 Her books sit in this kind of like a beautiful sadness, like a beautiful melancholy, Collin... Megan. I stand, I live for it. I'm like, I'm fucking living, like I love it. Let's talk about it. I don't want to... um... Welcome back to my channel. Today's reading vlog, I am really excited for, but I'm also incredibly nervous for. So as you can probably see by the title, today's video. We are gonna be investigating, shall we say? Investigating with our magnifying glasses. Wait a minute. I'm figuring this out. I'm like Scooby and Shaggy, I'm solving a mystery. Whether these authors that I'm gonna read from are One Hit Wonder authors for me, these are all authors I have read one book from, only one book in the past, and I gave it five stars. It was like a favorite book. They've all got books I want to read, but I'm scared because I feel like there's a lot of pressure when you've read one book from an author and it's five stars and you're like, shit, where do I go from here? I'm not really saying if I don't like these books, there are One Hit Wonder and I'm never gonna read anything again, but I just think the concept of the video is interesting and I'm very, I'm very intimidated to read these books. Firstly, we're gonna be reading The Project by Courtney Summers. So I loved Sadie by Courtney Summers, one of my favorite audiobooks ever. I would super recommend the audiobook for Sadie if you've never read it. And this is The Project by Courtney Summers. Now this is a five star prediction. I believe it is in my last five star prediction video. I am scared because it hasn't had the best reviews. Are you comfortable? I'm scared. Are you scared? You should be. But I think I'm still gonna love it. So basically in this we are following these two sisters, one who joins basically a cult, and I believe the other sister is trying to investigate the cult and kind of expose it for what it is to get her sister back. I love cult books. I find the concept behind cults. I think there needs to be a lot of discussion in books about cults, about like the mental health effects and the abuse that is often suffered in them and like the, there's a lot of, there's a lot of strange and difficult topics that are kind of pushing and pulling against each other when you write about cults. So I think they're very interesting kind of phenomenons to talk about in books. Yeah, I just feel like the vibes of this, the kind of eeriness that Courtney Summers writes with, I'm really, really excited but I'm also terrified. Then we have got We Are Okay by Nina Lacour. A couple months ago I read and absolutely loved Watch Over Me by Nina Lacour. This was spooky haunting. It was amazing, it was an amazing book. And I definitely want to read more of Nina Lacour's stuff so I've picked up We Are Okay. I literally could not tell you what this plot is about. We're gonna find out what this book is about together. I feel like Nina Lacour's stuff is good to go into them with not much idea of the plot because they're very, very slow and like creeping with how they move or at least that's, I mean I've only read one book. That was how Watch Over Me was so I don't really want to know much going into this. And then finally we are going to be reading Hairpin Bridge by Taylor Adams. Taylor Adams wrote one of my favorite thrillers ever which is No Exit. This thriller is like one of the hardest books to read. I felt sick. I felt awful reading it. Like it was a terrible experience but I loved it. That is actually painful to watch. But let's go. Hairpin Bridge sounds like it has a similar kind of cat and mouse game to it. We have this girl whose sister killed herself. Oh we're reading a lot about sisters in this. Her sister killed herself a couple months ago by driving off this bridge with a vague suicide note but she doesn't believe that's what happened. She goes there to try and figure out the truth but the highway patrolman is, who's the last person to be a sister alive, is like a liar I think basically. And I think it's kind of a cat and mouse game between the two of them. I have heard this isn't as amazing as No Exit. I've heard some like kind of mixed things about it but I'm really really excited to read it all the same. So yeah that is what we are going to be reading in this video. Pretty short books actually a lot of them and I'm so excited but also terrified because I want to love all of the books that these authors write. But anyway I am going to start with the project and I'm just I just can't wait. I just absolutely can't wait. If you can hear weird lapping noises my cats are washing each other just over there. I am 100 pages into the project and you guys I'm loving it. I'm really loving the writing of this like I long have this dream of writing. I just don't do it but I am gonna start doing it. But this book is I just think it's so incredibly well written. Courtney Thomas has this way with words. The way that she's explaining feelings and emotions in the most creative unusual ways. I stand, I live for it. I'm like I'm fucking living like I love it. I've really slowed down how fast I'm reading it. I'm not reading it fast because I've wanted to like sit with the writing and the style of writing and really pay attention to it because I'm loving it that much. Like it's so enjoyable. Okay I turned to a random page. I don't