesses, as you find out through the book. Or if you've been to New York and seen New York, you would know these things. Who has been the person saving a lot of the businesses in the Manhattan, Brooklyn area that are owned by the minority has been the person Olga falls in love with, which is Mateo. You find that out close to the end of the book, which is kind of cool and makes her fall even more in love with him. And I'm surprised at how many times Mateo forgave Olga with her mental health because Olga's mental health was not great, you find out off and on throughout the story. She does get help. You do find that out close to the end of the book. The only way Mateo would stay with her is if she got the help she needed. And even Mateo said he would go to therapy because he had his own issues he needed to work through as well. I love when couples realize that they both need help. And that's what I liked about their relationship was they were very open with each other. And they did a lot of hanging out sessions, which I really liked, where they just sat and listened to records in his home. And he had two parts of his house where he had two different record players. He had a whole section dedicated just to Christmas, which is really cool. Another section, which was everyday music. I'm like, that is the kind of person I want to be in a relationship where I can just sit out, sit and hang out and just listen to records for hours on end. Because they would talk about that in the book. And I'm like, I'm so jealous of that. That is what I want in a partner. So jealous she has that. And the last thing I am going to talk about in this book before this gets too long and I ruin the whole book for you. Because I am one of those. I will not ruin a book for a person because I'm only gonna give snippets and details that I feel are essential to know. And the last thing I think is why Mateo and Preet, not Mateo, why did I just say Mateo? I'm getting Mateo and Olga confused now. Oh my gosh, I'm such a goof. Olga and Preto, why they have some issues themselves, as you find out throughout the whole book, of why they work so hard and won't give themselves grace. Grace is their mother is crazy, she is beyond crazy. She, you'll hear of how she just left her kids to go do something, and then like just says, You're not really supportive of the home homeland, and that you're pleasing to white people. And it's like, well, in order to make it in the world, you kind of almost have to. But like the mother really wasn't supportive of them at all, and a lot of the family you'll hear throughout the book said she was not fit to be a mother, and they are pretty dang open about saying that, even to them. Of yeah, your mother was not fit to be a mother, and the mom had some crazy ideas. I don't want to go into too much detail because it's a big plot line of the story at a certain point, but it drives you up a wall of like, oh my gosh, why is her their mother doing this to them? She almost screams psycho, and even somebody in the book even said that, which was like, Thank god someone in the book is saying this, and that I'm not the only crazy one thinking this as I'm reading the story. But overall, this was an interesting story. I am glad I gave it another chance a couple years later, because overall it was a good story. Will I read it again? Probably not, but it gave a very eye-opening aspect of what life is like being of a minority race in America and how you get treated if you try to go into politics or just trying to make it in the world, and that white dominance is real and it's sad, and that is all I want to say about it before I get too political. But this story really opened my eyes to a lot of things, and I will be back with the next book I'm reading, which I've already started reading because you know I'm always excited to get a book started, which is Remarkably Bright Creatures, which is also a film on Netflix. But before I leave, I want to ask this question before I come back to talk about this book. Are you one of those that has to read the book before you watch the film, or or are you vice versa? Depends on the situation for me. But this book, I have to read the book before I watch the movie because I just want to grasp it better. And I've heard a lot of people say the book is so good. I I didn't want to ruin my aspect of watching the film and not liking the book, and that is why I'm reading the book before watching this film that is probably gonna be up for awards. But that's also probably the case for the off-campus series. I've started watching this series, but not I have not read the books. I will probably watch this series before I read the book. Book or books, because it's a series as well, and this month is gonna be mainly singleton books, unless things change and I am spending more time at the pool, then I will deep dive into some kind of series. So I will be back to give my reviews on the remarkably bright creatures. Okay, I am back. I have officially finished Remarkably Bright Creatures. How many days did it actually take me compared to Olga, which took me four? Let's take a look. Okay, let's I two, three, four, five, six. It took me five days. I had to do a little counting, a little counting on my fingers because I six took me five days compared to four, but