doing 7 readathons in 7 days reading 7 books (crushing my goodreads reading goal)

[Music] so i have a problem as of filming this video today i am still seven books behind schedule of my reading goal for the year which is 150 books which i've never managed before in my life delusion convince yourself and for some reason i thought it would be a good idea to set that as my goal this year and then i had a shitty first couple months this year and i didn't read as much as i needed to so we're seven bucks behind schedule and i want to fix it so i decided i'm going to do a video where i read seven books in seven days to get well to get caught up to it would probably still be like one or two books behind schedule because alex be expected to read books this week so we won't get entirely caught up but at least we'll get close because i've been kind of hovering around like seven eight or nine books behind the schedule for the past couple weeks i just want to like get through it in one fell sweep so that's what we're going to be doing in this video i thought to myself i can't just read seven random books in seven days like i have to have something decide how i read right right it's like it's me it can't be easy so what i decided to do is we're gonna be participating in a readathon every day and one of their prompts or some of their prompts or however that readathon particularly works is gonna be deciding what we read and i'm so excited i was speaking actually recently on a podcast i do over on my patreon about how i miss readathons because they're difficult for me to always participate in because i've got so many other things going on my own content but if i was just a viewer of youtube i would be obsessed with readathons like i think they're the most fun thing ever and i'm sad i can't participate in them more so we're gonna be like kind of going through some of the ones i wish i had participated in or which i was currently participating in and doing like a whistle stop tour of them essentially now three books that i definitely want to try and make sure i get to in this vlog are pet the woods always watching and over the woodward wall because these are three books that are still on my tbr cluedo tbrs i think they're the only physical books i haven't read i've got two other audio books but we're not going to worry about them in this vlog i'll get to them at some point once i've read these i'm pretty much caught up with all my previous months tbr cuda and that stress is off my off my back so i want to try and fit these in they're all pretty short i think like between 200 and 250 pages today i'm actually quite busy you think it's oh it's sunday today everyone it's sunday [ __ ] it's a sunday and you think i'd have a lot of time because i'm not working today which is pretty rare but i'm actually going out for a long walk now with tom's family and then i've got a movie night tonight with my patrons so i don't think i'm actually have a ton of time to read today so i'm going to try and pick like a really short book or a graphic novel or something like that so the readathon we're going to participate in today is the magical readathon so i love the magical readathon i think it's pretty much one of the best most immersive readathons out there i participated in the novice path which was the last main round of the magical readathon but i just decided i can't like continue it i just haven't got the time which i'm really sad about but we're gonna try today now the way that magical readathon works if you don't know is you kind of pick a calling like a job almost and then you have to do certain exams to get that job now that's not what we're going to be doing today we're not going to be picking a calling because we're not doing a readathon we just needed to pick one book for us so i haven't looked at the prompts yet i guess we can just look at the prompts and pick a book based off one of them or maybe we can try and do like a book that fulfills a few prompts maybe we'll do that so this is happening at the moment the first round of exams is happening in april okay what are our prompts we have book featuring romance quick read okay well all of the books are reading this week are quick reads i'm not going to be reading don't think i'm reading like any full-length like not full-length novels but like long books in this video they're gonna be like 200 page books every book in this video um top of your to be read list okay that could be like anything source of light on the cover word shadow in the title oh book under 100 pages i don't think i actually have many under 100 pages short story earth setting intimidating reading mythology inspired books set in the future book featuring healers creature with claws on the cover huh i don't just want to like use the prompt quick read or top of your tbr list because they could all be that do you know what i mean i want some of the other ones oh hang on hang on hang on hang on hang on i have an idea let me go look up the synopsis okay i know what we're gonna be reading okay so we're gonna be reading emergency skin by n.k jemisin this is under 100 pages it's only like 40 pages we're reading a quick book today it's set on earth it's set in the future it's a quick read i think that's all the ones oh short story it's a short story it feels like five prompts i've connected the two dots i didn't connect [ __ ] but i've connected them so this is n.k jemisin's short story in the forward collection which is like a selection of sci-fi novellas essentially on the novellettes i don't know what the correct terminology is but i've read the first two i've read arc by veronica roth and summer frost by blake crouch and i gave them five stars and four stars so i'm really excited for this i'm really enjoying this collection and nk jemisins and andy wears were the two i'm most excited for so i'm really excited to get to this point in the series there's six in title this is the third one and i want to finish this series in like the next month or so so it's like you know off the list and i'm really excited for this one i think it's about a character going back to earth and like i think humans have to flee earth and it's like climate change ridden and it's like terrible and we've got a character going back there this is perfect actually it will start off nice and easy today with emergency skin only being like 40 pages i have the ebook and the audiobook if i listen to it so i'm gonna head out on the walk and i will read the ebook probably like on the way there or something oh my god what a great pick [Music] when you're lost and no one's there and you wonder who [Music] don't drift away from me i will come [Music] we can stay [Music] together why don't you leave it all to me i know how hard it all can be i'm here [Music] hello okay so i just have a lovely walk i'm knackered now though i'm so tired we did like i think about 9k it was a long walk so i'm very tired but i finished emergency