 Oh my god, you are so cute. Look how cute you are. Hey friends, how are you all diddly doing? I am excited but I'm also sad. So it's time for another episode of Wrapped Up. If you're a regular here, you know the drill. If you're new, some of my books are Wrapped Up. These are the my releases that I owned, 2021 releases that I owned in December at the start of December last year. Wrapped them up, we unwrap one or two and I read them in the vlog, essentially. Now I'm excited because I love Wrapped Up. I love and hate it. I love it but I hate the suspense. I was still so sick. But I'm sad because this is going to be our last episode for a little while. It's going to go on here just for October and November. This is the worst. This is the worst. This is the worst. Yeah. It will come back though as a weekly series in December. So get excited. Yeah, I haven't figured out yet how I want it to be. I don't know. We made you 2020 releases again. We made you something different. Every year I want to revamp it in a way but I can't figure out how I'm going to revamp it this year. So anyways, these are the books. I unwrap one. If I'm not 100% feeling it, I let myself wrap a second and we choose between them. But sometimes I'm feeling the first one. Right. Initially, as soon as I was looking, this is the one that interested me. This is so momentous. This is it. After this, they're all going to get unwrapped. If I don't feel this, you can unwrap another. Otherwise, if I am excited by this, we're reading this. Oh, okay. We're going to unwrap another one. It is The Neighbour's Secrets. This is a book for the month one that I got. And I haven't had a lot of people speak about it. I do have the audiobook for this. I will read this if I have to because it kind of reminds me of Big Little Lies, which I loved. I gave Big Little Lies five stars recently. So I will read it if I have to. I will. Maybe, no, I will. But not feeling it initially. It's hard. This is tricky. I got so lucky last time. That one. No, we're going to go for that one. We're going for Fairleaf. Do I want that? I'm getting nervous, but I'm starting to get a bit shaky, you know? No. That one. That one. That one. What is this last one? It's another Book of the Month one I can already tell. Okay, this is Keeper of the Night by Kylie Lee Baker. I'm excited for this as well, but I'm reading some other big fantasies this month. I'm not going to swear anything for you, but there's such big fantasies that I'm not sure whether... I mean, you already have seen that actually. My reading vlog doing the Dragon of Public and the Burning God actually. I just realized you have seen it. They're so daunting to me, and like, I feel like they're just going to take all of my fantasy brain to read them. So I think I'm going to go with The Neighbor's Secret. I think we're going to read this. I have the audiobook. I don't know much about it, so I'm intrigued to see what I think. It'll be a fairly quick read. So yeah, I'm excited. If it gives me big little lies, vibes, I will be so happy. I will literally be on cloud nine because I've been wanting more of that kind of vibe. Okay, hi. So I am 100 pages in to The Neighbor's Secret. Firstly, can I just say, I just finished... I don't know, you're a bit crooked actually. Hang on. I just finished The Dragon of Public and the Burning God for my most recent vlog. And let me tell you, that took it out of me. This is exactly what I need. Mom drama. I love it. I actually, I love it. I love that. I don't really like domestic thrillers in the sense that I'm not a big fan of like husband and wife thrillers. I find them a bit like, I don't know, boring. But I discovered when I read Big Little Lies, I have a thing for like suburbia mom drama. That is interesting to me. They always, they never fail to bring just the campiest spice you've ever had. So yeah, I'm really enjoying this. We're following three perspectives, again very similar to Big Little Lies. We're following Lena, who is now kind of a recluse, something tragic happened to her family 15 years ago. And then we're following two women who are in this book club, Annie, who supposedly has like a dark past, and Jen, whose son is troubled. And they're trying to, you know, figure it out and help him, her and her husband. It seems like he may be a sociopath. It's kind of, it's an opposite. I just love the drama. Like just don't, I just love it. All of the individual mysteries that these women have going on are really, really interesting to me. What happened in Lena's past with her husband, it seems, and it drove her daughter away. What happened in Annie's past, and she's now befriended Lena and is trying to get her to come to this book club. And there's stuff going on with her daughter. And then Jen, like what's happening