I know it's not a marathon, but sometimes life gets in the way and you don't get to read as much as you would preferably like to read. Some days were better reading days than others, but I am trying this month to read as many books as possible. I don't know if I mentioned that at the beginning of the episode. I felt like Maybe I should possibly say this so people aren't confused of why is this a long episode? Well, it's summer. I'm trying to read as much as possible because I feel like the summer months are the best months to read books. And also, Remarkably Bright Creatures was another book I could not put down. I actually, the day I finished the book, I read over four hours of the book, which was mind-boggling. And how many hours was the book on Audible? I wanna see real fast. It was. Between the book and the film, I'm not completely finished with the film just entirely yet, but the book and the film are both very good. I think the film will be up for awards once award season comes, because certain characters played their roles well so far. And even though the film took a little bit of a different route than the book, it's still just as good. I know this bothers some people, but it doesn't bother me as bad because I knew going into the film that it was going to be different than the book. As soon as the film started, I knew, okay, we're taking a little bit of a different route. I'm okay with this because I could see why they wanted to take a different route with the film. And it has been very much in the pop culture world. It sat in the top 10 list of Netflix very, very long time. I don't know how many weeks, but it was a good decent amount of time. It is one of the most liked films on Netflix at this moment when I was looking at it over the weekend as well. And even though I'm only an hour or over an hour in so far, and I still have a bunch of it to watch. By the way, it's fine. I think it's worth a watch. If you're gonna watch the film, I think you also need to read the book as well because I think there's some stuff missing from the film that you'll read in the book and you'll be like, okay, I need to read the book. And one of the comments on the book I saw, I am not one of those. I wish I was, by the way. I wish I could be one of those where I could sit and read a book in a city. I know people are doing that with certain books at the current moment. I've mentioned this priorly at the beginning of the episode. It was either in this episode or another episode that will be coming out before this. Because people are starting to do this trend of just sitting down and reading books. But this was mentioned when the book first came out before years before the film was even considered to be a film. That it's a book you could sit read in one sitting. I 100% believe it. I think I would have been one of those if people just would let me sit and not be bothered. But sadly, people come in and say, I need you to do this, and you just have daily life tasks you gotta do. And sometimes it takes you a couple days to read a book. I honestly wish I was at that point in life where I was able to have more days where I could just sit and read for hours on end, a couple days a week. But I'm like, I could if I really put my finger down and was like, I'm doing a no screens day except for audiobooks. I could probably do it. I could what is the story about? Oh, how much of it do I really want to tell without not ruining the book and movie? I just know it's around a small town in Washington state, is where most of the story happens. And it's in more of a modern time, which is really cool. It takes the book takes place in 2017, even though the film kind of takes place many years down the road than that. You'll learn when you watch the film. Because some of the stuff I will mention from the film that was not in the book that got mentioned was they never talked about her brother, which kind of upset me because of that was a big part of the story that I'm gonna talk about is which plays a big role in the first decent part of the book and why she ends up selling her childhood home. You really don't hear much about her Swedish culture, really. The only kind of Swedish thing you hear about is her name, and you you don't ever hear about how the only thing you hear about is how her father built the house, but her Swedish culture gets kind of brought up in bits and pieces in the book and not as much in the film. So yeah, it's like it takes place in a small town in Washington's Washington State, and the name of the town is Soul Bay, and it's all around the aquarium of the town because this is very much a water town, a nautical town, probably very popular during the summer months more uh than the fall and winter and spring months. I would say more fall winter months, it's not as popular as spring and summer, and it follows the characters of Tova, Cameron, and sort of the grocery store owner of the town, and bits and pieces you hear from other characters as well, and the other main big character is an octopus named Marcellus, and what inspired me to read this story? Well, if you haven't been paying attention, I've been trying to get through a bunch of my TBR this year. That includes my audiobooks, and this is an audiobook that has been sitting in my audible list for a