skin it wasn't hard it's like 32 pages or something like that and i'm gonna give it a 3.5 star actually it's my lowest rated out the collection so far which really surprised me considering this was one of the ones i was most excited for you are an individual sent from this world earth no planet that's what i'm looking for like elite selection of earth elite i'm using that in quotations went and moved to when the earth was dying and you're sent back to earth because you need like samples from earth essentially and the whole thing is told in second person like um one perspective in the fifth season by nk jemisin is so it's all you do this you do that and it's the ai that's built into your brain talking to you so you don't read any of what you say or what like yeah what anything of you say but you read all of the ai's responses to you it's like what you're experiencing basically is what you read funnily enough although you is meant to make it more personal it just meant i felt a bit more detached from the story as a whole i think the concept is great and where the concept goes and i think like it has a lot to say and there's a few little fun nods throughout the book but i mean it's 30 pages and i feel like it could have been longer the other two i've read were a little bit longer even if it's just 10 pages longer i feel like it needed a bit more depth i deserve more than this and just the the decision for it to be second person perspective second pers yeah i felt like i just didn't really connect to the story as a whole which i'm really disappointed about because like i said this was this and andy wears ones and andy wears one is really short as well these are the children most excited for i'm a bit not worried they're gonna be my least favorite in the collection but at least i'm halfway through it now i'm halfway through the collection it wasn't hard to read that today but i was right i didn't really have any time to read i've got movie night my patrons now watching knives out which i've never seen i've actually never seen it and everyone always pitches it to me because it's like murder mystery so i'm really really excited to watch that this evening you know i loved um arc by veronica roth so much because it really made me feel something in 40 pages i think that one's about 40. it really made me feel an emotion and like feel very emotional and really connect to the characters and connect the storyline and it felt like a lot more happened and there was a bit more like depth to everything whereas this i just felt ambivalent because it's an ai talking to you and so it's very detached writing perhaps it's more that it's an ai speaking to you that i felt that very rather than it being second person maybe i'm confusing the two but um yeah has anyone got anything to say i mean it was good like i enjoyed so many aspects of it but i having had like a five and a fourth star in his collection so far and it being nk jemisin i was expecting more i think it's giving me like a great it's a great concept right it's a great idea for a novella i think that's why it's been so successful because it's like it's something unusual it's something different and i thank it for that but then i move on so i will see you in the morning tomorrow but it's time to pick our next book and our next readathon wake up it's a [ __ ] monday morning everyone it's monday morning and i'm very excited for what we're gonna pick next so i today the readathon i'm going to be participating in is a readathon that i co-hosted the thousand doors read-a-thon which is generally i mean i know i'm biased but like one of my favorite readathons ever so if you don't know what it was it's been a while actually since we ran around we do need to run another one you have reading prompts and then what you think of that book determines what read reading prompt you get next and there's doors you go through and everyone has different prompts that they can get throughout the readathon and i want to get a prompt that i never had for any of the readathons now when we did the initial longer thousand dollars read-a-thon we did like duplicate some prompts just otherwise if we like made every path a new path we would have to have done like 400 prompts or something like that but when we did the smaller one because it's only after about three rounds it starts getting out of control logistically um when we did the smaller weekend one each path was completely individual so who you started with determined what prompts you get and like each new path was a new thing if that makes sense it doesn't make any sense it's very hard to describe it [Music] i never really got it emma did all the work logistically figuring that out so i'm gonna go to the weekend prompts the smaller one we did and i started with emma's prompt last time when i did it so i'm gonna start with tasman's prompt this time i'm not gonna do that prompt i'm gonna go to the end of the video and answer the question there based on the last book i read yesterday and that will determine what i read okay so we'll just scrub through tasman's video sorry tasman so the question was what rating did you give your last book and we obviously didn't think about people who rated books 3.5 although i did round up 204 in goodreads going with the four to five doesn't feel right i'm gonna go with the one to three because it was three point five so let's go with that one and see who i get i'm so scared why am i scared emma from drinking by myself and i'm sorry to hear that you didn't much enjoy the last one for you right it's really fun let's see if we can get you to have some better luck with prompt number two oh i should say each of the hosts have different themes for their prompts my theme throughout this readathon is going to be games the next thing we are going to play is an old favorite of mine backpacker you can see how well loved and well used this set is the box is completely falling apart this is a game that basically revolves around traveling the world seeing loads of different sites having different experiences it's really good fun i'm going to select a random card from here oh my god our next one oh my god so i'm gonna close my eyes and i'm gonna pick egypt oh okay so there's actually loads of things we could do with this prop so this is the country card for egypt so you could obviously read a book set in egypt by an egyptian author it's also brown all of the countries have different colors so you could read a book with a brown cover it's also with a hundred points this is one of the highest scoring cards in the game so perhaps you might want to read a five star prediction a book that you think is going to be one of your favorites you can have a little look at the design of the card with the background the sphinx at the front maybe any of that will prompt you go wild go and enjoy your next book right um i was angry i was angry so the obvious thing to go with would be to read death on the nail by