some new fave books | recent reads wrapup

everyone it's jenny and welcome back to my channel the story ain't over today we're gonna be wrapping up my november reading all the books that i read in november of 2021 i never know how to start these videos because i'm like okay i read some books here are the books so that's what i'm going to say i read some books in november i read six i had a pretty tumultuous month in terms of like personal things going on but managed to read quite a bit which i'm proud of and i've done vlogs for at least two books on this list so i will let you know when they come up but i also found some new favorites on this list like at least two maybe three new favorites of like all time that i'm just so excited about and so glad that i was able to read so without further ado let's just jump into this wrap up so the first book that i read in november was you can't be serious by cal pen and this was honestly my favorite book of november but also maybe even this entire year which i know is saying something and is really something to say about a memoir like sort of a comedy memoir but i absolutely love this so much for those of you who don't know kalpan is an actor but he also worked for the obama administration at one point in his career and now he's sort of back to acting and he's also gay he recently came out as being a gay right before the book came out which was really nice to hear but basically the book sort of follows his life from when he was a kid to current day and each chapter i feel like is its own like story it has other elements to it but sort of focuses on a specific theme but some of the major themes that he runs through in the book is working as a person of color in hollywood in an industry that is mostly dominated by white people and then also sort of getting into politics and wanting to give back to his community and then working under the obama administration and doing outreach to asian americans and also to a few other groups as well i forget who said this but someone said that the book was sort of someone's pursuit of the american dream like this journey and i i totally agree with that tala is absolutely hilarious and an amazing storyteller as well i read the entire thing through the audiobook so listening to him narrate his story was just really interesting and just really exciting as well i was laughing at so many points and nodding along i related to so many aspects of this book from him pursuing a career that was uncommon to his family and his extended family and his experiences of like various microaggressions as a person of color in an industry that is dominated by white people like he talks about you know going to auditions and like seeing other people like brown face for like a role or like having to put on an indian accent for like a bunch of his early roles and the various ways that he was sort of stopped from getting through the door and you know actually being able to succeed in hollywood i felt like the hollywood aspects of the book and like his story were the most compelling but i also enjoyed the parts where he talked about the obama administration and like sort of the strides they were able to make as well and like the specific things that he worked on and also just some of the funny things that he talks about along the way he also talks about his relationship with his partner of like so many years and how they met and his obsession with nascar one particular part i really loved was towards the end actually the last chapter when he talks about the nbc show that he started and produced and that eventually got cancelled by nbc for reasons that you discover in the book but it was so interesting because the show was so diverse and like had so much potential but nbc didn't really help it in any way didn't give it the push that they were promised didn't give it the marketing that they were promised and so it was like set up to fail from the beginning despite all the promises that they were given and so it was like really disheartening to hear but also like really realistic like i feel like he delivers so many realistic and like sometimes like unfortunate and like horrible things in a very humorous and you know relatable way which i absolutely love so overall it's just a really relatable and wonderfully written memoir i think and like if you're looking for a nice laugh if you're looking for a story that feels like someone's just having a chat with you over a drink this is definitely the book to pick up if you like cal pen at all he was in house he was in harold and kumar using a few other things he was in how i met your mother as well that's how i know him initially and yeah he's done some really great things and i like like him a lot as a person so reading his memoir was just fantastic i think it's just so well written that like you'll enjoy it regardless of whether you like have some sort of connection or you know find it relatable all right the next book that i read was actually via audiobook and that book is the death of jane lawrence and this is the book that i sort of picked up on a whim and i don't know i kind of regret it now but regardless it was a decent book it definitely wasn't my favorite i was almost ready to dnf it but i decided to push through and finish it this is basically a bit of a gothic horror it follows a young woman in like the 1800s it doesn't really specify like time or you know country or that kind of thing i feel like i'm not really sure but basically her parents have like passed away and she lives with a foster family and they're very you know sweet and everything i don't know if they're like slightly related to her or not but they're not her real parents and so she doesn't want to be a burden on them anymore and so she's looking for a husband to get married to but not necessarily have a romantic relationship with one that she can sort of help out and offer her own services as like an accountant or you know any sort of aid and you know in exchange she