Week In Review

April 8 – 14

Somehow, I survived the BTS comeback weekend! Their new music video and album dropped at the same time on Friday, and then on Saturday they had a comeback special online and their majorly anticipated performance on SNL!

This week, I’m going to save all of my BTS-related thoughts until the end of the post.

New books:

I received some e-ARCs that I’m really excited about:

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There’s Something About Sweetie, Sandhya Menon; and

Love From A to Z, S.K. Ali (both via Netgalley).

I also received a few e-ARCs via Edelweiss:

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Dear Sweet Pea, Julie Murphy;

The How and the Why, Cynthia Hand;

Kingdom of Souls, Rena Barron; and

Now Entering Addamsville, Francesca Zappia; and

I Hope You Get This Message, Farah Naz Rishi.

Books read:

I have been doing some reading this week, but I haven’t finished anything yet!

Current reads:

I borrowed the ebook of For Better and Worse by Margot Hunt from the library, and I should be able to finish it today.

I also started reading an eARC of Stolen Time by Danielle Rollins, which I’m enjoying so far.

Reviews:

I posted my sister’s review of Deadly Vows by Jody Holford, and my review of The Last by Hanna Jameson.

BTS:

So! Friday morning, 5 am in my time zone, BTS released their new album, Map of the Soul: Persona, and the music video for the song Boy With Luv. Of course I was up that early to watch the video a zillion times and listen to the seven-song mini album before work (I will probably write a separate post about the album very soon, because every song is fantastic and Dionysus is my new swagger song).

The song is a major bop and the video is so fun. I cannot stop smiling when I watch it (here’s the link if you don’t see it embedded below) :

The video currently has over 118 million views, and set a record for most-watched YouTube video in 24 hours (78 million views). I love the song, I love the video, the wardrobe, the colours, their hair, the choreography, and Halsey’s voice works so well with theirs.

Last night, they performed on Saturday Night Live, and I was so excited! I haven’t watched that show in forever, but I drank a lot of coffee so I could stay up to watch the whole thing.

First, they performed Boy With Luv. The stage at SNL is so small, but they performed perfectly. I love that they did the song with a live band, and they definitely sing live.

They sounded great, and they looked like they were having fun.

The second song they performed was Mic Drop (remix), which at first surprised me because it’s an older song, but it was actually a great choice because it’s such a different vibe from Boy With Luv. It’s a harder, more aggressive song with some really intense, tricky choreography so I loved that they got to show off more of their dance skills. Plus, I think they have done that song and choreo so many times that they were so confident about the performance. It also lets the rap line and the vocal line and the dance line all show off their skills. They killed it.

Anyway, there are still some performances on the horizon (comeback stages, BBMA performance with Halsey), but the initial frenzy of the comeback has passed, which is kind of good, because I feel like I haven’t slept in four days!

Time to get back to some reading, while listening to Persona!

Happy Sunday!