a *productive* READING VLOG!🍵 days in my life, cozy mornings, cafes & summer moments!

What is up you guys, welcome back to my channel, welcome back to another vlog. I don't know if I should call this vlog a reading vlog or like a days in my life vlog. My plan is for it to be a reading vlog but I feel like you guys know this, I never just read in these vlogs. Anyways, welcome to a reading vlog, I hope you guys enjoy it. I'm actually very excited because I feel like this entire summer, these reading vlogs are the only way that I'm actually going to be getting some reading done. I just feel like lately when I'm not vlogging, I think of like a million things I have to do and get done before I actually pick up my book to read. I'm going to be reading and vlogging the next few days and getting through this never-ending TBR. Also, the idea that I had initially for this vlog was that I wanted it to be a reading for 24 hours vlog. However, by now I feel like I know that never actually works. I always take breaks throughout the 24 hours, I always end up falling asleep, but that's when I came up with this idea to do a timer. When I'm actually reading, the timer will be going on and every single time I take a break, whether it's to go somewhere, whether I'm going to go to sleep, I will be pausing the timer every single time. So we're not doing the timer, we're doing the stopwatch. That's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about my book choices for this reading vlog really quick. So if you watched my last reading vlog, which was like two videos ago, I'm pretty much exactly where you guys left me. I'm still on this book right here. It's actually a really good thriller, but I just haven't been picking it up and reading it for long periods of time. I pick it up for like five minutes, read a little bit of it, I won't pick it up for like two days, and then when I do pick it up, I already forgot what I read, so I go back, I reread. It's an issue. However, that's not the one I want to start with. I want to start off with a fresh story, something I can finish today. I have three thrillers right now in mind that I can get on my Kindle. Two of them are by Frida McFadden and another one I think by Lucy Foley. First option is going to be The Guest List by Lucy Foley. Then it's going to be One by One by Frida McFadden. And lastly, it's going to be The Perfect Son, also by Frida. I fully thought that a Frida book was going to win because there were two choices in there, but The Guest List is the one that won. Literally the only thing I know about this thriller is that it's pretty much about a destination wedding, so it has to do a lot with this group of people that are attending this wedding. So yeah, it's a destination wedding where a bunch of crazy things start happening, I think. I'm actually pretty excited about this one though because I've never read a book by this author. I'm gonna download it on my Kindle. Let's get to reading. Okay, so I stopped my little reading timer at exactly 17 minutes. All it took was 17 minutes for me to start craving a little fun drink, but I decided to come to this coffee shop really quick and get a strawberry matcha. I also really want to go to Trader Joe's and get some flowers. I have some family visiting right now and I just want some pretty and fresh flowers around my house. You guys, I got such a delicious strawberry matcha. I didn't have a lot of faith in it, but once I saw the color of the matcha, I knew it was going to be amazing and it really, really was. And they were also selling ceramic mugs. So I got this ceramic orange mug and it's hand-painted, which I thought was really cute. I really wanted a new cup for my espresso, so we got this cutie one. Okay, I'm scared of my camera overheating, so we're switching spots. But so far, the book that I'm reading, The Guest List, it's pretty good, but I can't really say too much. I'm literally three chapters in. What I think is the most interesting so far is that every single chapter is from the point of view of a different guest. So you have one chapter from the point of view of the groom, another chapter from the point of view of the bride, another chapter from the point of view of the wedding planner, and then another guest, and another guest, and another guest. The reviews I kept seeing on TikTok was that this book was boring, but I've read thrillers in the past that aren't giving you a plot twist in every single chapter. Like, I've read slow burn kind of thrillers, and I've really, really enjoyed them. But we will see how I feel about this book. Let's go to Trader Joe's, grab some flowers, and then go back home and continue reading. Okay, I want to give a really quick shout out to Scentbird for sponsoring this portion of the vlog. I've actually used Scentbird myself in the past, so if you've never heard of Scentbird, I'm very excited to let you guys know what they are and what they do. So Scentbird is pretty much a fragrance subscription service, and they pretty much let you try designer perfumes and colognes for just a fraction of the price. I'm talking about brands like Prada, Versace, Gucci, and even very niche fragrances that are sometimes hard to find in stores. So pretty much each month you will pick the scent that you want, and they will send you a 30-day supply of that scent. This right here is not a sample vial, it's not a tester, this is a 30-day supply right here. So I love it because it's very sleek, it's very travel friendly, it's honestly very fun because you get to experiment with different fragrances depending on your mood, the occasion, or even the season, because I know I like to use different fragrances in the summer versus the fall versus the winter, and just having to buy a full bottle of a perfume, it doesn't give you the same liberty to experiment like Scentbird does. This month I got Jasmine Freak, The Vibration, The Mean, and Grace Demonico. Each scent comes with this little card that has all of the information about your fragrance. My favorite was this one called Jasmine Freak. It has