would live with him and be a functioning member of society that kind of thing and so she ends up approaching this doctor in her town who seemingly is alone and you know isn't married and she tells him this offer and he's like this is absurd you know i'm not gonna do it and she's like let me be your accountant for like a day i'll even help you be like a nurse and everything let me come into your hospital and like work with you for a bit and then we'll see how it goes and so she comes in and quickly they start to fall for each other and the doctor ends up taking up jane on her offer and so they get married and all this and with this comes his house so the doctor has this weird tendency to never actually stay in town and always you know drive out to his far away house and sleep there even though the hospital is in town and he tells her that once they get married she cannot sleep at the house she must sleep at the hospital and can't come home with him and so she's like this is absurd this is weird but you know i'll go along with it we have a deal we're not actually married married so i can't ask you questions so she goes along with it and then what we find is that there's some interesting supernatural and spooky things going on at this house and it gets into like sort of the gothic horror aspect this does have a bit of like magic to it as well i think while i really enjoyed this book at the beginning and i had like a nice start to it and i was super invested at the beginning like the first 30 i think once it gets into the second half i just didn't really like where it was going and i felt like the motivations of the characters didn't really make sense and i felt like the mystery of the house and what it actually ended up being at the end was not that cool or interesting i feel like i just expected a lot more and i was quite disappointed by the book i loved the cover i thought it was a really interesting concept which is why i picked it up on a whim and like i do agree that the audiobook was quite good but if you're looking for a really great gothic horror i don't think it's like the best one but it was a decent read and i still enjoyed myself like for that initial half of the book so i wouldn't say it's like a complete waste of time but it wasn't my favorite alrighty the next book is one that i read for my can i trust book talk video which is a reading vlog i did a few weeks ago so you should definitely go check it out if you're interested and that book is verity by colleen hoover so the point of the video was to read books that booktalk has been talking about endlessly and that are really popular on tick tock and so verity is definitely one of them calling hoover in general is pretty popular on book talk this book is a bit of a thriller it follows a struggling writer who gets this like impossible amazing deal where she gets to ghostwrite the final three books in a series by a woman named verdi crawford because she's been in a like horrible accident and is basically in a coma and so she ends up like going to verity's house and she's met the husband when they made the deal so he's living there with his son and she goes to the house to basically collect verity's notes on the series and like figure out how to finish it and she ends up staying there for quite a few days and she's getting to know their life and verdi's life as well and one thing that she stumbles upon in verity's notes is an autobiography that she wrote and what the main character starts to realize as she's reading this autobiography is that verity as she presented herself in real life was very different from her internal thoughts and she's a very twisted person and so she's you know reading and finding out these horrible things and the book sort of spirals from there there's a bit of a romance as well but this is a bit of like a psychological thriller i would say and quite a bit of mystery to it i really enjoy this but i do have sort of mixed feelings about it it is one of those books that's like very addicting that you just want to devour and you just want to like finish so you just keep flipping pages until you get to the end so i've definitely liked that i finished this in like almost a single day but i think where this fell flat for me was that i had really high expectations for it because it was so hyped on book talk and i had actually guessed the ending before i even got to it so i guess the like twist at the end from the beginning and so when we got to the end i was like i called this and so that way it was like a little bit disappointing like it wasn't as mind-blowing as i was expecting it to be i do think this is a good one if you don't really read a lot of thriller books i feel like this followed a lot of like thriller tropes that like you can see coming so that way it wasn't very surprising but if you don't read thrillers a lot i think this will be satisfying for you and it has like a really interesting ending as well and overall pretty enjoyable like i did have a good time reading it so that was good and i feel like being in the twisted minds of the characters was also really interesting all righty i'm so excited about this next one because honestly it was fantastic that book is the atlas 6 by olivie blake so i also read this one for that book talk video and it's super popular on tick tock this is actually a self-published novel and it's actually going to be traditionally published in march of next year in 2022 by tor i believe and i'm so excited for the traditionally published version to be coming out because it's going to be a little bit more edited and like curated and it's also going to have you know new books in the series coming out afterwards this is the original self-published version that the author put out and so i thought it would be pretty cool to check out this is a bit of a dark academia and it is set in our modern real world and in this version of our real world magic is sort of existing on the periphery of you know regular humans and there are