think this is one that I thought that thought on but it's an example. I've just turned to a random page and it says my mended bones make themselves known in bad weather in the cold. They feel like a bruise wrapped around a toothache. And do you know what I mean? It's just stuff like that. The writing is constantly explaining stuff in unusual ways. I really enjoy it. So anyway the plot. You've got two sisters B and Lowe. B is the older sister. When I think like 2011, Lowe is in a car crash with their parents and their parents get killed on impact and Lowe is in hospital for months and months and months. When she leaves hospital, B joins the project because she believes that the project, this group with a leader who can supposedly talk to God or you know get revelations from God, she believes that they saved Lowe. And now we're in the modern day, the present day with Lowe trying to get in contact with B. She hasn't seen her in years and years and trying to kind of expose the project for being a cult. Because by many they're seen as kind of this charitable organization but there's a lot of people. People are often like very isolated away from their families when they join the project. There's obviously some shady shit going on. I can't trust him. It very much reminds me of Far Cry 5 if you don't know. Far Cry 5. I don't play video games but I like watching my boyfriend play them occasionally when the vibes are good and Far Cry 5 is like this cult game and I am imagining all of our characters as the characters from Far Cry 5. Best be known. Like I love that game. The vibes are immaculate. I feel like we're gonna get into some good discussions about why people join cults or are members of cults and why they believe in that kind of ideology. Obviously B was in a very vulnerable place when she joined the project. You know, her parents had just died, her sisters in hospital. I'm gonna go read some more. I'll come back to you a bit but it's really good. It reduces stress. It alleviates depression. I am about 210 pages into the project now. I'm still loving it. I think this is some of the most interesting characters. Like collection of characters I've ever read from. A lot of like the, you know, cult. Allegedly. Allegedly cult. Members are very interesting and nuanced and they're starting to have very interesting relationships with Lo with the main character and there's some like shady shit starting to occur and I really don't know what the truth is and where it's gonna go and yeah just the way it keeps enabling you to believe these people. I'm like am I supposed to? Like is it not gonna be a cult or is it gonna be a cult? I know a lot of things but I don't know about that. I'm not sure why. And I think it's a cult. How many times can I say cult? But I think it very cleverly is like putting you in the headspace of the characters. I'm really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying it. I don't want to talk to you to be honest. I'm gonna go away and finish this book because I'm absolutely loving it. A few moments later. I just read the last two pages again. I just want to fucking kill myself. No, we're not doing this right now. I'm going to speak to you in the morning. Fuck. I can't look at that again. Very attack! Relax. So, uh, hmm. Okay, hang on. Let me just, I just need to look at the last page again. Fuck. I'm running up. So this killed me. The ending of this killed me. I'm giving this book five stars. Can you believe it? Like everyone hasn't really liked this that much but I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I'm fashion. I'm style. And if they can't keep up then that's the problem. Bye. It's some of my favorite writing I've ever read. I think like the prose, the language is amazing. I think the character interplays, the character relationships were so fascinating and complex. I loved it. Like I just fucking loved it. I just loved it. And the ending, fuck me. Like there's something I want to say and it is mild spoilers for Sadie and this. It's very mild. Like I said this to my mum last night and she hasn't read either of them and she's going to. So like it doesn't completely spoil it but if you are a bit like sensitive about knowing like the vibe of endings of books, skip ahead. Courtney Summers books have these endings that are tragic, that are heartbreaking. But there's this little bit of hope. There's a little bit, I'm gonna cry. There's a little bit of light amongst all the darkness. There's a little bit of yeah hope and that in a way makes the heartbreaking stuff worse because it's not just heartbreaking and sharp. There's this 1% of hope and that having that hope makes it more heartbreaking. And then she does it so well and I've never, I can't think of any other book I've read that's like that and that makes me feel like that. So there we go. That's a spoiler, like the mild spoilers done but that's how those endings make me feel. I just thought it was amazing. I thought the look at you know how people can become so caught up in in cults and how uninsidious they can appear and the layers to it. It was just so interesting. I just want to cry. You guys, it was so good. I just need a bit of space, that's okay. Yeah. Fun who gave this three stars, you're wrong. I don't make the rules. I'm sorry you're wrong. You're wrong. You're