what I read in March!🪻romance, non-fic, making progress on series(!!) 

The Endometriosis discussion is so important. I've heard many stories, both IRL and online, about women being in massive amounts of pain and still taking many years to get diagnosed. It's still not taken seriously by many people and it's beyond frustrating.

“Hello my little wormies” 🥹🥹🥹 hello mother 🥺

Hearing you talk about rejecting the denominzation of our bodies as someone who deals with both post concussive syndrome and suspected endo had me breaking down :') I hope you know that your vocalization of that perspective and of that self-acceptance and neutrality towards our bodies even as they torture us really helped me. I will be carrying that message going forward ❤

I agree with not liking the demonisation of menstruation. I’ve struggled with gynaecological issues and it’s actually really helped me to see my period as a sign of my body being healthy. I track my cycle and it’s made me love myself and my body so much more. It detoxes me every month. It links me to nature and it’s not wrong or gross.

About the endometriosis: My grandmother had endometriosis and was diagnosed immediatly and she started to treat it. Also a friend of my mom had it and was diagnosed very quickly. I'm from México and here we have a very good health system. Endometriosis is one of the most popular gynecological diseases, so I'm impressed that it takes many years to get diagnosed in Canada or in the US, I feel so sorry and sad AND MAD about it. Sending big hugs to everyone that is dealing with endometriosis.

Re: Bleed- I haven’t read this book but everything you’re describing is all too familiar to me. 4 years ago I went to a doctor while living in NYC (which is supposed to have some of the best doctors in the world?? I digress) who told me I had endometriosis. Cue YEARS of trying different doctors and being given every form of birth control. NOTHING helped and my symptoms got worse over time. No one would refer me for a laparoscopy, which is supposedly the only way to know for sure. I was even told to wait to have a lap until I was ready to get pregnant, so I guess they figured I should manage my symptoms until ready for a child?? I left NY and moved to my home state and went to my mom’s doctor, who actually listened and helped me figure everything out and my life is 100x better now. Moral of the story is don’t waste time on doctors who aren’t specialists in this field. Best of luck to you on this journey!

So happy that Nervous Conditions was mentioned! It's literally the book that gave me back the motivation to read after so long

Many of us just came off reading one of the most action packed books ever written (The Count Of Monte Cristo),and then straight to Middlemarch. I warned that Middlemarch might be a shock to the system as far as how much calmer and slower it is than TCOMC. I absolutely loved Middlemarch both times I read it. George Eliot’s writing is absolutely beautiful imo. I do think that it IS a huge difference in pacing and that might be the reason for DNF’s.😊

I live in a country that has universal healthcare and it took me getting private health insurance to get help with endo. The difference was instant, from being told it's normal, and being offered pain killers and birth control to be taken so seriously within a week I was getting imaging done, within a month I was meeting with a gynecologist/surgeon and within 3 months having surgery - and this was during covid/lockdowns etc. Makes me so angry at how obvious it was not just the different treatment but being totally ignored and it effects everything else. My partner is always saying "you should see a doctor about that" (that being everything under the sun that could be hurting or aching and acting weird) and I'm always like nah no point they won't do anything about it because that's the experience I've had my whole adult life.

I decided to join The Game of Tomes for March and April because I had been wanting to read Middlemarch for ages, and I'm actually so happy that I did! The book is going quite slowly, yes, but I am totally having my dear time with it. The language is absolutely delicious, a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y!!! Highlighting things and taking notes on every single page. The characters are so interesting, well-described. They surely all have their flaws, and none of them is totally likeable, but this is also the reason why I believe George Eliot so much. Reading this book feels like sitting by the fireplace, listening to G.E. tell this story to you herself, as if these people were her old friends and she was watching them live their lives in real time. I'm very intrigued to see where their paths are leading to. Can't wait to finish the book and hear your thoughts on it, Emma. Thank you for a new wonderful video, as always it brings me peace. Hope you have an amazing month of April! Ciao

I really love when romance features someone closed off because I’m quite closed off 😂 I love the idea of someone like me finding love, despite the flaws. It’s why I love A Court of Silver Flames - because I related to the prickly female character a lot.