very long time that I needed to get to. And I am fine, and I'm finally accomplishing it, and I was very excited to accomplish it, and I had been wanting to read it for years one since it was on Jenna's book picks, which was years ago. And I think the movie also inspired me to want to read this book as well. Who is my favorite character? That is very hard because there's different parts of the book. I was like, oh, I like this character, or lie, I like that character. If I had to pick my two favorites, I'd probably pick Marcellus and Tova because their stories are both interesting because of their perspectives of life. One, because Marcellus is an animal, and then you have Tova, who's just trying to fit into her network because she's different. What do I think of a human-animal perspective? I think that's what made the be the book so unique is you'll have like X amount of chapters from a human perspective, and then bam, you have Marcellus' perspective on a situation. Because you might get a chapter on Cameron's situation, and then Tova's every now and then Ethan the Grocer, who has a crush on Tova, and then Marcellus gives his perspective, which is kind of funny because it's usually one to three pages compared to the others, which could be pretty dang long at times, and it's kind of pretty funny. And what do I think of the layout of the book? I think the layout is pretty cool. You knew when it was in the human perspective because there was no drawings on the pages, so you knew when you were in the human perspective, and then when you went into Marcellus, you saw outlines of him on the pages in different parts of the pages, which was really cool, and I think that also kept my attention as well. Was it wasn't there any boringness to it, they wrote really well of everybody's different perspectives. What brought Cameron to Soul Bay? Well, Cameron has had some right rough patches of where he grew up in California, which he grew up in Modesto, Modesto, California, and he's had a hard time in life of how he grew up in California. He can't hold a job in California. He is very much a guy that works with his hands, he's very good with working with his hands, and then he gets stumped by his girlfriend because he can't keep a job and she's tired of it. His band has ended, he's in this like rocky gothy band. It's a rock band, and the band has ended because of one of their lead singer is becoming a parent, and so the band days are over, and he doesn't know what to do with his life. He's been kicked out, he needs to figure out his life, and the best thing he thinks is an idea, and he's talking with both of his childhood friends who he's kind of staying on their couch for a few days while he figures this out. That his deadbeat mother had an affair with or dated, and he came to be, which we later learn is not true. It's this very rich real estate guy, and she he why I say she he later finds out he is just a good friend of his mother's, and he's willing to help him by any means of like getting him on his feet and building a relationship and explaining his mother before the drug problems, and even after he she disappeared from his life, he's willing to do some stuff, but he's not happy with him, kind of doesn't want his help, but it's kind of good he was willing to talk to him. I was like, that takes guts, a lot of guts. But while he is waiting to meet this guy, he gets a job at the aquarium working on being a maintenance man and also doing the cleaning work while Toba is out with a bummed foot. And halfway through her time off, she comes in and is teaching him how to be a true proper cleaner and become the best version of himself, and he does become his best self. He learns to be on time to work and give his best. Like, this is the longest job he's held from what we've learned throughout the entire book. Is this job? It's not the best paying jobs. You have to learn from somewhere, and sometimes it's not the best jobs, and that's what he's learning at 30 years old. And Toba is hard on him, Toba is, and Marcellus is finally figuring out the fact of those two might be related, but they haven't figured that out yet. But they do figure it out in the end because they come a close-knit family. She teaches him things that he never got as a kid. She even helps him get a job of what he really wants to do in life, which leads him to also further furthering his education as well. By the end of the book, I'm not gonna tell you what he furthers his education in. You have to read the book to find that out. I don't know if the movie mentions this or not, but yeah. And uh, and on top of this, Cameron is staying with Ethan, who has a who is Scottish. I was almost gonna say Irish, he's Scottish. You can't get the the people from Scotland and Ireland confused. That's a whole ordeal. And he takes him in and helps him and teaches him the values, also, because Ethan also plays a big role in the book, because in the end, him and Tova get together. Because up until a certain point, Tova is about to go into assistant living, like she's tired of living at her house, she just wants to enjoy life, and she feels that she needs a fresh start after all the things she's been through, but in the end, she knows where her place is, and she just downsizes and finds her true people in the