WRAPPED UP EP2: UNWRAPPING BOOKS DECIDES WHAT I READ 🎁christmas reading vlog! did i love this book??

Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel, I hope you're well. Welcome to episode two of Wrapped Up. If you don't know what this series is, basically I have wrapped up all of my physical TBR throughout the month of December. Every Tuesday I am unwrapping one of these and reading it in a dedicated reading vlog. The firsties went so well, we had a five star read. I'll link the first episode if you want to go watch that. I'm so excited to unwrap another one! I think I'm I was so not ready for that. See, the great thing about this series is that it makes me so excited to read all of the books on my TBR. It really ignites that love of reading again, so I'm so excited. But the thing is, I haven't had a great reading week, I haven't been very well, I've been super busy with uni, so I'm only going to have like a day to read this book. So it needs to be short. It needs to be one of the shorter books on my TBR. I don't know let's look let's pick a few out that's kind of thin that's pretty thin as well that's quite tall right oh this is such a difficult decision I will be picking the top 20 winners for some reason this one is calling out to me just a bit bigger do I really want to do that let's try this one this one is calling out to me for some reason okay okay it's Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power. Burn Our Bodies Down is by Rory Power, which is the author of Wilder Girls, which I really loved. I think I rated that like a 4.5 this year, so I'm really excited to get to this. I've heard it's not quite as good from a lot of people who have read it. All I know is that it is about a girl and her relationship with her mother and wanting answers about her past. I think it is horror still, I'm pretty sure, but I have heard mixed things about it so I am a bit nervous for it but at the same time I'm super super excited because I loved Rory Power's writing. I think she's a writer I am literally going to read forever and ever. Oh my god this is such a good choice yay! To be fair all my books are good choices but I am really happy with this one. This is a book that if you watch my videos a lot you know like has almost been in a lot of different things I've done like I've wanted to read it so bad and I've always wanted to fit it into different videos but it's never quite happened but now obviously it has so I'm gonna be reading Burn Our Bodies Down in this vlog and I'm super excited to read this. I completely forgot just how different Rory Power's writing style is and straight away I'm back into it and I'm like okay I vibe. Like I can't describe it it's just the way that the characters think like the character's thought process is always a little bit off like a little bit not how many of us would think if that makes sense and things are described in really strange ways so like I forgot just how different and weird that is but I'm like literally two pages in I'm like okay I remember you and I'm ready. I have decided to wear my Christmas jumper today I feel like I just need it I need to get in the Christmas mood more so I'm wearing it's a I am a hundred pages into Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power and if I'm honest like I don't know how I'm feeling about it yet. I'm apprehensive, nervous, a bit scared, also weirdly calm, perhaps on the verge of hysteria. Essentially we're following Margot as she has this very strange relationship with her mother it's kind of manipulative in a way. The way that I would describe the way that like her and her mother view normalcy and how a lot of like in Wilder Girls this happened as well her characters and the way they think and the way they act and the way the way they make decisions it reminds me of what's that effect where you recognize something that you should know but it's a little bit off. Do you know what I mean? What is that called? Do you know what I mean? Like they'll talk about a painting where something you know has been painted but there's something slightly off that makes you feel uneasy but that's how her characters feel to me they feel just ever so slightly off kilter ever so slightly unrecognizable the way that they think is just ever so slightly skewed but basically Margot runs away to go to the town where her mother is originally from because she finds out where that is she finds out where her grandma is then a fire starts on her grandma's land and that's all I want to say about it but that's how the mystery gets introduced but the mystery itself isn't introduced until like 70 pages in and I assume that's kind of like the mystery we're going to go forward with and I really struggled to read it before that mystery was introduced once that happened and something got revealed and there was something really strange happening I was much much more into it the past 30 pages but for the 70 pages before that I just found it really difficult to read and to be interested in and to care like I really kind of didn't give a ----. Does anybody care? Like I still love Rory Powell's writing but yeah there was just something about it that I wasn't totally vibing with I just didn't find it interesting to read until that point but hopefully now that that's happened I'm going to be much more interested in it I would say it's a strange book it reads strange I don't think I'm going to love it as much as I loved Wilder Girls I just don't think I am and I don't know if I buy into Margot's character enough yet I don't know there's just something about it that isn't quite hitting me straight away like Wilder Girls did and I'm kind of having to just like make myself read it. I am now on page 224 so I am only about 100 pages from the end and like I still don't know how I feel about it I really don't I'm enjoying it firstly I don't think this is a