Middlemarch is....going. If I do 15 pages a day I can get it done by the end of april so I've just been chipping away at it during my lunch break. Her dialogue is so good but then she spends entire chapters ruminating on the condition of nervousness in one character's mindset and I just have to start skimming

My favorite person uploaded my favorite video of the month. Yay! Let's go! ❤

0:51 - Catfish rolling - Clara Kumagai 4:47 - Take a hint, Dani Brown - Talia Hibbert 9:05 - Bleed - Tracey Lindeman 13:36 - The sorrow of angels - Jón Kalman Stefánsson 17:30 - Nervous conditions - Tsitsi Dangarembga

I'm reading Middlemarch right now. I almost DNF'd it at 200 pages. I decided to keep going and after 400 pages, it gets slightly more interesting. I am determined to finish this book!

the contemporary romance thing is SO real i absolutely love romance in any other genre but contemporary gives me the ick no matter how hard i try to like it 😭😭

I wrote my dissertation on Nervous Conditions. It‘s an amazing novel and I’m happy you also enjoyed it! I am looking forward to picking up the other two in the series 😊

Nervous Conditions seems to be amazing! Thanks for the rec! ❤

I feel the same about Middlemarch 😂 I’m relieved I’m not the only one. I thought I was just to stupid for this book.

Excited to watch this video! March was a uni read month for me, April will be more non-fiction! 😊

I’m not going to lie, even though I posted my sentimental feelings about MiddleMarch being an emotionally stable read on Fable, I actually DNFed it, HAHAHAH. It started feeling like a chore really quickly, and I love abstract conversations and topics, but prefer them in more modern language. It was too many hoops to jump through, including it’s chonkiness, and after reading a summary I think it is just not the Victorian lit for me. Hope others get more out of it!

getting so many new recommendations ✨thanks emmie

I read sb else's comment that Middlemarch starts to become more readable after 200 pages and it's so true! Before that it was hard for me to get through 10 pages a day, but now I find it flowing so much easier and I'm getting more attached to the characters. It helps to keep a character list in the beginning- also to listen to the audiobook after reading dense chapters.

“It kinda makes cringe a little bit and die on the inside……...” 😂 no one can shred a book and still sound so nice about it like you can, Emma. My hero.

I highly recommend the audiobook for Middlemarch! I was strugglinggggggg but hearing it read aloud has brought it to life for me. I’m listening to the one narrated by Juliet Stevenson

I love that we’re getting so many videos from you this week. Can’t wait for the vlogs! The last one from the mountains was gorgeous 😊 I was diagnosed with endo in 2021 (after 17 years of bad period pains, that suddenly got even worse) and just had a laparoscopy a month ago to remove a large cyst on my ovaries. Like you said they push hormone treatment on you, and I tried several before I found something that works for me. Although I wish I didn’t have to take birth control pills, the ones I take now remove my period completely, so the most horrifics pains are gone for as long as those pills continue to work. I really hope it won’t take you long to find some treatment that works for you, I know how hard that journey can be.

My fav person posted just in time for my lunch break?? Yay!! For real though, I love these type of videos. I also wanted to add that I started reading the Raven Cycle series since I saw you read the first one a few months back and ... you are so right. The book is so good, and the series, too (I just finished the second book!)

I read Middlemarch years ago and I liked it. I adore the last two paragraphs, the last paragraph in particular.

