May Reading Wrap Up!
Welcome back! Today I’m writing about all of my May reads, 6 in total, and I may have even have found a 5-star read.. Some mild spoilers ahead!
Starside by Alex Aster - 4.5 stars
Romantasy - Enemies to lovers - Trial games - Sword magic
I really enjoyed this book, so much so that I think I may need to correct the rating to a full 5 stars!
I found the magic system with the swords of this book really refreshing, especially considering at the moment I feel like some romantasy books can feel extremely competitive.
The backstory of each character was really interesting, and it was easy to see the motivation for each of them to win the trials.
I found the plot-twist at the end so incredibly enticing for the next book!
Stormside has been announced to release 17th November 2026, and you best believe I’m booking the day off work to read it all in one-sitting!
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - 5 stars
YA fiction - Cancer kids - Young love - Legacy
I won’t go into much detail about this one as it has it’s own blog post, but I re-read this book after wanting to annotate it, and it did not disappoint!
I found this one to be incredibly nostalgic, and I had a great time re-watching the film immediately afterward.
No notes.
Still House by Christian White and Summer De Roche - 2.75 stars
Audiobook only - Thriller - Suspense - Mysterious tenants
I found this book was quite entertaining to listen to, and at parts I fully admit that it did give me chills!
The reason why I marked this book down was because when the mystery was solved, and it was revealed that there was no wicken/paranormal/other worldly explanation for everything, I was a bit disappointed. Of course, the book was more understandable this way, and does feed into how we expect the worst and not the most obvious explanation sometimes, but that meant it was not as much fun as I was expecting.
The Right Move by Liz Tomforde - 4 stars
Basketball/Flight attendant romance - fake dating - he falls first
What a great next installment to the Windy City series! I was so excited to see how the story would continue on, and I was over the moon that we got to hear Indy’s story!
It was refreshing to hear about her fertility journey throughout the book, and how important real-life discussions are in a relationship. It meant that despite the big celebrity aspect of the story, it was still very believable and realistic.
I’m adding Caught up onto my TBR pile as I write!
Stuck with you by Ali Hazelwood - 3.5 stars
Novella - STEM co-workers - forced proximity - both fall hard and fast
I always find that Ali Hazelwood’s STEM novellas are such a great way to add to your reading goal, enjoy a little buffer novella, and still have a fab time reading and connecting with characters.
I do find that with these books, I would always love for more pages to have more backstory behind the characters, how and why they got into a STEM career, dating history and more time to enjoy their plotline, but I did have a good time reading about their romance.
I find it very frustrating when there are communication issues like there were between the MFC and the MMC, but I do understand that there must be some level of conflict that is a fast way to induce a 3-act break up.
I will be continuing the series of Ali Hazelwood novellas - I just wish they were main story lines so we had more time reading them!
Chaos Theory by Nic Stone - 3.5 stars
YA fiction - mental health rep - addiction - friends to lovers
Looking back on this book, despite not giving it a particularly high rating, I cannot deny that this book is not memorable. I still connect with the anxiety/mental health theme written throughout this book, and I also found it incredibly interesting to read about addiction from a young person’s point of view.
I liked that ultimately the couple realised that they both needed to put in the work with themselves before they got together and had a positive successful relationship, which despite being such a mature decision makes sense - the characters are written like they are a lot older than they really are, which is a great way to subtly portray how they have had to grow up a lot faster than other children because of their internal battles with addiction and bi-polar disorder.
I think that any teenager should read this book during their high-school years, if they can’t relate to it then only to realise what others could be going through.
And that is every book that I read in May! I was aiming to read 6 books this month so that was a check in my reading journal, but I am hoping that I can aim for more books in June, and hopefully some higher scoring ones as well.
We do have some new releases for books in June which I am very hopeful to read - The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston (one of my favourite romance authors), The Light Wielder by Rachel Schneider (sequel to Metal Slinger which I read earlier this year), Songs of the dead by Brandon Sanderson (I am still yet to read of of his books - I know I’m late to the party..), The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham, The Compound by Aisling Rawle and many more.
Until the next reading wrap up!