notes of mango, sweet orange, jasmine, and tuberose. I honestly could not recommend Scentbird enough to you guys. If you're looking to upgrade your scent or you just want to try something new, I highly recommend giving it a shot. You guys can get 55% off your first month just by using my code CARLA55OFF or by scanning the QR code on the screen. You'll get your first fragrance from Scentbird for only $8 and your next month will only be $16.95. I'm gonna have the link to Scentbird and my coupon code down below. Make sure to check them out and thank you so much to Scentbird for sponsoring this portion of the vlog. Okay, ended up getting Only Roses. I got these yellow and orange ones, I got these white pinkish ones, and lastly I got these gorgeous pink ones. I also got some cherries to snack on. I don't know why, but a watermelon sounded really good. I quickly realized that I've never chosen my own watermelon before. All I could remember is that my mom always like knocks on them to tell if it's good or not. I started doing this to like every single watermelon there, except I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to hear when I'm like knocking on them. They all looked and sounded the same though, so I just went with this one. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but my mom said I chose the perfect watermelon and it tastes like the perfect watermelon. For the past few weeks, I've been using this cleanser. This is the Kate Somerville Goat Milk Moisturizing Cleanser. I can't really see through the bottle, but I pretty much have this much left. Like this is it, and I am so obsessed with this cleanser. It leaves my skin feeling so moisturized. I don't think I've ever used a skincare product with goat milk, but it's honestly so amazing. I just woke up a little bit ago. I literally look like an egg, but I actually booked an appointment at Drybar to get a blowout, which I'm going to take you guys with me later, but that basically means I will be putting zero effort into my hair until I get there. But anyways, I just woke up, I did my skincare, I'm going to make some coffee right now. I pretty much slept for like five hours last night, but I honestly feel really good. I really had no faith in myself yesterday. I really did not think I was going to finish the guest list, but I did. I finished it around like 2 in the morning or something. I have some thoughts about that book. Most of them are good. The story really picked up towards the end, as thrillers usually do, and I could not put it down. It wasn't like out of this world, but it was really, really good. But I'm going to let you guys know right now my rating, what I thought of it, what I didn't like about it, and we're starting our new book today. This is yesterday's read, and this is the book I decided I'm going to start today. I got to like page 30 a few weeks ago, but I'm restarting it today. I'm not even going to attempt to remember where I left off. Also, I went on TikTok when I woke up this morning. Tell me why this was the first TikTok that I saw. I don't know if you can see that, but a book creator on TikTok, she said, after reading 47 books, I gave out my first five-star rating for 2025, and it was for this book right here, Problematic Summer Romance. I feel like I've never been disappointed by an Ali Hazelwood book. There's definitely some that are better than others. Anyways, let's talk about The Guest List, my first ever Lucy Foley book. I actually didn't realize, but this is the author of The Paris Apartment, and I actually have that book. I own it, and I've never read it, but this is my first one from her. I haven't even thought of what rating I would give this book. I want to say four stars, but I might, like, it might be a 4.25. I'm not gonna lie. It was a very, very interesting thriller. I feel like I've read so many Freda McFadden thriller books that I kind of expect certain elements that she puts into her thrillers in other thriller books. Like, this did not have those, like, absurd plot twists. I've read certain thrillers that I feel like they make you feel kind of dumb because it'll go from one thing to another. Like, the story will give you a plot twist, but it doesn't really make sense with the story. There was maybe, like, a point in the middle, maybe, like, 30 pages in the middle where it felt like it was getting a little bit repetitive, or at least, like, nothing was happening. Like I told you guys yesterday, this story is about a destination wedding. This really famous reality TV star and this really, like, polished rich woman, they're getting married and they decide to get married on an island, pretty much. It's an island with, like, cliffs all around it, so to them it's, like, this exclusive place. I guess there's, like, a little illustration of what the island looks like, but it's very creepy. They literally tell the guest not to go out at night because there's a risk of falling off a cliff and dying. This whole story is in the span of two days, the day before the wedding and the wedding day. Something we find out pretty early on with the book is that somebody from the wedding party, you don't know who it is, dies. I really did think the entire book was going to be, like, trying to figure out who did it, but the book felt so much more than that. What I absolutely loved about it is that every single chapter is from the point of view of a different character. With each chapter, you realize that these adults are so, so messy. They're all hiding, like, these crazy secrets from their past and towards the end, I'm talking, like, the last five chapters, everything gets revealed. There was one plot twist in the story where my jaw was completely on the floor. I mean, two characters that you don't even think are connected in any way. It just blew my mind. That being said, let me share with you what I didn't like about this book. The ending, I feel like I sound like a broken record because this is, like, the fourth or fifth thriller where I complain about the ending, but this one specifically, the ending