end. I don't know if she's still with the Knitwoods at the end, that was never mentioned, but the Knitwoods is a group of her friends, and she also comes close with one of her biological son's friends who also helps Cameron get a job on a project of his, which was pretty dang awesome as well, and he never lost a job with that person. It's so interesting. And Cameron is actually Tova's grandson, the grandson she never thought she would get to have because of losing her son, when in reality, her son had a kid at age 18, and he never learned that he became a father because he died at such a young age. I answered that question. This was just a very eye-opening story and a very heartwarming story, and it was one of those books I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm glad I read it. I can't believe I put it off this long in reading. It was one of those random books I bought when I went down to my local bookstore in my hometown, and it was up for sale, and I was like, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna grab it because it had sprayed edges and sprayed edge books or some pretty cool looking books. I had only one at the time, and now I have two, and I'm glad I got it, and I'm glad I got to read this book. It's a great summer read. It's gonna have you in the fills. Do I feel that it's a sad book? No, not really. It has its moments, but I think there's more happy than sad. I guess because I like seeing full pictures, I don't only think about, oh, it's just this one emotion. It's all these emotions. And I think that's what makes a good story is if you can feel all the emotions in just one story of you grow as a person, you almost you're gonna have your hard moments, and they're gonna be flashbacks to oh, it ends on a happy note. I'm like, that's a full rounded story, and I'm glad I read it. And I will be back with the next book I am reading, which is The Vanishing Half, which I'm very excited to talk about. Just barely gotten into it, and it's really good so far. So far, this month has been all singleton books because I'm still in the singleton route, but I'm about to jump back onto the series train. I'm feeling like I'm ready for another series of swords. I'm in between a couple at the current moment. I know I'm gonna have to reread all of the fourth wing series at some point. I have the whole powerless series I need to read that has been sitting on my shelves for months on my Kindle. What else do I have that I just got? Oh, I have the Ink Ark series I need to reread, which will be very fun to read. I haven't read it since high school. I also have the Hunger Game series I need to read. So we might get into a book series by the end of this month. Who knows? Or that might be all of July as I get into a book series, wherever the road takes us, but I will be back to talk about the vanishing half. And I am back because I have officially Finished my third book, which was The Vanishing Half. And boy, I have some thoughts on this book. This book took me longer than I thought it would to read because the other books haven't taken me that long to read this month. The first two I talked about really didn't take me that long to read. I feel it was because I was laughing and trying to read a book because a lot of things have happened while I was reading this book. It took me 11 days to read this book. Okay, I haven't had a book like that since The Scarlet Ribbon take me that long. I don't think it was the storyline. I think it was more of the fact of I was lifing. Yes, you are hearing me correctly. I was lifeing. I was having to be a human that had to go do stuff and live life, edit other projects, just do life things that didn't revolve around sitting around and reading a book. Sadly, I had to do a work thing plus some other podcasting work. So, yes, I had to do other things, and I think that's why it took me longer to read. Because if I had just gotten to sit down and read this book, it would have not taken me that long. It would probably take me four days max, maybe five. And that's me being generous. I just randomly picked up one day when I was at half-price books, and I was just perusing the book section, killing time while they're looking through your stack of books. You sell them. Yes, I sell my books back to half-price books. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but I'm gonna be more picky of what I keep and don't keep because as I've been talking to people slash telling people is I want to build a bookshelf over the next couple years. So I'm gonna be picky of what books I'm gonna keep and what books I'm not gonna keep. So if you see me holding on to more books and not getting rid of as many books, that is why because I want a bookshelf again like I had when I was a kid, okay? We're not judging. Every YouTuber I've been watching lately has some kind of bookshelf, and I want to be just like them. I don't want a crazy amount. I actually don't know how many I want. I need to make that limit pretty soon. I don't know if I want it at 100 or 500 range. I really don't know yet. We'll have to wait and see. I also, to make this goal, I need a bookshelf and I also need a reading nook corner that is not my bed because I've been doing a lot of bed reading, and I've learned I do better if I'm not reading in my bed and