First five star of the year, which is very exciting.
Clearly there's something about them that I like.
Did we read the same book?
I am so excited to be filming another reading vlog and just really looking forward to this video.
I've been meaning to film another book video for a while now, but I've just been in kind of a slump ever since the start of the year and just have not really been reading all that much.
But I feel like over the past week I finally broken through that slump and I am so excited to be reading consistently and to be excited about the books i'm reading again.
So i figured what better time to film a reading vlog than now?
And to kick start off this reading vlog, i decided to pick up a highly anticipated new release and that is sunrise on the reaping.
I have seen everyone post reading vlogs about this and i have purposefully avoided like clicking on any of them because i really want to just experience this book firsthand and i mean i already know i'm gonna love it.
But i just want to form my own opinion and i'm just so excited.
I started reading it a little bit yesterday.
I'm about hundred pages in, i think, so it's just so good to be back in the hungry games world and universe.
This could be a very strong contender for a possible five stars.
I don't want to speak too soon, but from the very first pages i was just immediately immersed and that is what suzanne collins does so well, in my opinion, is just like immerse you in the story and offer such brilliant commentary and critique, while also like making it such an interesting and engaging story that you're just excited to follow along and also, like I, i'm just so easily attached to the characters.
It's unbelievable.
And obviously this follows hamish, so like you already know a little bit about his story.
If you like, have read the other books and have that information.
But anyways, i'm gonna stop talking because i'm just really excited to get to reading and i will check back in once i've made a little bit more progress.
But here's to book one of this reading vlog.
Hello, beautiful people.
I'm back with an update.
I actually got ready to film another video and I figured, you know what?
Since I did my makeup, might as well film an update for this vlog.
So I actually finished reading Sunrise on the Reaping a couple of days ago.
My heart like i wish i could erase my memory and read that book all over again.
It was such an experience and i was so glad to get another glimpse into that world and into hamish's story.
I didn't give like a summary of the book because i guess i kind of just assumed that a lot of you were familiar with the hunger games world and universe.
But yeah, it follows Haymitch's character who's Katniss's coach in The Hunger Games and so if you've read the other books and have watched the movies you kind of know how his story ends.
But I feel like knowing that made it even more heartbreaking because you were reading his book and his story and just anticipating stuff that would go down
I'm just gonna give the book a five star.
Like I feel like I tend to overthink my five star ratings a lot and then I get really in my head and I'm like does this really deserve a five star?
But truly, I have nothing bad to say about the book.
I was reading it any chance I would get, like in between classes on my way to school, like right before bed.
I was just reading it all the time.
And I feel like it brought me back to when I was younger.
And when I first got into like reading YA and I would just spend every second of spare time reading and it just brought me back to the like excitement.
Actually, when i got on goodreads to like rate the book and just like log it, i started reading some other people's reviews, and i always do this.
I don't know why, but when i start reading other people's reviews of a book i've read, i start to like gaslight myself and i'm like do we read the same book?
Because some people will like disagree on things and will have certain criticisms and then they're not really things i took into consideration or like i even noticed when i was reading the book.
So, to be honest, i'm learning to like let go of other people's reviews and really just like form my own opinion, because to me this was a perfect book like i wish i could erase my memory and read it all over again.
When i got to like the last 40 pages, i was at war with myself because i both wanted to like keep reading and finish the book, but i also didn't want it to end, and so, for these reasons, this book is a five star to me, and it's actually my first five star of the year, which is very exciting.
Again, i'm trying to be like less critical or less harsh about my ratings and since i enjoyed the book so much, there's really no reason for me not to give it such a high rating.
All that to say, i actually picked up another book and started reading it.
This is middle of the night by riley sager, and i have been in my thriller era.
I guess you could say i have been reading a lot of thrillers lately and i feel like that's because i was in a slump for a little bit.
So to get me out of that slump, i picked up thrillers because they're like really good palette cleansers.
They're fast paced and most of them are just like one-off books and not part of like really long series that feel like a big commitment.
This is my third riley seger book that i pick up.
I previously have read the house across the lake, which I read last summer.
And then I think it was last week or maybe the week before I read the last time I lied.
And I really enjoyed that one.
This book follows Ethan, who lives on hemlock circle and a cul-de-sac in a very quaint suburban neighborhood.
And at the age of 10 years old, He is camping in his backyard with his friend Billy when he wakes up the next morning and finds that Billy has been taken from the tent and the tent was slashed open.
30 years after the fact, there are still no suspects and no further evidence has been found.
So it's still haunting him and he moves back into his childhood home.
So you see, kind of all of these remnants of the past and these memories come back to haunt him.
I am really liking this book.
So far, to be honest, i am, i think, about like a third of the way in i've been reading it pretty fast just because again thrillers, i feel like, are super easy to get into and super fast paced.
So i am more likely to pick up the book because i want to find out what's going to happen next.
One thing i've also noticed that riley sager does or at least i've noticed it in the books of his that i've read is that he will include multiple perspectives, which i feel like in a thriller context is so interesting.
Like, for instance, in this one you're getting the present timeline told through ethan's first person point of view and then you're also getting flashbacks which are told more like through the third person and like through an omniscient narrator, and that's really interesting because then you get glimpses into like, different characters and different neighbors that also live on hemlock circle.