agatha christie like that would be like the first thing that pops into my head but i'm actually reading that for a different video next week ah can you believe it so i don't think i have any other books set in egypt i've got to think let me like cut the cameras dead ass like let me think for a bit okay i know what we're doing i know what we're doing okay so we're partly gonna go with emma's permission to pick like a five-star prediction this is definitely a five-star prediction probably the book i want to read most right now like if i wasn't doing this i was like reading you know me reading this is probably the first book that i would pick up and this is like a stretch right are we all ready for a stretch right um i associate egypt with when i used to like love history as a child right so in the uk we have something called horrible histories books this you guys are going to clown me but ah you guys got dragged me for this huh okay i loved the whole history's books and the show when i was younger and they do a lot about like ancient egyptians pharaohs that kind of thing and that was probably when i like consumed the most media about egypt and i associate with being a child and like learning about history and also when i was a child i liked fairy tales and so i'm gonna read a spindle splintered by alex e harrow do i say that right spindle yes anyway um so many of you all know the once and feature witches was my second favorite book of last year and i have just been like like hankering for more alex ihara writing like i think her writing is just the most beautiful lyrical stuff ever and this is a retelling of sleeping beauty it's super short but i am so excited to read this this is absolutely a five star prediction i think i'm just gonna love it and like eat it up so this is quite good because i've got quite a busy day today i'm like running around different places i've got to do some important bits of work i need to finish heart stopper this evening with my mum so i feel like this is a good pick because it's only about 100 pages there's illustrations and i'm very very excited to read this oh my god i'm so excited i hope that isn't too much of a stretch i feel like a five-star prediction fits enough then you got a little added taste if you needed more from me [Music] [Music] tuesday okay i'm going to be honest i'm going to be honest everyone i'm going to be honest i didn't finish it yesterday i'm not going to burn in the flames of hell for this and i'm going to make sure of it listen i like finished work i took tom home i made lunches the next couple days and made dinner last night and then my mom watched heart stop her and it was 10 o'clock so like sorry we're still gonna read seven books in seven days but like you can't tell me that uh i had to read them all in one day no i read like the first 50 pages so i've read literally about half of it it won't take me long to read the rest of it i actually just remembered i have the audio book for it on script so i'm going to listen to that but i thought you know it's the morning good morning everyone let's decide what we're going to be reading today after we've finished a splinter splinter and we'll like read them together okay that's the the plan the readathon that we are going to be participating in today is blackathon this is like a black history month inspired a readathon that takes place and it's it's always really great really well organized again a readathon i've always wanted to participate in but never found the chance but we're gonna be participating it today so i haven't looked at the prompts let's go let's go look at them okay so oh i'm nervous oh team lit contemporary non-fiction book okay i'm just like oh thrawn and horror duality of vengeance justice this is hard these are hard problems mental health romance i don't really love romance so we're not going to read that so this is team science fiction fantasy and there's a book with trans spectrum representation i have it we can read pet i believe this does follow a trans girl as it's like main protagonist this is like one of the three books i needed to read this vlog we haven't read any of them yet and i was like starting to get me nervous i was like if i don't pick one of them today it's gonna be [ __ ] so we can read pet that's so great okay so we will finish a spindle splintered i will check in with you my thoughts when i finish that and then we will read this so i have got time to read today i need to edit a video today probably up until like five ish but then at half seven tonight i have got reading spread to my patrons which i have every week and they're like one of my favorite points of the week so tonight i'm not letting us chat which usually we just chat for ages today we have to we have to read i'm gonna make us read and we will get through pet i don't think it'll take me long i have the audio book for this as well so i can make my way through it maybe when i'm making a thumbnail for tonight's upload and stuff so how exciting let's go finish this and then read this today [Music] good news i didn't burn my quiche and as per usual i can have my quiche wednesdays tomorrow for lunch hello you may have noticed it's the next day i just felt [ __ ] yesterday you guys i okay i just feel like my health has been bad vibes in april everything else in my life has been pretty good but like i was had a really bad cold knocked me out for a week like three weeks ago then i sprayed my ankle then i was okay for a week and then the past couple days i've just been exhausted all the time like falling asleep in the middle of the day like not even meaning to just falling asleep i think you can tell by my face that i'm extremely tired today but i feel like this video is a fail i wanted all of the books to be contained in their days but anyway let's chat about what i've done so i finished a spindle splintered i really enjoyed this so this is like a sleeping beauty retelling where we're following a girl who has this like condition from birth that means that she probably probably won't live long there's no one no one has ever lived beyond 22 with this condition and she's turning 21 and she kind of accidentally goes into this like sleeping beauty world and high jinks ensue from there and this book pretty much did what i expected in like really subverting and doing like a feminist retelling and like you know really mixing up those old fairy tales and i recently read disfigured with my patrons for our patron book club and actually a lot of us didn't really love it and without getting too much like i could talk phrases about it but it was kind of like half memoir half factual and the two bled into each other too much i think we all found pretty much all of us didn't love it but having read that and having read about kind of the history of fairy tales and like the the phases that fairy tales have gone through like seeping beauty has been kind of rewritten and reshaped by so many different kind