I'm reading somewhere else, and with all the life stuff going on, I also learned I do better reading on a couch because it's way more comfortable, you have a lot more sunlight. So I'm learning where do I want to read? I do like a good couch to read on, and I also like a lot of immersive reading. This has also been a lot of talk, also in all the videos I watch is do we like immersive reading or just straight reading a book with no audiobook? Just a straight audiobook. And I've done straight audiobook for years, it's just been since I've close to end of my college career slash since graduating. I've been doing a lot of immersive reading, and I like the more immersive reading because I understand the text better. I don't go off into la la land when listening to the book. I'm not getting distracted. So I'm gonna say I choose immersive reading. But let's get back to the vanishing half. And what are my thoughts? What is this story about? Oh gosh, this story was a very interesting story. One of those I never knew I needed to read. Kind of, I don't know what to describe what it is. It's kind of historical, kind of not, I don't know what to call it, but it is about two twin sisters that break away from their hometown, and in the process of leaving their hometown, they separate for most of their adult lives. One of them marries one. How do I word this? One of them goes and lives in DC and works for the FBI and meets her husband, who is a lot more darker complex than she is. And I didn't I did not share this. These twins are considered a part of the black community, even though they are of the lighter complexion of the black community. I would consider they are Creole because they are originally from Louisiana. This plot is mainly based out of Louisiana, even though they moved to different parts of the U.S. for some parts of their adult life, but they have a Creole beginning, is the best way I can describe. So one of the twins moves to DC and is working for the FBI, meets her husband, which he does not treat her right, even though they married and had a child, and even though he is darker complexed, and their child is darker complexed, she leaves with the child and moves back to her hometown in Louisiana. Whereas her sister moves away from all of this and takes on a more whiter complexion and moves with her, was her employer, now husband, and they have a child. So both sisters are living completely different lives. One one twin is more truthful than the other, which I find quite interesting. I don't know why I find it more interesting, it just is because of do due to how truthful the twins are, is how their chop their both their girls act. One girl is much more smarter, gets a better education than the other, is the best way I can explain it. Which mean, and some of that karma is the fact of her relationship with her daughter as the daughter has gotten older. And who would be some of the main characters? Well, of course, it's the twin sisters, and then their daughters, which the two twins are Desiree and Stella. Stella is short for Estelle. Such a pretty such a pretty name. And then their two daughters, Kennedy and Jude. Jude is a lot smarter than Kennedy. It's very well known. There were points I felt it was all over the place and could have been narrowed down a little bit more. I liked how it was chunked, is the best way I can describe it. I liked how it was chunked. And who is my favorite character? That is a very interesting one of trying to pick who my favorite character is because, like I said, it was all over the place. And I would have to say, I can't pick just one. I would say I liked both daughters, Jude and Kennedy, because I think their story was way more interesting than their mother's. And they focus a little bit more on the daughter's perspectives than the mothers, especially Jude's. I thought it was interesting that more of Jude's perspective was focused on more than Desiree or Stella's. Or Kennedy's. Wasn't confusing at all. There were some moments where I was like, well, it jumped a little too much. It's like one moment you're like focused on Stella, and the next you're focused on Jude. Or why is Stella mad at Jude when all Jude wants is to get to know her aunt. And why does Jude feel the way she feels is because she grew up around her mom trying to find her sister, and Stella won't accept it, and she feels a certain way towards Jude that she shouldn't. And Kennedy is feeling the polar opposite, and she's just trying to figure out her mom's family history because her mom has not been really truthful to her, because her mom is acting more white than she actually is, which is really very interesting because in reality, her mom has never been truthful to her, and never even brought her to get to know her family. And there's a lot of stuff that Jude and Kennedy hide from their mothers as well, that you find throughout the book as well. Of they're very hush-hush about that they have stayed in touch to a degree. When Kennedy's mother told her to stop interacting with Jude, but to get to know her cousin and her family, that she really doesn't know, she's had to stay in touch with Jude, and that's the only way she has stayed in touch. And she's actually enjoyed the small conversations and the smallish bonding they've gotten to do. Even