I'm gonna check back in once i've made a little bit more progress and once i'm further into the book, but honestly i've got a pretty good feeling.
I could finish this within like a day and a half because it's so fast paced and all I really wanted to do is sit down and read.
Hello everyone, I am back with another update.
It's been a few days and I actually finished reading Middle of the Night two days ago, so I thought I would check in, while the thoughts in my review are still somewhat fresh in my mind.
I actually really enjoyed reading this and I ended up rating it 425 stars, so Clearly I had a good time reading and it's making me want to read more of Riley Sager's books, because the last two books of his that I've read were like really high ratings for me.
So clearly there's something about them that I like.
I kind of talked about this earlier, but I really enjoy how he kind of weaves like multiple timelines together and then you go back and forth i feel like that makes me want to keep turning the page and especially because the chapters are like relatively short they all end like they all build up and then end on a bit of a cliffhanger somewhat so it just like was a really fast read because of that another thing i really enjoyed was the kind of suburban neighborhood setting and the fact that they all live like on the cul-de-sac made it intriguing because then you're kind of obviously going to suspect the neighbors and try to dig in to maybe what in what ways they could have been involved in the disappearance so all this to say i was looking forward to finishing this and reaching the end i feel like i read it so fast i will say the ending not that it left me like disappointed but it wasn't like a major twist and it wasn't crazy unexpected i mean guess it was i don't want to give too much away but like i guess it was unexpected but it wasn't like a major plot twist if you will which some people were disappointed by when i was reading other people's reviews but at the same time i feel like the ending is perfect and i wouldn't change anything about it like i really like how everything is tied in at the end so that is my review of middle of the night i don't feel like i'm the best at giving reviews so i apologize but all this to say this was a really good book in my opinion i rated it 4.25 and i will be reading more of riley sager's books if you've read it feel free to let me know what your thoughts are or if you have any thriller recommendations i'd love to know okay now for the last book i'm going to be reading in this video i just started reading nothing like the movies which is quite the change from like going from a thriller to a really light ya romance this is a second chance romance and we're following the characters from another book better than the movies so it's kind of the sequel to that one and having read better than the movies last summer i was really excited when i found out that this was going to come out because i quite enjoyed that book and so far i'm also really enjoying this one i actually picked up the audiobook and i've just been listening to it it's told in a dual point of view which i always really love and especially again listening to the audiobook and having it narrated by like the two different characters is just a lot of fun i'm gonna keep reading this and i will be sure to check back in once i made a little bit more progress because i'm really not that far into it but i'm very much looking forward to reading this as i was editing this video i realized i never really gave much info as to what nothing like the movies is about so i thought i would fill in that information as i show clips of me baking banana bread and listening to the audiobook as i mentioned this is a sequel to the ya romance book better than the movies where we first meet wes and liz in a high school setting and now in the second chance romance which is taking place two years later as the characters are in college we see wes trying to win liz over To basically set the story up without giving too much away, we're following them right as they're embarking on their college journey and starting their semester at UCLA.
But due to some personal circumstances, Wes has to return home to Nebraska, forcing him and Liz to do long distance, and eventually this leads to them falling out.
And now, two years later, Wes is finally ready to return to UCLA and also ready to win Liz back.
So as you can probably guess, a lot ensues from that point on.
I finished reading Nothing Like the Movies a few minutes ago, so I thought I would share my thoughts while they're still fresh in my mind.
To be honest, I think I listened to like 90% of the book.
I really didn't like sit down to actually read it that much, but I have been listening to the audio book pretty much nonstop for the past few days because I really wanted to finish it and include it in this video and I really enjoyed the book.
I do want to think about my rating a little bit first, so I might like go back and tweak it, but I think right now what I've decided on is I'm gonna rate it four stars because I really genuinely did enjoy it.
I really liked the college setting.
I love that we got to see the characters from the first book, but this time, two years later, having changed and grown up, because I think that's actually really realistic.
And I can see why some people might argue that, like the characters are different than in the first book.
But to me that's completely natural, because if you're gonna move away from home and undergo such a drastic change, it's normal that you would change a little bit and grow up.
So i love that we got to see like the characters grapple with more mature things in this book and i also loved that we got to see them like struggle with their relationship, because it is a second chance romance and i think this is actually my first time reading that trope.
If i'm not wrong, i will say this book is a bit on the longer side for a romance book.
I feel like normally that genre tends to be at around like 300 pages in average length, whereas this book was 442 pages.
So obviously there were some moments where i feel like I don't know if like, the scenes necessarily dragged on, but more so like we were seeing the same issues come up in different scenes and I feel like those could have been combined or like cut down.
But at the same time I don't necessarily want to commit to saying that, because I also did enjoy just seeing more of the characters and seeing them interact.
I love the banter in this book.
Also, that is one thing I do love in a romance book when the banter is actually good.
I really enjoyed this, four stars, at least that's my rating for now.
I might go back and adjust it a little bit, but thank you so much if you made it up until this point.
I know it's not everyone that's interested in seeing reading content, but I personally love to watch and make these videos.
So I am very much looking forward to the fact that I'm gonna have more time on my hands to film these this summer, and feel free to let me know if there's any specific videos you want to see or if there's any books that you recommend.
On that note, I hope you have a lovely rest of your day or night, wherever you are, and I will talk to you in my next video.