with her son, what's, what's he going to do within the book? Because that's not going to be like, be in the book if he's not going to end up doing something. He just like stabbed at the start of the book, he stabs all of his classmates in the hand. I'm really, really enjoying it. It's exactly what I need right now. Like I needed something that could just let my brain relax. There's emails on this, which the emails are really fun. Like they're just that, they're just that little bit of mixed media that I need. It always sends me from the head of the book book club. And it's kind of like talking about what book they're reading. And it's just like, it's just painting a picture of the audio book narrator is really good. She's really putting her whole into this. Like she's like, let me just like put every acting fiber into narrating this audio book. Because the way that she narrates all different characters, you know, puts on these like, Oh my God, like these voices is just making it such a fun reading experience. And like I said, it's what I need right now. So I'm really enjoying the audio book. Listen, it's not going to be a five star. I don't think it's going to be five star. It's not like the most like expertly written thing in the world. But I am enjoying it. I needed a quick fun read. So yeah, I'm going to head off and read some more. And I'll check in with you when I have some more thoughts. Pages into the neighbor's secret. Listen, I'm flying through her. I'm still really enjoying it. It is just trying to be big little lies. It is it literally is trying to be it because at the start of this, you've we've got an anonymous perspective, talking about how at the end of this book, there's a party and someone dies. Okay, I'm going to read you out the opening in the first page. I saw the two of them leave the party. They were five minutes apart, but they each slipped through the back gate and into the woods the same way, quick as foxes like they didn't want to be seen. I could think of no appropriate reason for them to sneak off together. But I told myself it was none of my business. Since they found the body, I've been replaying what I saw, what happened between them out where no one could hear. I think it was murder. So we've got that, you know, going on throughout the book, this anonymous perspective that literally is big little life. And the emails, the book of emails is just a way of having the like alternate perspective, the kind of Greek chorus that big little life has. Excuse me. It's a car alarm going off outside. I get too hot at the moment. It's still pretty hot in the UK to shut my windows when I'm filming because the ring light makes me so hot. So apologies for any noises to hear. It will be autumn soon. Like it is autumn kind of not technically, but we're all in autumn vibes on back tube. Anyway, so I mean, it is just big little life 2.9 and it's not as good. Like the writing isn't as good. The characters aren't as compelling. The mysteries aren't as compelling, but I'm still having a good time. You know what I mean? I've been looking for stuff like this. So I'm not complaining. We've had a lot of reveals. We've had a lot of secrets revealed. And let me tell you, they're a little bit juicy. They're a little bit juicy. I wasn't expecting these secrets. One of the characters in particular, she's been up to stuff. She's been up to stuff that I really was not expecting. And it's a really interesting perspective to read amongst all the suburbia. So I still think this is good. It is just a big ol' eyes rip off, but like, you know, respect the hustle. I think the book club at the centre of this is also a fun addition because like, I've been to suburbia mum's book club before when I was very young. Actually, we're not really suburbia. But I did tell a bit of a lie there. But anyway, my mum had a book club with some of her mum friends. So I totally know the vibe. I know everyone brings snacks. Like, I know the vibe. So I just think it's a fun setting to put in the middle of all of this. And I do think the mysteries that each of these three women have got, they're kind of converging and connecting. And I think they're all really interesting. I hadn't predicted any of the reveals. And that's not that I'm really trying to. I'm kind of just letting myself be taken along for the ride. But I hadn't predicted any of them. And I'm still having a really good time. So, yeah, it's like, fine. It's not, you know, the best thing I've ever read. But I'm having a good time. Now, I think I'm going to try and start packing for holiday as much as I really don't want to. And I kind of want to leave it to tomorrow. I don't know. I'm going to edit this vlog so far. And then I'm going to start packing for my holiday. It's currently Sunday. I'm going on