I don’t have Endometriosis but I do have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome which has some similar symptoms to Endo. I'm in the UK and my level of care has been awful to say the least. I was actually diagnosed with PCOS about six years ago and my GP (who was male) at the time was great and he would make plenty of time to understand my symptoms at my appointments with him. However, no medication to ease my symptoms seemed to work. Since I was first diagnosed, my GP had passed away and so I ended up with a different GP (who is female). I was still having problems with my condition so I went to see the new GP about what could be done, tests and/or new meditations etc. Believe me when I say I was in her office for less than thirty seconds before she had prescribed me medication, booked me an ultrasound and a blood test. She had no pleasant manners, didn’t care, she didn’t even bother to read my patient notes. It was like she didn't have time for anyone. It's not like the GP surgery was busy either. My results came back from the ultrasound and the blood test (blood test was fine, ultrasound showed PCOS which I already knew) and the medication actually made my symtpoms worse. I was in the GP's office again for less than thirty seconds in which she told me what I already knew about my condition, said she didn’t know what else to prescribe me and when I asked about surgery options ie a hysterectomy, she told me no due to my age (I was 28/29 at the time and it's my body). She promptly said there was nothing else she could do and I haven't seen her since.

The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey). Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield).

Im so thankful I read Middlemarch before listening to your current opinions on it ahahahah, I actually loved it so much! Its just a book that its better not to hurry and just read it over the course of a few months with some other fast paced books in between😊😊 But its genious and so cool to be able to see how it impacted much more recognized male writers

This couldn't have come at a better time😭 I can have a de-stress time with you ❤

I love these type of videos

I’ve been reading A Tale of Two Cities and I’m loving it!

So excited to watch this 🥰☀️

Courage with Middlemarch. I tried 3 times before I finally got it and ended up loving it, and re-reading it. Maybe watch the BBC TV adaptation - it helped me that first initial time. Also, I have endometriosis and applaud anything that brings this condition out in the public, and validate it.

I know what you’re going through, thank you for speaking up :)

And so here I go adding some more new titles to my tbr list. I just don’t know when I am going to find time to read all those books…uh huh. Thanks Emmie, thanks a bunch! 😅

I would highly recommend the Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud. He's so witty and his descriptions are incredible. It's a YA low-fantasy series and it's got a bit of mystery to it, and a bit of a found-family trope. His Bartimaeus series is also very good (especially on audiobook!). So basically, any of Stroud's books.

I have also not been reading much in the past month, I've been filling the literary hole in my life with devouring lots of old recordings of Stephen Sondheim musicals lol (The result is that I haven't finished last month's book club pick yet 😅 hopefully finishing it today I've been enjoying it a fair bit too)

I love your mug!

I just read Dune and “The warm hands of ghosts” by Katherine Arden. I think you’d like that one. Now I’m working on LoTR a little earlier than the Game of Tomes. Middlemarch just doesn’t seem my kind of book.

I would really recommend Vagina Obscura by Rachel E. Gross. Like Bleed, it's an enraging but eye-opening read about the female body and it's so well-written.

Hi Emma, just ordered your necklace finally. Can't wait for it to arrive. Greetings from Germany :)

Bleed is that one book I was searching to read.

Yesss, I've been waiting for this one ❤

i love your top!!!

i do have endometriosis and i highly reccommend the book by lara parker. i'm definetely going to pick the one you mentioned up. i am from argentina and here it was also very hard to get a diagnosis. thank you for speaking about this

Re: Bleed. Thank you for highlighting this. I’m now 56 and suffered with endometriosis from the age of 14. I was agony until I finally found a doctor who didn’t dismiss me and was finally diagnosed aged 35. I was fobbed off for years being told it’s just period pain. In my experience female doctors were much less understanding than male. I had a hysterectomy aged 39 and only wish I could have had it done 20 years earlier.

I read a lot in march, but mostly because i bought the little classics box sets😂 The rest of the stuff I read I mostly hated tbh. Hope your eeading is better😭🤍😊

always waiting for her to continue with Wot but it doesnt seem to be happening 😮‍💨I think she would also really like robin hobb's ship of magic trilogy!

no because i read nervous conditions as course book in my master's program last year, and my thoughts are THE EXACT SAME. the way that book pulled me in, i haven't finished any book that faster as i did nervous conditions.

