 Hello friends! Welcome to this month's edition of Wrap Up! Many of you all know this is a series where last Christmas I wrapped up all of the 2021 releases that I hadn't read yet and every month I unwrap and read one of them in these vlogs. So I am going on holiday in five days. When you're seeing this I'll just be back from holiday. So I am filming a lot of videos and editing a lot of videos in these five days. So I don't want a difficult book. I want a book that's very easy to get through. I've got a few points where I am going to read like in the evenings. I've got some reading sprints for my patrons. It's like I'm not going to be doing no reading but I don't want a long book. Does that sound like something you want? It is. Well let me tell you you'll never get it. So I think we're going to do the thing again where we unwrap two and I pick one of them to read on this. I really want to read the first one. I don't know what to open. Okay okay we're going to go for this one. Let's go for this first. Looks like a fairly short hardback. She'll stick. Oh my god. Okay that's The Perishing by Natasha Dionne. I'm actually all going to count this as one of the two because I'm reading this next month and I forgot to unwrap it. So we're not even going to count this. I should have unwrapped this before for this video because I'm reading this for a different video. So we're not even we're not counting that as one of the two. Let's go again. The rules don't apply. I'm going to go for this one. This is the one I initially thought about. Okay this one is everything we don't say which is a thriller I got from Book of the Month. Our main characters, neighbors were brutally murdered right outside her barn and her younger brother became the prime suspect. It's got a true crime podcaster. It sounds interesting but I think I'm going to unwrap one more just to see if I would rather read the other book. Let's do a paperback I guess. Let's go for this wherever this is and we will pick one of them. Oh okay I think I'm going to read this. So this is Love and Other Natural Disasters by Misa Seguria. This is a like contemporary romance book that I have wanted to read for ages. It was obviously an arc I got sent. It's been on like lists that I've reacted to. It was like oh my god I'm so excited to read this. I have the audiobook for on script. I think I have the audiobook for this as well though to be fair but I think this will be an easier book to get through and when I'm like stressed this week and I have a lot of work to do I think this will be a better pick because it will just be super easy and light to pick up. I really liked this time will be different by Misa Seguria. So yeah we're going to read this. I feel like this is exactly the vibe for this week. Right. I am 100 pages into Love and Other Natural Disasters. I firstly want to say actually no should I give you that? Tell you what they tell me. Okay I'm feeling weird right now. I'm feeling like so weird. Let me give you the plot first. We're following Nazomi as she goes to San Francisco for the summer to stay with her gay uncles and do an internship there and she's like a hopeless romantic. She's a very interesting main character and like narrative voice. I don't want to say socially awkward but she's like you know when she likes a girl she'll be very like awkward around her not knowing what to say and overthinking everything and getting nervous. I think that's a really like human reaction and it's like funny. I guess some people could find this narrator annoying. I feel like it hasn't had the best reviews. I've actually had a little look on Goodreads but I really like her because I feel like she's real and she she's so real. She's so real. She's a different main character than what I've read in a lot of like YA contemporary romance. I feel like a lot of main characters think they're awkward but they're not whereas she is. Anyway she falls for this girl in San Francisco and they start fake dating to make because the other girl was just broken up with her girlfriend so they start fake dating to make her jealous and Nuzomi's just like oh my god I love her so much I'll do anything for her kind of thing and first theme I want to say this is the perfect thing for me to be reading right now. This is exactly what I need to read. I have to finish six videos in the next five days you know six videos need to edit. I've done one so I'm not gonna have a lot of time for reading and I have the audiobook for this and it's just a very enjoyable read that I don't need to think too much about that is very easy to pick up and pick down. I have no doubt I'm gonna finish reading this in time and just for it to be really enjoyable. I don't think it's gonna be a five star this time will be different. I think I gave four stars and it feels again like a nice palette cleanser, a nice book to kind of get me back into reading without thinking about it too much. So I'm really really enjoying it for that purpose. I think it's the perfect book for me to read this week and like that hasn't been happening to me a lot lately. I feel like I've been reading books and quite not quite the right time. You know what I mean? Like a book I'd really enjoy but I just felt like I mean I'm not a mood reader so this hasn't happened to me a lot in the past and I don't want to see any comments saying don't be a mood reader. Mood read for a week. I know they're all like the best best of meanings and hearts and I know you're all gonna be lovely. Mood reading that's a living nightmare for me. I just can't do it right but there's been a few times where I've thought this just isn't quite the right time to read this book but I have to read it for a video. This feels like literally I could not have read this at a more perfect time. This is exactly what I need right now. Like I said I really like the main character. Oh this is in the back delightfully disastrous. That is what I would call her. Like she's like a bit of a walking mess but it's fun. I like the romance so far, the kind of fake dating. I've always had a bit of an issue, not an issue, like not like a moral issue but like I haven't loved many fake datings in the past but I just think it's kind of sweet in this one how she like just wants to be loved and wants to have that relationship. So yeah there's some interesting family dynamics in it as well. It's just like a rom-com, a queer rom-com summer setting like oh the summer of love like I mean come on it's the vibe. So I am doing reading sprints again. I think in my last vlog I was like here doing reading sprints. I'm doing them Riley and her patrons and my patrons today so I'm just gonna go back to the live and carry on reading. It's essentially the plan. 200 pages, no 220 pages. I've read that much, got