though Stella doesn't approve, and Desiree didn't realize that wait, my daughter met her aunt without telling me and found her and didn't tell me, and was kind of a little frustrated, but understand of how protective Jude was of Desiree. And you also learn a little bit about some of the Jim Jim Crow stuff down in the deep south as well, because that got touched on just a tiny, tiny bit because Desiree couldn't get a job that she had been holding in DC down in the deep south because of her skin color, because she was not truly white. Sometimes to per provide for their families, because once they the twins hit a certain age, they were told to drop out of school to go work and help fund the family, which neither twin liked, and that's why they ran away in the first place. So there's a lot of stuff that happened in the deep deep south that you learn in this story. I just have a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to this book of it seemed a little bit all over the place, even though it was a really, really good story. And I liked the characters. I even liked Early, and he wasn't one of the main characters, he was just a love interest of Jude's mother's that came back into her life after she returned back to Louisiana when leaving a toxic marriage. So there was a lot of things that went on that was quite interesting, and I kind of don't want to ruin the book too much, but there's just a lot of things that happened, and you just need to read it for yourself to understand all this stuff, and you shouldn't take as long as I did to read this book. But your home girl took way longer than it should have for um how short of a book it was, and it was like 11 hours and something minutes on Audible, probably the same if you got it from your library app, Libby, or Hoopla. So I highly recommend you read it if you want to understand what happened in the Creole culture of being a lighter black and how you could pass as a white person or a black person of your choosing, which really affected your life. And I like that they explored that part of Stella's life of why she chose to do what she did, but sometimes it hurt her mentally of deciding to drop her past and become a different person, and you saw that aspect, and I'm glad they touched on it. But I don't want to ruin the book too much because I want y'all to read it. It's a good summary. And I think it was a GMA pick, if I am understanding correctly, from years ago. So please go read this book, and I will be back with my fourth book. Hopefully, I have it read by the end of the month, and I will be talking about it, which is a memoir about Fred Rogers, which is Mr. Rogers, and what is the name of this book? The Good Neighbor, the Life and Work of Fred Rogers. So I will see you again once I have read that book. Hello, and I am back to give a little update. Sadly, I did not finish the Fred Rogers memoir, and so I will be giving you the info of my thoughts on that book in the July book report. I was hoping to finish this book. I was literally pretty dang close to finishing it. I just didn't have the energy to finish it, and I thought I could finish it, but that sadly did not happen. I'm glad I had faith in myself because as it was inching closer and closer to the end of the month, I was having little faith in myself. I would finish this book. And sadly, your girl did not finish that book. I know I had a goal of reading four books this month. It did not happen, but we got pretty dang close to reading four books this month. If I had just sat down on the days I didn't feel like reading, I think I could have finished this book. And sometimes you have small reading slumps in a month and you don't want to read and you want to do other things. I get that. But your girl was pretty dang close to meeting that four books a month goal, which is my summer goal. But that is a-okay, we're gonna shoot for that for July now, maybe even five. But I am proud of myself for how much I read in the month of June. It was quite a bit, and I can just pat myself on the back for that, and you all you all will have to stay tuned on my thoughts for the Fred Rogers book. I never knew reading a memoir would be a little bit harder than I thought some days, because some memoirs are easy to read while others are not as easy as what I'm finding out. And also, another reason I kind of didn't get this book finished was the fact of I had some days at the pool. And when you have days at the pool, you sometimes read and you sometimes don't. Should I be making excuses on why I didn't read? No, but I'm being real and honest with you guys of why this book didn't get finished. And you know how I said I don't like bringing real books to the pool. Yeah, I brought this book to the pool, and it's sunscreen stained now, so I can smell sunscreen on this book. Now it did not go near water. I still have strong feelings about books being near water, so no book was harmed at the pool. I would made sure I was super dry when I read these, read this book by the pool. So no pages were destroyed while at the pool. It just smells like sunscreen. So there are ways to keep books safe while at a pool. It's just don't get it near water. And I will say my thoughts on the Fred Rogers memoir are gonna be some interesting ones, and I will see you next time. Bye.