 hey guys it's julia and welcome to a reading vlog so this reading vlog is going to be a little bit different just because i'm cutting out special media for the week which already feels super weird i'm only like i'm i'm only at 11 a.m on the first day and that already is weird but especially that i check my phone when i wake up and i check my phone all the time. my friend trey and i we decided that we saw a real besides video about how she took a week break from social media and how that impacted her reading so we decided that we would love to do something like that so we're going to be taking a week long break from social media. last night on twitter i made a little list of things that help with this so i deleted my social media apps from my home screen. i put only book apps and like productivity apps on the main page of my phone so that that's all i look at. i'm going to be prioritizing audiobooks and i also just want to see how so like without using social media how that affects my mental health because i noticed that throughout the day even though sometimes social media makes me happy it also sometimes really ruins my mood and i just want to see the effects of that because i checked if you like go in your phone and check your screen time for how much you spend a day on certain apps because i looked at my seven day and it told me how many hours i spent on my phone in the last seven days i'm truly scared by my results and it's because of quarantine and it's because i'm always on my phone and i'm always checking things and i'm watching videos or i'm watching Netflix or i'm reading on my phone and all that stuff so it'll be really interesting for this week to cut out social media. right now i just filmed a video it's still pretty early and i already filmed a video which is nice there's a little partnership in it with a jewelry brand which is really cool. i don't do partnered videos a lot but i'm still like nervous about it just because you know i don't want people to think i'm promoting a shitty brand or that i'm promoting something i don't believe in because i always make sure that i'm if i review anything on my channel or i talk about it in companies that it's something that i believe in and that i always give my honest thoughts on. this morning i started the audiobook for be not far from me i am currently an hour in maybe so i i'm making some progress i'm listening to that uh this uh 1.75 speed i might switch it to two once i kind of get more into it it depends but so for this is really interesting it's the survival story kind of already got me a little bit angry but not at the book but just about that like what's going on like not because the book is bad just because i'm upset uh there's just a gene plot at the beginning of this book and now it's a survival story so that's fun wasn't really what i was expecting but yeah i so far like our main character and as i'm hoping to either finish this by the end of today or at least get halfway through today um so yeah i'm listening to the audiobook about and then physically i have if it bleeds so i'm a short story behind so i should have finished the if it bleeds story and then been working on the last one for this week but i haven't read the last weeks so i'm going to probably do that today and try to read that story or read it sometime this week um and go to my Goodreads group get my discussion post up talk about it whatever um interact with you guys i've been really liking the little Goodreads group it's very like chill very small but it's i feel like it's a nice little place and just post your thoughts on the book and each story and yeah i'm excited i made a little poll in there to see if anyone would want to do another buddy read with me so if you if that interests you definitely let me know because i don't know if i should do like a little it would be like a book club because like i don't want to like go on a live show or something every month but i'd love to have those discussions with you guys on like Goodreads and stuff like that or talk about some books that we can all read together and i don't know i think it was just super fun so so it's been a good experience so far even though i'm a bit behind i'm still excited about that and the cool thing actually is if it bleeds the first story actually talks about phone addictions and all of that stuff and technology is kind of an aspect in this collection so far so i'm it's kind of perfect that i'm reading it and then i'm going to decide to do a little technology break i'm not cutting out everything entirely uh trey said trey and i said that we'd watch one video one youtube video days or a little limit but i'm not counting that for like editing my own videos and stuff because i need to you know do work so i still have my phone technically it's just i'm not going on social media so like i'm still using my phone for like reading and phone calls and i'm still using text messages just to keep in contact with people but like snapchat instagram twitter tumblr all that's gone so it's gonna be interesting tiktok which i spend way too much time on sometimes so yeah we'll see how it goes but yeah i did that today those are my current reads i made a bunch of new bookmarks for my not bookmarks i made a bunch of new keychains for my shops i ordered some sanding like squares because i need to file those because i read out of sandpaper so i need to file some of the bookmarks not bookmarks oh my god the keychains and then i need to start taking product photos and putting those up on etsy um but yeah so exciting things happening but i'm super honestly if i just did everything i did this morning and one day i would have been pretty happy because i feel like i've done quite a bit so i'm good but yeah uh i hope you guys enjoy the vlog let's just get into it i guess for your reading update i just finished pillow thoughts the number four uh by kourtney pepernell and it was so so good and i liked it i think better than any of her other ones and like i've talked about her work in like one of my poetry recommendations videos from a while ago i just really like i really liked her pillow thoughts series and i think like the middle two