of groups and people over the years i found that very interesting how that was played into our protagonist is kind of like obsessed with sleeping beauty and other fairy tales has a degree in fairy tales and so speaks a lot about that about the different variations of these stories and how they've been molded over time and i found that very interesting i found the kind of like tragic hopefulness in this is a is a trope i love and i idea i love i love like courtney summers does this at the end of her books like i love like a hopefulness in the in the face of everything being [ __ ] and i thought this book without spoiling the ending i feel like it dealt with our character's disability very well kind of giving the audience what they wanted from the story whilst also um how can i say this about spoiling anything not not dealing in some kind of tropes that have existed in the past you disability so i gave it a four star it wasn't quite a five star i don't really have anything wrong with it like sometimes when we give five four stars there's like a little something i can critique and i can't really critique anything about this i thought it was really well written i thought it was fun i thought it was joyful but like sad at the same time i do feel like alexi harrah's writing wasn't quite what i remembered from uh once or future witches perhaps because that's more historical and then our protagonist in this is more like present day lingo how do you do fellow kids what i think that is the kind of drawback for me it wasn't quite the kind of magical like gorgeous writing that i was hoping from it but i'm still really excited to continue on with this series and i had a lot of fun reading it so yeah okay so i am halfway through pets i got halfway through pet yesterday so we're gonna finish this today we're not gonna pick our next book until i finished this this afternoon sometime i need to do a bit of video editing to edit tbr cludo this morning i am enjoying this so we're following pet who is a trans girl in this kind of future earth world and there is no monsters in this city anymore monsters have been banished but monsters aren't like creatures they're like bad people so like the police or billionaires are referred to as monsters and then a creature arrives called pet who tells jam that something is living a monster is at her friend redemption's house hurting him and so jam is trying to help find out what that is and try to end it and i am enjoying this i'm really enjoying the audiobook the audiobook has all like the accents and i think that really helps when reading it because in this in the book when pet speaks to jam in her head there's no speech mark so i just really i'm enjoying the audio book i think it is helping i'm not like a hundred percent it's probably kind of a four-star at the moment this this vlog has been very one-night but i am enjoying it i feel like i'm gonna have more thoughts on it once we get to the end and kind of see how this this plays out because i've spent a lot of time getting used to the world and kind of this future setting and what all different linguistics mean but i'm really enjoying i don't have to put this but like the style of storytelling in this i think it's a very unique style of storytelling the kind of just the way the characters speak to each other and the way that scenes are structured i don't really know how to describe it and a parcel just arrived for me which i thought we would open together i think i know what this is it's from canon gate but i'm not 100 sure so let's open it quickly because i feel like if it is what i think it is i need it right now i'm not waiting to open it okay oh my god what this is like a little okay hang on this might look through this in stages so they go and contact me and ask if i would like a copy of the comfort book by matt haig the midnight library i absolutely loved when i read it and i think this is a collection of constellations learned in hard times and suggestions for making bad days better yeah that's cute you're so clever oh my god you're so clever so i'm really excited for this it's like kind of there's some really short sections um and it's kind of just like little anecdotes there's some longer sections as well of you know positive thinking and getting yourself out of thinking in a rat and i think this kind of stuff can be really helpful and i i do tend to prefer self-helpy stuff if you can call it that that's more like grounded and um realistic and like really stuff that anyone can implement and that's what i think this is so i'm super excited that they've sent me this but they also sent like a self-care package so that's like oh let's like dive into what it is okay so first we have this gorgeous mug excuse me hang on i wasn't expecting this a gorgeous mug oh my god look at her that's so pretty we have a candle soy lavender candle from vegan bunny oh that smells so good that smells like um tom's house that's so cute okay i love candles oh we have some tea we have lemon ginger and manuka honey and supreme matcha green i don't typically drink tea but i may try the lemon ginger manuka honey and maybe maybe i'll try by a few nights who knows i'm like a new person oh my god i'm gonna cry what is all of this okay made by cooper's calm atmosphere mist get out that smells really good oh my god eight vegan chocolate easter eggs with a soft center caramel oh extra spicy sauce that's going to strain my party okay well guess i have no choice but to try one i guess i have no choice what can i do oh my god they look very interesting okay let's try mm-hmm someone's gonna have to hide them from me that is so good then they sent some matches how cute some safety matches for the candle and then we've got a face mask maybe i'll put this on tonight i love a good face mask oh my god thank you so much for sending this to me this is like well they said like a little self-care package i thought it would be like a face mask and some tea not like a mug a mist a candle i am so excited thank you so much and i'm very excited to read the comfort book i feel like this kind of stuff is always really helpful to read so maybe i'll read this like over the next couple weeks just like really slowly and i'll let you know to wrap up what i think about it it's like a playlist in it this looks so much fun so thank you so much i am gonna go edit and then i'm gonna go what am i doing oh reading pet and then we'll come back this afternoon before the sprints hopefully sometime to figure out the other book we're gonna be reading today it's also fridays it's the weekend so cheer up okay so it turns out when i said we were gonna read um seven books in seven days those days did not need to be consecutive it turns out by the way my neighbors are playing music really loud so apologies you can hear it um turns out i was so tired on tuesday because i had a virus of some sort and immediately after i spoke to on wednesday i came down very unwell