Changes: A Love Story. From Ghana. An English educated woman struggling with her life going between her cultural roots, relationships and her desire for a career she loves. Burned through this in one day.

genuine question: how do you concentrate while listening to audiobooks? i’m always drifting off while listening to podcasts so i’m terrified of trying any audiobooks

Big agree on contemporary romance - if it's not fantasy or historical, it feels very silly to me.

Middlemarch is one of best books I've ever read! So insightful! Marian Evans is maybe the smart person I've ever had in my brain. But I also thought that the Count of Monte Cristo was terrible. So there you go...

I agree with the issue of people demonizing periods. Aside from the points you said, it can needlessly scare a lot of young girls. Periods are a natural thing, but we absolutely need to have more effort put into helping those who have difficult ones.

oh you just summed up my experience with middlemarch, i keep on going back and forth between absolutely despising it and being like ‘well its not BAD. But like, ??????’

I work in the anatomy/medical research world and during my thesis, which I did on a topic within female reproductive health, soe of my research was unholy shocking. I will look forward to adding Bleed to my tbr its sometimes hard to find non-fiction books like such where you can trust the author to not supply misinformation

I’m so sad catfish rolling was disappointing! It does sound so awesome and I love Japanese folklore and fairy tails so I’m already familiar with the legend it’s based on plus grief and time and space! Normally I’d think this is 100% my jam. Bummer

you all just have to make it to around chapter 30 in middlemarch!!! i promise that’s when the story picks up between all the characters.

I read Nervous Conditions in less than 24 hours I had a 24 hr readathon and I finished it :)

Re: «Bleed» - I highly recommend «Invisible Women» by Caroline Criado Perez.

Nice to hear your thoughts again. Your tobacco manifesto a couple videos back was crazy.

I have read Nervous Conditions in January and loved it as well, it reminds me of E. Ferrante's Neapoletan Quartet, only compressed. I decided not to continue with the series, as the ratings are so much lower and I want to keep my high opinion of Tsitsi Dangarembga.

I'm actually loving Middlemarch! Honestly, a good edition goes a long way. I'm reading the Oxford's World Classics and (except the occasional wordy, mouthful of a sentence) it's very profound and enjoyable. Also, how and where you are mentally/emotionally influences massively how you take on a book. I've found myself feeling that as of late and almost seeing it from outside my own perception that, although a book may be excellent, my mind isn't into it as...I'd...like it to be??(?)

Please make a vlog reading the raven cycle 💙🐦‍⬛

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. I sincerely think you would love it. And if not that, then at least his short story collection "Ellis Island". He's a kook, and they made an absolutely egregious movie out of "Winter's Tale" a few years back. But his prose and story telling are absolutely enchanting. Also, Have you read "Hamnet", Maggie O'Farrell's novel about Shakespeare's son? It's quite good. Love the vlog!

Speaking of book recs, I've left a comment on your video announcement for the around the world book club but I don't think you've seen it, so I'm posting it again here under this video, I got some recommendations for Germany and Austria 🥰 As a German language and literature student, I didn't like Goethe's Italian journey either. There is a little poem/ballad from Goethe which is my favourite of his works, it's called "The Erl-King", you should give it a try. I think you would love Theodor Storm's "The Rider on the White Horse". It's amazing, one of my favourite works I've read in uni. I also have a pick for Austria. It's called "The Poor Musician" by Franz Grillparzer. I loved it as well, I think you would too. As for my homeland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, I'd love to give you some recommendations, but I have to put a little more thought into it, not sure what I'd recommend you on a whim ☺️

the absolute neglect and ignorance around women’s health fills me with rage! i have been dealing with hormonal imbalance (possibly pcos but who knows at this pt) and the journey to figure out what is exactly wrong has been awful. It’s all basically “ you don’t wanna reproduce right now so who cares” 😭

Great wrap up 📚☕

Super excited to watch but I am so distracted by that beautiful yellow E book on your desk!!