were kind of like it's just okay but this one was so good probably my favorite and it has such cute illustrations it was cute little jellyfish and it's really cute but the poems are really empowering and they just have a really good message to them and it's just so good i don't know what to say so it is a bit later now it's almost 6 p.m um so far it had a pretty good reading day and just a decent day in general i feel like hi katie i feel like it's gone by really quickly which is really good because i'm trying to feel like the days just drag on it depends on the day of course but yeah so i'm really happy with the reading that i've gotten done today i finished the poetry collection that i was hoping to and i really really liked it i think i'm giving it like a four or a 4.5 but it's so good and i'm also a quarter way through being not far from me so if i get to at least halfway tonight i'm happy with that or if i even finish it that'd be cool i'll probably read the next story and if it bleeds tomorrow uh just because i don't know i'm not really moved to read it today and um stuff like that so we'll just kind of see how it goes but yeah i had my appointment and i was outside for a while too so that's an update i guess uh let me know how you guys are doing with your reading let me know what you currently reading so it is day two so it's tuesday of my social media break i haven't gone on at all i've been pretty good about it so that's good um i ended up finishing well starting and finishing motocross volume one at motocrush volume one sorry um i really really liked it like i gave it 4.5 which is really high for me especially to rate for um a comic but it was just it was so good and from like the art to the actual plot to like just the characters were so badass and it was just such a fun read and i just had such an enjoyable reading experience with it so i'm super excited to get to the next one but i think it's a great series to start out with like in terms of volume one i think volume one was really really good so i gave it a 4.5 i also just finished Be Not Far From Me by Minnie McGinnis which i listen to an audiobook this one is a wilderness survival story about a girl who is camping with her friends in the woods and they're about to go on a camping trip and they get to the woods and the first night there she catches her boyfriend sleeping with the boyfriend's ex-girlfriend and she flees into the woods and kind of runs like the other way after seeing what happened and being in shock about it and she gets lost and she's lost for a pretty decent period of time and it's about how she survives how she eats how she manages to bathe and then she gets injured along the way so it's about kind of how she deals with that um i thought it was a really really good story i'm giving it a 3.75 it kind of has similar vibes to the girl who loved Tom Gordon if you're looking for something like that it this is a little bit it's not it's not brutal like at all but some of the descriptions were just kind of rough to read uh for me anyway there was some just about animals and there's obviously the killing like there's obviously um killing animals for survival in the story so yeah that's in there um she also just talks a lot about hunting in general which is just a topic that i just don't really that i'm really if you're just reading about but so that was in there so i'm just kind of disclaiming that because i know a lot of people don't want to read books where animals are getting harmed but that some won't mind i don't know and i'm really happy with the progress i've made um so i've so far read three things pillow thoughts motor crush and be not far from me they've all been above 3.75 i almost said dollars 3.75 star reads for me so they've all been super super good i i'm supposed to like i put on my to-do list to read 30 minutes of viva blades today i just haven't i just haven't because i don't know why but yeah i don't know it's just i i gotta say it's a new story um and i just haven't done that yet because i'm honestly been just like the three things i've read have been ebooks and audiobooks so i haven't picked up a physical book in a few days but for audio i'd make sure to download another audiobook because i want another one to listen to um so this one i found rick by alex gino and it's about the same author who wrote george which i absolutely loved it so far for productive you guys have gone a lot done yesterday i got done like so so much and today i still got a lot of things done i've made about 16 or 17 keychains i took a bunch of product photos for etsy because those are going to be coming out soon but then i don't know if i want to drop the keychains during my social media break because then i won't be able to go on social media and promote it um so it'd be kind of random if i just dropped them and then didn't say anything probably for four days and then was like oh yeah keychains came out so i don't know but i have a lot of keychains coming out a lot of resident keychains it's just gonna be quite a bit of them so i really hope people like them and all that stuff so yeah uh i also snuck real volume three and i read the first page of it and i was like i really don't remember anything that happened in volume one or two so i had i owned volume one and two physically so i could read those like i could reread those and then read the third one on my phone so i might do that as well hey guys it's wednesday i quickly want to come on here and just say i just started the third short story and if it bleeds and the first mention is of holly and i saw that someone on my goodreads group talked about that she was in a story and i'm just so excited because i love holly's character so super excited to see that she's in here i don't want to say where she's from just in case the spoilers i don't know if that'd be a spoiler but just in case but yeah that's awesome i found two references a few references in here so far from his other books so um so i'm on page 160 i just wanted to say that in terms of our character holly in this one um this story does have spoilers for the mrs mercedes trilogy so keep that in mind if you want to read that