literally feels unfinished. I feel like the ending really did need another page, another chapter, another paragraph, another sentence. Like, I had just read 314 pages. I was like, give me a sentence that's worth it. I'm not letting that ruin it for me, though, because I'm sure other people might really, really like the ending or they might get the ending. The guest list, we're giving it 4.25. And now I'm completely switching gears to a cutie little rom-com. We're going to read Problematic Summer Romance today. Let's get into it. I'm on page 16 right now, and I'm going to read for the next two hours straight. We'll see how much reading I can get done in two hours. It's been close to, like, 40 minutes of me reading this book. I'm currently on chapter eight, page 66. I'm trying to get past this, like, specific trope that this book has. The main trope in this book is age gap trope. The girl is 23 and the male main character is 38, and I'm trying to, like, get past that, like, a 38-year-old with a 23-year-old. And the story itself is actually really, really cute. The setting is amazing. It literally takes place in Italy. It's about a destination wedding, which is crazy because I just read a book about a destination wedding, except this is, like, the complete opposite of it. I'm trying to, like, rewire my brain to be like, no, this is cute, this makes sense. I'm gonna envision him as, like, a to the bank and there was a Dunkin' right next to it. I haven't been to a Dunkin' Donuts in, I don't even know how long, but I got this energy sparkling water that they had. I'm currently on page 191, chapter 21. I have this much left right here, so I'm a little bit over halfway through. I did spend two hours reading this book, two hours straight. If I'm being honest, it hasn't really blown me away at all. Like, I haven't really encountered anything about this book that is worth, like, going crazy about. I'm gonna continue reading it and my hair appointment. Let's go fix this hair because I'm sick of it. Let's go. We're done with the blowout. Mia absolutely killed that. To be completely honest with you guys, I read a total of zero chapters, zero paragraphs, zero words in there. I was pretty much talking to Mia the entire time. They also had the movie Mean Girls playing in there. To give you guys a little recap of this book so far, this book is honestly giving me the same vibes of two other books that I've read. It feels like a weird combination right now of the book Twisted Love by Anna Huang and also the book Spanish Love Deception, which is one of my absolute favorite summer reads of all time. If you haven't read Spanish Love Deception, I mean, I think I read it like three years ago, so who knows what I would think of it now, but I truly have nothing but amazing things to say about that book. But this book right here has some of those same aspects. It's similar to Twisted Love because this book has the trope brother's best friend, and it's similar to Spanish Love Deception because of the whole destination wedding thing. Now that I keep talking about Spanish Love Deception, I honestly really really want to reread that book. Okay, super quick before I go back home, I met a subscriber of mine a few months ago. We got to talking a lot about social media and how she wanted to start it, and she actually started an Instagram page dedicated to helping people apply to graduate school. She's Latina, she's super kind and intelligent. I just think what she's doing is absolutely amazing. So for any reason you guys are thinking of applying to graduate school, definitely check out her Instagram. I'm going to put it down below. Good morning guys, it's another day. I just made my coffee, I had some breakfast, and I've pretty much been reading in bed since I woke up. I just finished Problematic Summer Romance. I'm not gonna lie, this wasn't my favorite Ali Hazelwood book. It was definitely a cute story and it had its cute moments, but I would say two-thirds of this book just felt like the same thing. Like, it just felt like we were going in circles. The male main character is pretty much like this really successful, very wealthy, he's kind of like mysterious and kind of grumpy. Why are they always grumpy? Not that I hate it, it's definitely entertaining, but he's like a grumpy dude with a big heart, pretty much. She is his best friend's sister. They pretty much form a relationship where they become very, very, very close friends. They call each other every single day, they tell each other everything, they pretty much fall in love with each other over the phone. She's falling in love with him, he's falling in love with her, but the moment that he sees that, like they're falling in love with one another, he pretty much walks away from their friendship because he thinks the age gap is too big of an issue. But this entire story is pretty much them 10 months later, like after they stop speaking, they have to see each other because her brother is getting married in Italy. The entire story is them already being in love with each other. I feel like the story itself started at a weird spot. I don't know, I just didn't really love it. There were enjoyable moments in it, but it definitely just wasn't my favorite. I think I'd give it like 3.75. Okay, I've been editing this video the past few hours, but now I'm gonna quickly get ready because my family that's visiting, they want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I've been there like two or three times, but last time that we went, we stopped at this burger place, and I'm not even kidding, they were some of the most delicious burgers I've ever tried. I want to thank you guys so much for watching this vlog. I love you guys so much, and again, shout out to Sempert for sponsoring this video. Don't forget, you guys can get 55% off your first month with Sempert by using my code CARLA55OFF. That means your first month will literally only be $8. Make sure you guys take advantage of that. Yeah, I love you guys so much, and let's go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.