i've heard like a stomach bug um i've also like a headache in the base of my head into my neck that's been genuinely one of the most painful headaches i've had consistently since midday wednesday and like painkillers haven't touched it and i've been going insane so we ruled out thursday right thursday i was not capable of reading we're just pretending that they didn't exist the rules don't apply so we had four days right four active sunday monday tuesday wednesday i finished on wednesday whilst i was ill pet i think i was halfway through this when i spoke to you about it and i didn't connect emotionally to this in the way that i think everyone else did now bear in mind i was unwell i was not a good mood so i think that that has played into it but i'm giving it a 3.5 leaning towards a three and i was like looking at everyone's reviews and i was like i'm the only one out here i think it was a really good book and the way that the themes of you know child abuse um that this ends up focusing on were handled very very well i can see myself really loving acquaintances adult fiction but for me this just felt like very simplistic very like middle grade but it wasn't middle grade i don't mind things feeling like middle grade if they are middle grade but it felt too simplistic i had issues with the pacing and i just didn't connect emotionally i didn't really actually get emotional to what happened when you should really get emotional at that and it's like emotional everything i get emotional at things you don't need to get emotional at so i'm very disappointed because everyone has told me i'm gonna love it it's the best book they've read all year they're obsessed and i just didn't feel that way about it now again please bear in mind i was unwell okay so like that could have that could have come into it but um yeah i liked the audiobook uh it just felt too short as well i feel like for the story that's so interesting there's a lot of world building there's this idea of monsters and angels and the town not having any monsters anymore and how that develops is very interesting but i i think i would have liked a longer book oh my god the penguin direction when i first saw you from across the room anyway i was just disappointed and then we're gonna forget about it i read it on wednesday so that means we finished three books in the first four days of this so we need to read four books in the last three days of this so today's friday as you would have seen i'm not gonna read two books today because it's now like five o'clock but i'm going to read a book today and then two books i think probably tomorrow i'll read two books i feel like it um so let's get into what we're going to be doing today the read-a-thon that we are going to be participating in today is the buzzword-a-thon run by kayla now she's done this for many years and i've participated a little bit in previous years but i haven't done anything for this year yet so let me screen record i saved i went and saved the graphic for like what the prompts were but i haven't looked at the prompts yet i haven't looked at the prompt so let's do that now now i would ideally i would like to pick april's or maze prompts because this video is coming out in may it's almost may so april amaze prompts if i can't do that we'll do any of the prompts because i know a lot of people just like try to hit them all throughout the year they don't necessarily do them in the month basically the idea of buzzword-a-thon is there's a buzzword or like a buzz theme buzz-theme-a-thon the book title has to have that demon it makes sense we look at it so oh okay oh okay okay so april big and little i don't like that i have big little liars but that's long i'm assuming you can have like other size words so tiny i have tiny pretty things tiny pretty let's look may directions okay hang on i want to go i'm going to go look i just dropped my ipod i'm going to go look at kayla's video because i want to know what is included in directions is it just north south east west or is there left right like what is what are we including in in directions okay moving on to may what is me what's may may is directions i got this uh suggested and i thought it was so fun so you can do north south east west um exit west for example would be a good one but you can also make it like up down left right it can also be part of a word it doesn't have to be the whole thing so southern book club's guide for slaying vampires okay okay um i know a lot of things but i don't know about that i'm not sure why i have down and out in paris and london by george orwell which is short but i don't know if i'm in the mood for that i'm not really in the mood for that down up ah oh oh oh i know what we're doing i know what we're doing okay i'm coming to you with a pitch right if up and down can be classed as directions i think kayla would accept over over up down over right i think that's a direction so i'm counting it and counting it we're going to read over the woodward wall by aw baker aka sean mcguire um i'm happy with theirs oh my god i hope we're all counting this over is a direction over up down same thing same death same death i'm very happy because i said the start video this is one of the ones i wanted to try and get to because it was on a tbr cluedo tbr so this is a short story from middle game the book that's referenced in that and angel mcgraw has written it now because it's about kids going into another world i think we're following two kids who go into this like magical world it does have wayward children vibes which is bonus shauna maguire's like other series but i feel like it's not going to be quite like that because otherwise what's the point so it must be a little bit different so i'm intrigued i'm intrigued we're going to go read this i feel like i'll definitely have to read this today i think i have the audio book as well on script so let's get into it [Music] how come the stars come to shine when it's dark from so far away show us where we are what makes the sun go to sleep every night and what's it dreaming of i finished it i'm too tired to talk about it now but i'll talk to you about it in the morning but i finished it saturday there their saturdays are for the saturday no morning can we just talk about them you can't really see them but look at lux he's truly living his best life anyway good morning good morning i finished over the woodward wall last night are we proud of me for actually finishing a book i mean this vlog has been a mess you understand i've been excited for this vlog for months and it was kind of gonna be like a like let me take you along with me in my life let me let's like let's do like a bit of a live vlog as well like i haven't lived a life this week because i've been throwing up okay so i'm gonna give over the woodward wall four stars i'm gonna give it four stars now i had the magic of a sean mcguire book but i think it like it simultaneously felt like it was written