holiday Tuesday morning. But it's a really early flight. So we're going tomorrow afternoon to stay at a hotel near the airport. So I've got to pack by tomorrow afternoon. And we still have to run some errands tomorrow, like I'm getting some euros out. So I might as well make a start tonight. If I can have the energy later once I've edited the vlog so far, whilst I have the audio book, because it's kind of the perfect thing to listen to whilst you pack. So the thing that's holding me off is I need to put my shoes at the bottom of the case. And I haven't decided what shoes I'm taking yet. I'll get over yourself, love. Silly car. That's the only reason because clothes is easy. Just folding clothes mindlessly. But I haven't decided what shoes to take. Okay, morning. I have not started packing yet. I'm going to start. I'm going to pack once. I mean, it won't take me that long. It's fine. But anyway, I finished Labour Secret last night and this morning. And I really enjoyed it. I'm going to give it a four star. This was, like, again, I feel like I got lucky with this a couple of wrapped ups ago when I read Love and Other Natural Disasters where, like, the book I'm reading is not the best book in the world, right? They were both four stars. But I had a great time reading them and they were exactly what I needed in the moment. Like this was exactly what I needed to read. And I don't think I would have read this anytime soon if not for wrapped up. So that's like the beauty of wrapped up is it forces me to read these kind of books. I generally think I may have never read this. But it was the perfect thing for me to read right now. It is a big little Elias ripoff. It is. But I think it knows it is and that's fine. I've been looking for more books like Big Little Elias and I'm glad this delivered. It gave me what I wanted. Not as good, not nearly as good, but still interesting. And a lot of good twists in this. There were so many twists in what we thought was happening because you kept getting fed, like, little bits of information in a really good way where it kept making you switch what you think is happening. And I did not see the end in coming. I really didn't see any of these twists coming. So I think that's a testament to this being like, it's an okay book. It's a good book. I would recommend the audio book if you're interested in it. If you're interested in mom's suburbia book clubs, like that kind of situation. I also forgot to mention there's like a vandal going around and like doing vandalism. Like, oh, did I mention that? I can't remember. I don't know. But that's like a big part of the plot is there's this vandal, terrorizing, you know, the sweet society in which we live. But it's not a massive part. I'd say the bigger part of the book is these three women and how their lives intersect. And yeah, generally everything that I kept thinking, oh, okay, that's what's happening there. It would present information to you that you thought was like 100% reliable. It wasn't something that was a mystery. Like they'd present information to you maybe about the past, whatever that would make you think, okay, that's what's happened, but we need to find out more information. And then lately you find out, actually, no, you got it wrong. It tricked you. You naughty, naughty. You teasing me. You naughty, naughty. It tricked your gullible ass into thinking something else basically. So yeah, I really enjoyed it. I'll be open to reading more thrillers by this author. And it was exactly what I needed right now. The audio book's great. It was really interesting. Towards the end, also the chapters started getting shorter and shorter, like only like a page long. And I just thought the pacing was really good. So I had a great time reading this. This is a really short vlog, I think because this isn't like, you know, a particularly complex book to hold up a whole vlog on its own. But that's what you signed up for with Wrapped Up. So I hope you enjoyed this last episode of Wrapped Up ever. No, it'll be back in December in some kind of new iteration, which I haven't figured out yet. I think it deserves a two month break. But listen, I got lucky with this. I genuinely feel like the universe looked down on me and said, this is what you're gonna need to read after going through the trauma that is the Dragon Republic and the Man and God. So I'm gonna go ahead and edit this video and then finally go back. But thank you guys so much for watching this video. If you got onto the end, what should we comment? Comment just the Bookstack emoji for the book club. The book club is one of my favorite aspects of this book and how everything kind of comes back to it. So yeah, comment like the Bookstack emoji if you got to the end. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.