a much left of the book and I'm just enjoying it. Like what do you want me to say? It's such just like a fun way I read. I am so busy this week I could not have handled anything more than this. Like this is the limit. So this is basically a love quadrangle. I think it's the first time I've ever read a love quadrangle. I don't think I've ever read that before. So Nozomi is fake dating a girl called Willow who has just broke up with her girlfriend Anden who is dating Dayla. So yeah. Nozomi is hoping that by fake dating Willow Willow will actually fall in love with her. Now I've just figured out where this is going. I actually I'd figured it out maybe like 30, 40 pages ago but now it was just confirmed for me where it's going and you know what I don't mind it. I don't mind it. She's being a bit sneaky, Miss Misa Seguria. She says let me just sneak something by her. I just think it's an enjoyable YA romance. There's a lot of discussions in this about queerness and acceptance and particularly the intersection of race and queerness. All of the four girls are people of colour and Nozomi's grandmother is quite homophobic. Nozomi's uncle is gay, is married to another man and her grandmother kind of doesn't recognise that. And so Nozomi's really worried about coming out to her grandmother and what her grandma would think of her but her grandmother is struggling with dementia and that is a really big part of the book. That's kind of like the second storyline to the romance and kind of her thinking about how it's fair to view her grandmother and how she should have a relationship with her going forward when she still loves aspects of her but she finds her homophobia really really difficult to deal with and I don't know I've found that section again it's not something I've really read before and I just really appreciate it. I think it's great to have in a YA book. I've read a few reviews, a lot of people find Nozomi annoying but I don't. She's just a lot, like she's full on right? She's like a very dramatic character. She has big feelings is how I describe it. She feels everything very strongly. She feels like when she's upset about something for example her parents divorce it's something that she can get stuck on when she wants to be in love so badly like she feels that so strongly and will do anything for that to happen so you know just because a character isn't neat and tidy for you you know just because the main character isn't simple you know in her actions doesn't mean it's bad. I think she's refreshing. I do think however if I were to just read this physically she could get on my nerves. I think the audiobook narrator does a really good job of bringing her to life and kind of bringing her feelings to life so I think if I were to recommend this I would recommend the audiobook that's primarily how I'm reading it. I could see how she'd be annoying if I just read it physically but yeah I'm really really enjoying it still. I think it's really really fun. I'm excited. I'm gonna start packing for my holiday tonight so I'm just gonna listen to the audiobook whilst I pack so I hopefully should finish it tonight just through that but um yeah I'm really really enjoying it so far. My whole life is packed up so I don't think you can see anything. You can see some random to my packing list. I loved this. Well I didn't love it. That's an exaggeration. It was four stars but I did tell a bit of a lie there. Like I said it was perfect for the moment. If you're craving just like a light YA romcom I would recommend this. I really really enjoyed it. Listen YA romcoms I don't know if I'm ever gonna be out here giving that like five stars. The only one I've ever given five stars was Fact Chance Charlie Vega. I did enjoy that one. This was just fine. Like it was good. There was nothing wrong with it. I really really enjoyed the reading experience of it. If I'm distracted I am so stressed about the fact that I forgot I have to take the thumbnail for this and like I can't take it where I usually take it because of all the mess that's in my room. I don't know what I'm gonna do and the thing is this video we'll talk about the book in a sec. This video is going up the day after I get back for the cruise so I'll get back like Saturday afternoon but on the sundance it's going up. I'm going to Yauk for one day which is YA literature convention here in the UK and part of it's like should I leave it to Saturday afternoon? When I know I shouldn't I'm just gonna take a different kind of thumbnail. Something nice and quick. Nice and quick for the girlies but yeah I think this book has really good. I mean the Love Quadrangle works really really well. It's very believable. I really liked Mizomi as a main character. I know she's like Marmite but I really really liked her. I also think there's a good slow build in this book. I mean Mizomi falls hard and falls fast. She's actually like oh but I think in terms of the other characters around her in this quadrangle there's a good build up of like relationships and slow burns of romances and stuff. Mizomi's like instance. She's like oh yeah I love this person now. Yeah we're in love. Whereas the other ones it's much slower I think to kind of counteract her. You know it has good discussions like I said good family dynamics like her grandmother who's trying to come to terms with all the queer members of her family. She's like oh my god there's like many other you know. Her coming to terms with that and Mizomi coming to terms with what that means their relationship. Her parents also had a divorce and she's very mad at her mother for that and so it's her trying to come to terms with that and trying to forgive her mother. I think this has so much good queer rep but particularly queer rep for people of colour, for young girls of colour, for young lesbians. I think it's such good rep and yeah this is two romcoms now that I've given four stars by this author so I feel like she's a safe bet for me to read all her new releases just as kind of like palette cleansers you know. I really enjoyed how it subverted tropes like how it subverted fake dating or like all these different tropes that you get in like movies or whatever like old school movies. I really like how it kind of twisted them and turned them on its head so it was the perfect thing for me to read this week whilst I tried not to go crazy and now I have to take the freaking thumbnail and I don't know how I'm gonna do it but thank you for watching the vlog. I hope you enjoyed it. If you got onto the end of the video comment just a heart emoji because it's about love. Oh my god we're so in love. Yeah comment a heart emoji down below if you got into the end thank you thank you so much for watching and I will see you very soon in another video. Bye!