by sean mcguire and written by someone else and it's supposed to right like it's written by a character and i thought you could really tell that and that that was very cleverly done i just didn't love it as much as middle game which was like a longer like epic book or there's something about the wayward children series and world that now feels very special to me and it just didn't like match up to that but i still really enjoyed it i had a lot of fun reading it the audiobook is amazing the audiobook narrator is so so so so good at like doing all these voices so basically we're following avery and zib who have normal lives and go over the woodward wall into this world of the up and under and it's them trying to find their way home but it's very difficult i would say this is like a combination of narnia and the wizard of oz i think people often compare wayward children to narnia because it like kids going through doors but i don't really see it but this definitely feels like that and wizard of oz where like they're walking along this road and there's so different characters magical characters from this world like dipping in and out of the story with them and meeting them and helping them for like a short period of time and then they leave and then it's like a new character i really liked all the different characters that we met it's much more like nonsensical than wayward children it's very different like people i think people often think they're quite similar because it's like kids going into other worlds but this is much more like nonsensical bending the rules of logic i mean that biotron does that but not in the style of storytelling this does do that it's a very weird fun style of storytelling tell you what they do okay i'm feeling weird right now i'm feeling like so weird it took me back to just being a child like i feel like i was watching wizard of oz again which i loved i loved wizards when i was a kid and it just i think it was really good at like getting that childhood nostalgia can we just talk about how i've started three different series in this vlog that's a problem but i am excited to carry on in this series i don't know how many it's gonna be i have the second one the third one comes out the end of this year i don't know when the rest of it is continuing but um yeah it didn't touch wayward children for me and it didn't touch middle game but it was a fun read i'm glad i finally got around to it and i really enjoyed it and i thought it was a really vivid magical world i haven't really got anything bad to say about it other than seanan mcguire has such high standards for me like i expect so much and it wasn't i didn't love it as much as the other stuff essentially so today i would like to try and read two books if we can i mean i could tomorrow tomorrow i'm probably a bit freer but i would like to try and do it today and you guys i'm really in the mood to read a graphic novel but i don't know if we're going to be able to defend what promise we get but the first readathon we're going to be doing today hopefully we'll get around to two if not we'll do two tomorrow is book opela fun i've printed out the board from september last year i think this one was so this is run by becca from becca in the books and obviously she does pecopoly as like her tbr game and this is a readathon based off of that there's like there's a new one happening next month which i am participating in and she did put out the first couple prompts for that so i thought should we do that but i thought no i want to play the board game so we're gonna play the ball game and it's gonna determine what we read right let's see how many we roll i am literally so like oh my god oh my god i promise you that landed in my lap on a five so we've got nine okay okay okay one two three four five six seven eight nine monsters um okay okay okay okay okay hang on i'm i'm justifying it for myself i don't care okay so i think we can count anything as a monster anything you would dress up for halloween as and sheets is about a ghost right i think it's a nice ghost i think it's a kind ghost but it's still a ghost and i think we can count a ghost as a monster okay boy he did a cheat like mug so yeah we're gonna read sheets and i'll probably check in with you once i finish it cause it won't take me long [Music] [Music] okay so i finished sheets this was 100 like the perfect thing for me to read at the moment it was just what i needed i had so much fun reading it i feel like i need to read graphic novels so much more i'm gonna give it four stars um i think it's like maybe 4.5 virgin but i'm gonna give it four it was just such a lovely story yeah we're following marjorie who is basically running the family laundromat she's only 13 but her mum passed away last spring so she's like in middle school i think and like just trying to like get through middle school whilst also like running this family laundromat and it's really hard there's like there's adults in this that are really mean to her like there's adults that her enemy and i'm like oh my god why are these adults so horrible but this ghost called wendell this is wendell um ends up coming across the laundromat and being there i just thought it was really touching and really gorgeous and i really loved the characters it's got a lot of like blue and pink and purple color tones and i just thought it looked so beautiful it's also i believe set in like the 80s and i just thought that was a really fun setting for a graphic novel and you know just like our main character dealing with grief and wendell dealing with grief in a way and like bullies and like we also have like this storyline of this mean guy he's trying to set up a yoga retreat it was very fun it was very humorous i feel like it had like a a fun sense of humor as a book and i just really enjoyed it i'm so glad i finally got around to it because i've had this i think i've owned it for about a year now and it makes me want to read graphic novels more because i never read them and then i read them and i love them she's so [ __ ] stupid the second readathon of the day because the day is the night is young what time is it i think it it's about three o'clock so i do have some family stuff that we're doing this evening so we'll see how long the book we end up reading is whether i finish it but we're trying to make good progress to whatever book we end up picking today so the next readathon we're gonna do is spring fling a ween which is actually happening as we speak it's happening right now this is hosted by gabby and olivia and it's like they do lots of like a ween readathons and this is the one that's running at the moment and i really want to participate so i haven't looked what the prompt is we're gonna watch gabby's like announcement video and find out what the prompts are but i assume we're gonna be reading like a thriller or a horror so if we can the only book that i said at the start list that i want to read that