many people who use magic and there are like different schools for magic and that kind of thing and so the book actually starts with a man named atlas approaching different magic users around the world six different ones in particular and telling them that they've been selected to join the alexandrian society and compete to become new members of the society so only five of them will actually become members but six of them will compete and part of this competition is that they will be in a fellowship for a year and then one of them will get eliminated and then the other five will continue and the alexandrian society is basically the society of caretakers who protect the knowledge of the library of alexandria and the wealth of knowledge from all of human history and like a lot of lost knowledge as well it's protected by magic users and that kind of thing so the overall concept was like really cool it's sort of like harry potter meets like the gilded wolves with some of the history as well and i think what i love about this is that it follows these six different perspectives of the various characters the atlas vi and you are getting into their heads and learning a lot about them and i think each character was just so vivid and just so interesting as well they come from different locations like one character is from tokyo a couple are from the states there's one from south africa there's one from paris but she's originally from iran and they all have like different backgrounds as well they're quite diverse which i really loved but they also have like really distinct characteristics about them and they also each have their own specific magical powers so there's like a telepath you know two that can like manipulate physics there's an empath there's a guy who can see through magic there's a girl who can make plants grow and like control plants and that kind of thing and so the dynamic between all of them was just super interesting and i feel like it was just one of those like really character driven books that just sucks you in and you want to know what's gonna happen with them and i feel like i just care about these characters so much now that like i cannot wait to see where this goes in the future books as well so yeah i'm super excited for this one to come out in a traditionally published version like a hardcover and an audiobook in march and i've already pre-ordered them because i'm super excited so i would highly recommend checking this out like right now or waiting for the traditionally published version in march all right the next couple of books are for some book clubs that i was running in november so this first one is the one that we read from my patreon book club in november if you're curious about my patreon it is a place where you can sign up for a monthly membership and grab some extra and exclusive content from me including participating in a monthly book club with me where you get to decide the book we read so the link for that is down below and you can check it out but the book that we read for november was the love hypothesis by ally hazelwood and this is basically a really adorable adult contemporary romance it follows a biology phd student who is looking into pancreatic cancer and she basically has like a friend two friends actually so one is jeremy who she previously dated and then one is her best friend on and on has always had a crush on jeremy but the main character of previously dated jeremy and so now on it doesn't really want to like you know start something with jeremy because she doesn't want to hurt all those feelings and she's just being a really good friend and so olive makes like this stupid lie that she's like on a date this one night when she's actually just studying at the library or like the student center or whatever and when on happens to pass by she ends up just grabbing the like nearest guy and kissing him to you know keep up this lie that she was on a date and the guy that she ends up grabbing is adam carlson who is a professor at her university and one that a lot of people actually hate because he's very blunt with his feedback and he has made more than one student cry and he sort of goes along with the situation and so from there they end up in a fake dating relationship that sort of benefits the both of them in different ways and obviously they fall in love from there and it was honestly super super cute i don't want to tell you too much about like what happens later on but i think what i loved about this was that it was not only like a really cute love story it had some really great steamy scenes as well and like a really great relationship between the main characters adam and olive but it also had some really wonderful side characters as well that i absolutely loved especially towards the end and i would love to see more of them i think because they were just so cute but the last thing that i like really really loved about this book was that it also talked a lot about what it felt like to be a woman in stem and like that's a major theme in the book and like a major plot point sort of revolves around that as well and so i really just love that aspect i remember when i had the live show with my patrons we were just sort of discussing the range of this book and how it was talking about academia and you know the pressures of it but also like being a woman in stem and then also this like wonderful romance like it had so much going for it which i just really loved so it's a romance book but it's also got a lot more to it and it's one of those books that will like just keep a smile on your face and one that you'll want to like devour very easily i think the pacing was just so fantastic i actually read this in like basically a day so it also had that going for it really cute one and if you're just looking for like a quick sweet romance this is the perfect one to pick up alrighty but before i tell you about the final book on this wrap up i want to tell you a little bit about the sponsor of today's