incorrect. You're incorrect. I'm now gonna start We Are Okay by Nina Lacour. This is super short and so is Hairpin Bridge. I'm tempted, I don't have much else to do, that I need to do today other than read these books. So I'm tempted to try and read both of these today. I don't know. We'll see how that goes. I think I'll definitely be able to read We Are Okay and at least part of Hairpin Bridge. I'm expecting something equally emotionally haunting and difficult to read. I'm killing myself with these books and yeah, I'm gonna go start this. I feel like we look quite cute together. Hello, slight change of scenery. I'm around my grandparents at the moment, but I am halfway into We Are Okay by Nina Lacour and I'm really enjoying it. So I knew nothing about this before starting it. I literally didn't know the plot. Basically we're following Marin, who has kind of done this disappearing act on everyone, moved to New York to go to university and hasn't been answering her best friend Mabel's calls. Mabel has flown out to New York right before Christmas when Marin is just gonna be staying there on her own in the dorm room when everyone else has gone home for Christmas. She's flown out to talk to her so that she can't avoid her anymore basically. It's flashing back and forward in time to like the summer beforehand when obviously something happened. Marin lives with her granddad. Her mom died when she was only about three and so her relationship with her granddad and her relationship with grief is very much a topic in this book, the book is very much about grief. She's very upset and very angsty and very emotional and depressed and has isolated herself. Nina Lacour has such beautiful writing and she sits in sadness and grief so well. Her book sits in this kind of like beautiful sadness, like beautiful melancholy, Collin... Megan. Melanch... I can't say the word. Mel... I'm sorry. Security! Can you please escort this lady over here, Al? It won't count my mouth. Side note! No one cares but if you know I support a football team called Norwich City and we've signed a player called Josh Sargent and I can't say Josh Sargent. Like I have to really think about the transition from the sh- anyone else? Let me ask the audience. It's because when I was a kid I had to go to speech therapy because I said all my S's like... and I can't say Josh Sargent. I have to really think about it. Anyway if you like plot driven books don't pick this book up. Just don't read it. Like just generally don't read it because it's so character driven and character focused and it's just about like memories and emotions and it's dealing with them and sitting with them and it's very interesting. At the moment I don't feel like it's gonna be a five star in the way that Watch Over Me was but I think it's gonna be a four star if I had to predict so yeah I am really enjoying it and it's queer as well if you want some queer representation this book is it. Okay so I finished. We are okay and I'm not okay. Oh you can see my... the bottom of those socks are dirty. We are going to pretend we didn't see that. Nina LaCos books are so heartbreaking but like I described Watch Over Me like this as well they're so quiet. They're so quiet and intimate and contained in their their grief and their hurt and their emotions. I'm gonna give it four stars. It wasn't quite a five star for me. There wasn't anything that was like wrong with it. It just didn't feel like a five star and it just had me feeling really really emotional and really good. I feel like I feel very drained from reading it. Can you tell? Like I feel like exhausted from having read this book. I did feel like perhaps the reason I'm not going to give this a five star is that I always felt a little bit removed from what was happening in Marin's life. I felt like with Watch Over Me you were much more like in it and absorbed and like every step with the character but this one I felt like we were a spectator to her grief and maybe that's the point but I just felt a bit removed like a step removed like I was always on the outside looking in rather than you know completely absorbed in the story. So I have feel comfortable you guys. It's late at night and I'm tired so we're gonna hang on let me rearrange myself. Oh yeah that is much better. Just chuck a pillow in for good measure shall we? Like I'm not like into working like that. Like I can do like show some media every now and then but like I don't want to like go nine to five job. I'm taking a note out of Emma for drinking my shelf her book. She's done the videos lying down. Honestly this is the best thing ever. I could just talk to you forever. Reading this book it's beautiful but it's sad. It's melancholy but it's poignant. There's so many things going on but I feel like the root that this book went down. Yeah it was so unexpected to me but something I really appreciated because it's not a direction that I expected it to go in. I'm now going to go start Hairpin Bridge. There she is by Taylor Adams. I am a bit nervous about this because it hasn't gotten as good reviews as No Exit but I'm hoping I'm gonna enjoy it to give you a bit of reference as to my situation at the moment. Thousand Doors Rudathon starts in about three hours. Just gotta try and have a PMA. Folks at PMA. Positive mental attitude. Get fucked. So obviously I'm