we haven't got to is the words always watching which i have been putting off for quite some time now this is like a little bit longer it's about 220 pages but um we'll see if we can fit this in so let's find out what the prompts are but i'm really excited about these prompts and i think they're so cute and perfect for this like spring kind of vibe because the first prompt is going to be to read a book with pink or yellow on the cover okay because personally when i think of spring i think of like yeah and yellows and like the pastels you know and if you're thinking to yourself what kind of books can you make fit into this color palette you would actually be surprised how many thriller and horror books we need to pink with pink oh yeah okay i've already decided i even know okay let me look let's see from the description they've got the other prompts yeah i don't really have any backlist they're a little horror i want to read okay we've decided what we're doing i know what i'm reading i know i'm reading let me go fetch it it's a bit longer it's gonna be the longest book we read in this vlog but i feel good because i've got like today and half of tomorrow to read it i'm going to read it not only has pink or yellow it has pink and yellow i'm going to read uh reckless girls by rachel hawkins um so i've really wanted to read this since i got it i got it in book of the month what month was it i can't remember january i feel like it was very early this is a thriller about a group of friends who go to this island and then one of them goes missing one of them turns out dead i think it's quite campy and fun while also being like a thriller it's been compared to and then they went on but i don't like it when things are compared to and then there were none because they didn't really love and then they were not i don't think it is gonna be spot on necessarily but yeah i'm really really excited the island is desolate spot with a mysterious history of shipwrecks cannibalism and even rumors of murder it's the perfect destination for the most adventurous traveler to escape everything even the truth okay i'm really really excited we're gonna read this it's gonna be a bit longer how long is it i'm guessing like 300 pages oh it's literally just 300 pages so it's not too long so i feel like it's within my wheelhouse to read like at least half of this tonight and check in with you and then we'll read the rest tomorrow that's the plan and we're gonna do it and i'm very excited because i haven't read this is a 2022 release isn't it i've only read three so far this year so i was getting a bit nervous anyway we're reading it regardless because it's pink and yellow and this is perfect for this challenge here i am here we are yes another week good morning everyone um listen it's first thing in the morning you don't need to discuss the way i look but i'm halfway through reckless girls and i am enjoying it like here's the thing it's a very easy read like it's one of the most like easy thriller mysteries that i've read in a long while it's like so easy to i can i say easy again it's so easy to just kind of like dive through and read very fast so basically our main character is called lux which is my cat's name is it a cold is it a coincidence i ask you is it a cult incident he's named after a pokemon though to be fair and it's her i hate when my bun just like disappears behind my head do you wanna like oh let me tie my hair up in a ponytail hold on her and her boyfriend nico get asked by these two girls and nico has a bow and they get kind of like hired by these two girls to take them out to this like deserted island essentially where like many years ago people were stranded on it and died but now like obviously they can go there with their boat what i like about this some like mystery thrillers if you dive into like the craziness straight away what did i read recently where i didn't like that it was like that like it was immediately there was no build up with these characters it was just really [ __ ] the fan whereas [ __ ] still hasn't hit the fan halfway through they encountered two other people on the island so there's now six of them and it's just been a lot we have actually multiple timelines but i'm enjoying them both equally which i don't usually do because i think they're both interesting so we've got the present day timeline with them on the island and then we've got past timelines for both lux and nico and is it emma and brittany i think who are the two girls that they took with them um we're having like backstories of like their history that brings up a lot of questions as to how people know each other and people's motivations and it's just kind of like building the tension of them all on this isolated island together where anything can happen people not trusting one another relationships starting to fracture and i just really like that in my mysteries and thrillers i think it's like i really like building that kind of tension before we get into the craziness i feel like the second half is gonna get kind of crazy but the first half has been pretty chill just us learning about the characters and tension kind of seeping into the cracks and all of their relationships so i'm just enjoying it it's not gonna be like a five star i don't think unless it goes like crazy but i think it's like a easy to read fun thriller i already know by the way the last book in this vlog i can't remember i don't know what read-a-thon i'm doing but i haven't looked at the prompts but i don't want to read something very long i'm kind of being a bit red out like a bit like burnt out with reading and i just want to read something really short so maybe not another forward collection would be fun if we can fit that we'll have a look and see um when we get to the end but yeah i'm really enjoying this and i'm glad that i'm reading it and how perfect was it for the prompt yellow and pink i mean come on right so this boogie is crazy i was oohing i was on i was wincing i was lolling quite heartily like actual insanity it's crazy it's crazy it's crazy i'm gonna give it four stars here's the thing i read this so quickly i think i was reading like 150 pages an hour like i was reading it so so fast it is so compulsively readable it is so easy to read i really feel like that was what i needed at the moment so i feel like it kind of gave me what i needed it reminds me of the last where there's this really great atmosphere built it's very like high tension and the last 50 pages is just [ __ ] crazy and you're like do i think the ending is very good no but did i have such a great time reading it yeah do you know what i mean do i think it's the best book ever no do i think it's a super fun thriller yes this is the kind of book i don't want to say trashy but it's the kind of book that would be perfect to like take on holiday with you not just because it's totally like a tropical island it's the perfect thing that's fun and easy to read you