that maybe you should read those first before this or something like that i just wanted that you guys know because i don't know if you read the other ones before so yeah but you should read the bill hodges trilogy before you don't have to but you will get spoiled for the trilogy if you don't it so if you're interested in reading it maybe read them first but if you're not really interested in the bill hodges trilogy then you're good to go for if it bleeds so so it has been a few days since the last time i spoke to you but i have still stood off social media i did tre and i set the person i'm doing the buddy not buddy what am i saying uh tre my friend who i'm doing the social media d talks with um we kind of agreed to do like one youtube video a day would be allowed and i didn't watch any all week so then the other day i watched like a few in a row um just because i could i guess so i did that um i'm not sure how it's impacted my mental health because i do a lot of work on my phone too and there's a lot of stuff i do for social media with on my phone that i just can't really do anymore like i'm really really excited for it to hit midnight today so that i could down re-download my stuff and get back on there and see what i missed and also to start getting some stuff up so i finished my video book freakout tag that is uploaded it's not on public yet but it's uploaded i need to get it approved by the brand i technically don't need to with annelise jewelry on that video so i need to send it to them to confirm actually they didn't ask me to but i just know usually companies will want you to send it to them the unlisted link to like check it out first um so i asked if they needed that so soon as i was gonna reply i'll just send the unlisted link over or i will just upload it right away um depends when i hear back but yeah so that's all done i'm super happy about that if it bleeds i'm still not done i'm halfway through the third short short story and i need to finish the last one so i'm behind so i need to finish that by the end of today that's my goal because our buddy read ends today and thank you so much to everyone who joined me on the buddy read i uh when i finish if it bleeds i'm excited to do like a review video on it and stuff but thank you so much people that joined in on the buddy read i want to go on the good reads and obviously thank you guys and see maybe if you ever want to read something else um but yeah thank you to everyone who joined in it meant so much to me and i love reading like what you guys think of each story throughout the weeks so yeah um i did that i also read a motor crush falling in two right after be not far for me i gave this one a 4.5 it was so good if you guys haven't read the motor crush series yet you really should so i read the first two volumes this week i love them i think i want to buy them physically maybe so i can like not annotate them but tab them and stuff so because they are so good so i'm really excited about that but yeah um it's been a interesting experience this past week with no social media but i have some etsy stuff that i put up but i can't really promote it on social media yet or to say that i've added new stuff because i can't go on social media so there's just been some stuff in my shop for a few days maybe people've noticed maybe people haven't i don't know but yeah so i'm excited to also like do that um promote that and like get everyone excited about that rather than pca is the instagram account and rather than pca is uh the etsy account as well if you ever want to check that out hey guys so it is the day after and it is a day after the week social media break and yeah i made it i did it which i'm really happy about but i want to give you guys a reading update so i only had like maybe half of the last short story left for today so technically after minna i completed the second half i finished it today so i finally finished if it bleeds by steven king said to talk to you guys more about it but for now my favorite story is probably if it bleeds the story with holly because she's a character from the bill hodges trilogy which i love and yeah but the first two were pretty good and pretty interesting and they had really interesting themes some of them about technology and addiction and things like that uh the last one was kind of wild rides so i gave me misery vibes kind of towards it but i want to definitely um see what everyone who else i want to see what the rest of you guys thought of that short story so i'm gonna go right now probably on my computer and mark this is read on goodread and talk to the people who are buddy reading this with me on our discussion board his mentions in this book of the outsider and that's referenced a lot in the third story i think it's all references to the outsider by steven king and i haven't read that one yet so like maybe i should read that one next i don't know but yeah this was very interesting all my tabs are in it but i'm excited to make like a little discussion video on it or something like that so so i read five books this past week and i'm super super happy with that maybe there's so much for watching this vlog let me know if you liked it down below and if you would like to do like if you guys would be down for another kind of buddy read um on my goodreads page i would love to do that again i think it was a really good experience and just comparing what everybody thought of each story and then just everyone sharing their thoughts it was just so nice so i'm gonna go and reply to a bunch of those yeah thank you guys so much for watching this video i hope you guys had a good week and yeah stay safe there are links down below to help with the black lives matter movement so be sure to check those out and use those resources use those links sign those petitions do all that because it's super important and even though it's not trending right now it's still an issue that's being held all around the world so it should be recognized and you should still be doing your part to you know help support the black lives matter movement yeah thank you guys so much for watching this video again i will see you super soon with a new one bye