horror it may become a horror in some way towards the end it's categorized as a horror on Goodreads oh my god that's my phone I'm so sorry I think the reason that it's categorized as a horror is that like Wilder Girls is a horror so I think people just shelved it as because then the next categorization is mystery and I think mystery fits it better a lot of reviews I read I had a little look and people were like oh my god it's so spooky I don't feel that intrigued essentially Margot is trying to find out what her family isn't telling her what her family's been lying to her about but to me it just it feels a bit simple I feel like Wilder Girls had a lot going on a lot of different storyline a lot of different elements but it already feels like there's one mystery and it feels very simple and the plot feels a bit stagnant do you know what I mean and like I speak about this quite often when I find it happens particularly in like YA thrillers or mystery where everything leads on to the next thing right like it's a very linear timeline like a timeline with dot to dot this leads to this this leads to this whereas I like my thrillers and mysteries to be like I'm not gagging you know like I like them to be all over the place and have dead ends and have really confusing things happening and some things are red herrings and I just feel like this doesn't have that I feel like it's a very straightforward line I mean I want to say like I'm enjoying it it's like a 303.5 but it's not amazing to me right now maybe it'll get more wild like I want it to be as wild as Wilder Girls I want it to be strange and disjointed and all over the place I don't know it just doesn't feel as well-rounded as Wilder Girls was I love the idea of it I love the setting this like rural small town there's been some really cool elements that we've just found out that I didn't see coming like me saying it's a straightforward line isn't me saying it's predictable they're two different things yeah it does feel to me younger than Wilder Girls it feels not as challenging and interesting as Wilder Girls I'm like I hate comparing it to her other book but like I'm gonna do that it's just a bit boring the mum relationship is interesting like there's there's elements I'm enjoying but on the whole I'm just a bit bored I'm sorry so I'm gonna go finish it tonight and then I will check in with you in the morning with what I think I finished it and I'm gonna give it three stars maybe even a 2.75 I can't believe that I actually can't believe that I don't know if that's a bit too harsh though I did think the ending was cool although a little bit not taken advantage of as much as I would have liked to seen this got suddenly much more horror as soon as I was like oh it's not a lot more kind of spooky things happened right at the end it did build very suddenly and like some crazy ---- went down I think if you're looking for a book that deals with intergenerational trauma and how trauma can be passed on and how difficult it is to break that cycle I think this is a great representation of that however it just feels like a representation of that it doesn't feel like a book and a story that carries itself fully to me I don't know if that's harsh but I don't feel like any of the characters really are really well developed even Margot but particularly characters like Tess and Eli who are the friends she makes in the town they kind of serve as an ends to a means they kind of just serve a purpose for the story but they don't have their own motivations necessarily to me and I think that's a line that you bitches are stupid very well in wilder girls the characters were kind of like you only knew them for that moment you only knew as much of them as a character knew or you had very limited information of them I thought I did it very well in that but this just it just I just wanted a bit more throughout I think the ending is cool but like I said I I wanted a bit more I just I just wanted a bit more I just wanted a bit more in every regard I feel like it was an idea stretched out rather than fleshed out oh let's see I'm telling you I have the mind of a master master I have the mind of a mastermind what's that I don't know but it needed more depth it needed more stuff going on it needed more revealed the characters needed more depth but I love the writing I love the weirdness I love the uniqueness of the ideas but it just didn't fully reach it for me which I'm sad about but Rory Power is always going to be like an autobiographer I'm always going to pick up her books I'm always going to read her books I just think this one wasn't for me I feel like a lot of people either like wilder girls or burn our bodies down from what I've been reading people tend to prefer one or the other if you didn't really like wilder girls maybe give this a go because I've seen a lot of people who didn't really like wilder girls actually really enjoy this I'm glad that I've read it I also realized I forgot to say thank you to Molly I forgot to tell you that this is a book that Molly has sent me both books we've read so far like in this series both books last week's book the midnight library and this one were both sent to me by Molly what are the chances I'm sad so I didn't love it it probably is if I'm honest with myself that I think about it and I consider it and I try not to feel bad it probably is a 2.75 so that is all for this vlog I hope you enjoyed it I hope you're enjoying this series I know I am so excited to see what I am going to unwrap next if you did enjoy it would help me out so much if you subscribe ring the bell and hit the like button and if you've gotten to the end of this video comment is there a corn emoji yeah comment the corn emoji if you've gotten to the end of this video okay I will see you very soon with another one thank you so much for watching and I hope you keep well until then bye