video which is skillshare so skillshare is an online learning platform for creative and curious people where you can find a myriad of classes on topics from graphic design to illustration to marketing to creative writing literally anything you can think of there's probably a class for it on skillshare you guys know i love sculpture and i've talked about them so many times before and i found so many great classes that i've learned a lot from and you know developed some really great skills from the class i want to highlight today is writing a fiction creating a retelling of your favorite story this is actually taught by author pierson white who you may recognize as a why author a pretty big one and i actually haven't read any of her books but i'm really excited to try some out very soon in this class she actually breaks down how to write an original sort of book or novel or story based off of a story that you already love so a retelling and i think this is such an interesting concept and i've never actually heard someone really give specific advice on how to write a retelling so i think this is great and i'm really excited to try this class out so the class seems super awesome and skillshare is just a really great online learning platform that i think all of you should check out whether you're trying to learn a new skill or trying to develop one that you already have it's just a great place to learn something new and of course i have an exclusive deal for all of you the first thousand of my subscribers who click the link in my description will get a one month free trial of skillshare to start exploring your creativity i think this is an awesome deal and you can learn so much in just a single month even if you're not planning to continue with skillshare after the one month i think just jumping on the one month deal is just really great because you can learn so much during that time and of course clicking all those links and signing up really does help out my channel and support me if you do decide to do that so thank you so much to those of you who do all righty and then the final book that i finished in november is the book club pick that we had for the read and color book club and that is the new book club that i started recently where we read a book by a bipac author each month and you know we discussed in a live show at the beginning of the next one and each month i also partnered with a book influencer who shares the same background as the author and we get to discuss the book during the live show so the book that we read in november was next year in havana by chanel clinton and i'm so glad i picked this one as the first book for the book club because i feel like a lot of people really enjoyed this a lot of you who had never sort of read something like this really enjoyed it and like you know expanded your horizons but i also feel like we all learned a lot about you know cuba and the setting itself basically this is a bit of a historical fiction novel and it falls two different timelines so the first one is in 2016 and it follows her main character marisol who has grown up on these beautiful stories of cuba from her grandmother lisa and when her grandmother passes away she leaves behind her last request which is to spread her ashes in cuba and so marisol has never been to cuba and she takes her grandmother's ashes and heads off there to complete her grandmother's final wishes and also see the place that she's heard only about in stories but of course when she gets there she realizes the situation in cuba is very different and it's not the romanticized thing that she remembers from her grandmother's stories and then the second timeline that we have is actually in 1959 during the cuban revolution and it actually follows lisa's perspective so marisol's grandmother and we find out that there's a lot more to lisa's story that she never actually told marisol and that includes her having fallen in love with a revolutionary during this you know very politically fraught moment in cuba's history and so we're seeing that but also like elisa was a very privileged woman living in havana during this time and so it's just a very interesting sort of perspective we are seeing the different parts of society and how despite having two different regimes cuba from then and cuba now are you know quite similar still and you're seeing like the story sort of evolve over these two generations and it's just so interesting and the book also has like two different romances in each of the timelines as well and there were just some really heartfelt moments some beautiful beautiful quotes like some really well written passages and overall just like a fantastic book if you're looking for like a slightly romantic historical fiction but also one that really delves into like identity and politics and like what it means to call something you're home this book is definitely the one to pick up already those are all the books that i read in november i feel like i had a really great reading month i absolutely loved most of the books on this list and i definitely discovered some new favorites i would love to hear from you guys though if you've read any of these books on my list and what you thought of them and also what books you read in november and what were your favorites that you read thank you so much for watching and as always go check out my instagram twitter goodreads and tick tock and i will see you in my next video so please remember that this story ain't over bye

Channel: thisstoryaintover

Views: 2,924

Keywords: books, booktube, booktuber, read, reading, book haul, books to read, thisstoryaintover, this story ain't over, jananie, november wrapup, november reading wrapup, recent reads, books i read recently, some new fave books, recent reads wrapup, recent reads wrap up, books you need to read, death of jane lawrence, you can't be serious, next year in havana, the love hypothesis

Id: -PxW5ylAAgU

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 18 2021