My first emmie video after finishing my schooling life (I finished my 12th grade exams)

I might DNF Middlemarch 😢 I started reading it in English even tho it's not my first language but it's just too difficult. Unfortunately I can't find a copy in my native language. Maybe sometime in the future I will be able to read more of it

Yayyyyy ✨🥺

Yaaayy!!!❤❤

I prefer your book review better than many famous book tubers. You know how to critically review the books you know how to give constructive criticism without judgement unlike some famous book tubers they say ' I don't know why I hate the book. It just didn't click with me . ' 😅 it irks me 😅

IDK if in Canada you got the PBS programming like Super Why but I feel like it's in your future to be the new host of the bookish programming! 🙂

Middlemarch gets so good I PROMISE

You could say I’m a reader too. I have a book that’s been checked out of the library for so long that they keep renewing it 😂

i missed you so much

LOL. You have a moose lamp. That's adorable! :)

Try "Lord of Mysteries" by cuttlefish that love diving.

Middlemarch was pretty good to start but the last half just drags on. The finale was my favorite part, which surprised me.

I suggest you read the book goat days by benyamin a keralite author it's a biopic of Najeeb Muhammad a keralite who becomes enslaved in Saudi Arabia and his life struggle,and eventually his escape after 31½ years of enslavement(the guy is still alive and well) in the boiling Arabian desert herding goats

If you want to learn more about the medical industry then read this next: “Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom” by Katherine Eban. Not just informative, but a read where you care about the characters and even want to kill some of the characters. So good.

Middlemarch eh…. Im both in love with its writing and I also find myself so bored with it. It really has made aware that I don’t really care about revolutions in country side medecine or small town politics 😂

Middlemarch gets really exciting when the pirates take over.

Whoops i finished middlemarch in 9 days. Loved it tbh, but yes, so many words😅

It's a shame that none of the books seemed to wow you this month. Bleeding sounds like a very impactful read though

For your around the world book club, I recommend The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka for Sri Lanka It is my first novel by an author of this country and it was really, really good. The narrator, a gay man and war photographer, wakes up dead. He has seven days to solve the mistery of his death and to bring his loved ones to his hidden photos of the war before he has to leave... or remain trapped as a ghost. It relies a lot on the history and the folklore of Sri Lanka. I think it's magical realism (?) and totally up your street.

Have you ever read The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain? Really good book.

Normally I hate to be the presumptuous sort to "recommend" things, but since you asked - some recently read books I legit think you would actually enjoy - 1. Geek Love (Katherine Dunn, 1989) - about a travelling carnie family of mutated freaks, including siamese twins, an albino dwarf, a telekenetic, and an aquaboy who starts a cult. A cult favorite novel apparently loved by Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Flea, Terry Gilliam, Jeff Buckley and others. 2. A Maggot (John Fowles, 1985) a postmodern narrative set in 1736 England (and written in language to match) a mystery surrounding a hanged body found in the woods leads to a hard-left sci-fi reveal at the climax. The first 60 pages were excruciatingly boring, but after that I was hooked, though admittedly the plot is at times annoyingly stretched out to get to the reveal.

I've been reading The Sorrow of Angels on Kindle and I'm at a place where two characters leave a farm. I agree with you that the book doesn't clear the bar as high as the first book did, but he set the bar pretty high. I saw a lot of strange sentence structure in the first few chapters, There were sentences starting after commas and bizarre run-on sentences. But I chalked that up to translator's errors, I was wondering if the translator. Was hitting the Viking Gold at little too hard. LOL. God bless all translators!

I'm forcing myself to read a couple of pages of Middlemarch every day, because I simply can't dnf books...but it's a battle 😅

I'm quite enjoying Middlemarch for most parts, but it weirdly feels like XIX century Kardashians 🙈 (weirdly as I never watched it 😅)

Woohooo!

Listened to Middlemarch on 1.75x speed, it was the only way

Love the video, but I got distracted with the coffee. Waiting for it to spill haha

Why you so pretty