know read by the pool not a lot of thinking involved just pick it up whenever you can dive straight back into the story and i think it's really great for that purpose or like you want to read in one sitting on a summer's day or do you know what i mean it's perfect for that kind of setting i don't think this is going to be many people's favorite book but do i think a lot of people having are going to have a good time reading it yeah do you know what i mean that's the duality of this book i really did enjoy it i really i did enjoy it i can't pretend i didn't i thought the flashbacks in time for all the different characters worked so well the dual timeline we know usually i dislike that but we still had one timeline which felt like the the real one the main one and the stuff in the past was kind of just to inform us there are a few plot holes that i'm i'm kind of figuring out i'm a bit confused there's a few plot holes where you're like that don't make no sense me trying to explain the plot holes but yeah it was a fun read one of the funnest kind of campy silly thrillers i've read in a long time i think this deserted island is a really great setting is it a retelling of agatha christie uh and then there were none no it's really not like it doesn't have that um and then there were none like characters keep getting killed off kind of periodically and that's what i think the truest retellings of and then undo and i don't like that so i actually like when books aren't strict retellings this is not a retelling maybe it takes inspiration but it's just used the agatha christie line has just been thrown in to try and get the book to sell more so i'm kind of all read out guys i'm gonna be honest i'm not in the mood for reading now i don't know i just wanna like do nothing with my family so i'm gonna read a short book so we're gonna go to the clear your [ __ ] readathon which i've always wanted to do i think it's like an annual one and it's really cool because there's like a narrator who narrates the readathon who's like this sarcastic character i just love the idea behind it okay we've got shortest book and we've got smallest book okay okay okay i think the shortest book on my tbr is randomized by andy ware but that is the last book in this forward collection that i've been reading and i'd like to read them an audit even though there's no rhyme or reason to it because they're not related you don't have to read them in order i want to read them in order so we're going to read i think the next one is you have arrived at your destination by amor towels i think that's how you pronounce his name um i've never read anything by him but i've always wanted to so we're going to read this one it's going to take us like 20 minutes but then we're down and we've read seven books in seven days kind of kind of [Music] so i just finished what was it called again you have arrived at your destination by amore towels so it's this new like ultra advanced fertility lab that our character is visiting where not only can you maybe pick stuff like your child's gender or like their eye color or whatever but they basically predict what the contours that's what they call them of your child's life is going to be like what kind of person they'll be what kind of temperament what kind of career stuff like that and he gets presented with like three different possibilities his wife has picked out of the person their child could be now i did find this one very interesting i really like the section at the fertility clinic hopefully i can speak but i did feel like uh the section when he'd left it was not as strong it was kind of boring and like the characters were speaking of metaphors and i was like listen we only have 50 pages here to get to know each other and for the story to go bish bash bosh let's let's like move it on up and like speak a bit more clearly so i'm gonna give it a three overall i i feel like it is i think it's got the lowest rating of all the collections and i can see why i here's the thing abroad house is not a sci-fi author um he writes like i think like historical fiction kind of stuff and you could tell that because this wasn't very sci-fi other than the advances in the fertility clinic there wasn't much else in the world or anything else in the world that was different to our life essentially and so this was much more focused on humanity and human nature and like yeah just the human side of this stuff which was interesting but i feel like for me it feels out of place with the rest of the collection so far i did enjoy it i had like a good reading experience reading it but once i finished it i was like huh like said it like is that it potential risk because they're overweight it's claimed that they're more prone to heart attacks do you know what i mean so i enjoyed i really enjoyed the part the fertility clinic i thought it was really interesting i really liked the way it was written so i'm very excited i own it's at the lincoln highway by email towels i always wanted to buy a gentleman in moscow if that's what it's called um i remember being in like um a bookstore in florida and wanting to buy it like years and years and years ago so i'm excited he's writing so i really like the writing i just don't feel like it worked as part of the collection and as a short story anyway that brings us to an end of this vlog oh i just knocked the table i'm scared that this vlog is gonna be long i don't personally really like doing vlogs longer than like 35 minutes i don't think anyone's gonna want to watch them so if you've made it to the end thank you so much um but i'm so glad i did this i'm now only three bucks behind schedule because obviously time moves so i'm only three books behind schedule my reading goal which will definitely catch up to the next couple days that's the best it's been since like mid-january like once i got past three books by schedule i never got back to it so i'm very happy that we're at that point i feel like it's kind of reached my goal i'm not as anxious about my reading goal anymore it finally feels like it could be a possibility so yeah i feel very happy and we read some good books it was pretty one note though it was a lot like 3.5 fours no five star if i remember correctly but i had fun reading a lot of the books i read and i'm glad that i finally got around to them if you've got until the end oh my god what do i want you to come in oh come on one of the pink flower emojis for reckless girls because i really like that cover and how it tied into the prompt so comment that down below let me know um how you're doing on whatever your reading goal of the year is doesn't have to be numerical like any other reading goals you had i would love to know how you're doing on them also let me know what your favorite readathon you've ever participated in was and why i'd love to know those things down below thank you so much for watching and i'll see you very soon in another video bye [Music] you