doing a separate vlog for that and reading other books but this video is supposed to go up on Sunday night. Spoiler alert it didn't. So I need to read this book and edit this video at some point during Thousand Doors Rudathon. I was intending to finish this vlog earlier than now but I'm too far deep to call it off and admit defeat so we're just gonna continue on and I'll see you later whilst Thousand Doors is happening. That's gonna be a mind fuck to deal with. Oh my god. Okay listen. Listen. I'm bored. So in this basically Lena's sister Cambry killed herself as well allegedly. Allegedly on this bridge a couple months ago and now Lena has come here to interview the like state what's it highway patrolman who found her body and we very quickly know like in no exit we very quickly know like who the baddie is we know this guy ain't shit we know he's behind her sister's death in one way or another we know that very like within 30 pages it doesn't take an idiot to solve it. Lena is supposedly writing the story of what happened to Cambry but I find it hard to believe that it's all true because it's in such great detail and like how do we really know this because supposedly we're going off a testimony of this guy that I guess we later learn but I just don't believe it I don't believe 100% that this is what is actually happening and both storylines Lena questioning the patrolman and Cambry running away are like very static like although Cambry is like driving away from him there and in this like car race it's just pages of pages of car descriptions like car maneuvers to try and get away I'm here to tell you right now we don't care let me tell you we don't care and I just don't I don't care like I don't care like I don't care about swerving this way swerving that way it's the same thing again and again Lena's story line in the present day it's just like kind of a standstill they're just standing off against each other trying to play this slow game of like chess almost of who's gonna move first so I I just don't I'm just not really vibing with either part of it part of it worked so well with no exit is there was constantly changes different elements were constantly happening and this just feels static it just feels like the same storyline over and over again yeah I don't know I'm not I'm not really enjoying it hopefully it'll get better but I just kind of want to finish it I just want it over and done with I may join in like up the speed a bit on the audiobook whilst I'm reading along because yeah it's just like not it's not really doing it for me right now and I'm really sad because I loved no exit so much I'm still gonna try out Taylor Adams other books I have the audiobooks of them on script so they're free it's just not it's just not it's just not giving what it's supposed to give but it did not give what needed to be gave let's talk about it I don't want to um I'm gonna give it 2.5 stars I give it 2.5 stars this was really disappointing for me it just didn't have the right pacing it felt a bit like an idea uncooked it feels like the idea of no exit just not done as well I had to really force myself through it thank god I had the audiobook because otherwise it would have been even more of a struggle like I would have found it even harder to get through on the whole it just wasn't great it just wasn't good because it didn't have the same pacing that no exit has it wants to be this bitch it wants to be this bitch but it's not you can come down the runway and look like you've stepped off a rodeo drive like a goddamn supermodel I will never look like that true you'll never be glam because that one is just constantly like the pace you're constantly stressed there's too much stand-around talking in this and I didn't think the descriptions of the action like I said were very good so I'm very sad because you know no exit takes pride of place as one of my favorite thrillers of all time and then this no sir no I'm sorry I wanted to love it and I kept wanting more but it was a slog to get through it felt like punishment a little bit so we started off amazingly with the project I literally just read the last two pages this again and I cried again so I can't stop thinking about it I don't understand why everyone didn't like this I'm gonna lend it to my mum so she can suffer through the pain with me then we had a four star I still really love this I'm glad I read it I'm excited to read more Nina Lacour in the future and then we had a 2.5 star so no exit is literally the perfect thriller there are no faults it's perfection so I know that this man can do it but this wasn't it and yeah really excited to dive into more of Courtney Summers backlist really really excited I will never refer to these authors as one hit wonder authors evidently these two I loved I won't refer to Mr Tony Adams as a one hit wonder author for me because I'm hoping for better things again but this one really wasn't it and I don't understand why but I hope you enjoyed this video let me know what authors you've read like one book from and they've been five stars and you've never read another book and you may be a bit scared like I was to read from them again and if you've gotten to the end of this video comment a c-wave emoji for we are okay and thank you so much for watching I'll see you very soon in another video bye