 So you guys have heard from me so many times so I've decided to make that into a vlog. You guys have told me to do this so many times before and it's time so we're going to be reading the books that I've always said I can't fit into vlogs. And I asked you guys on Instagram which books do I say this with the most because I think I kind of have like pause blinders on like I'm like I never say that that definitely doesn't happen to me so I asked you guys on Instagram what books do I say this the most for and we're going to be reading them. The first book almost everyone said and I'm going to be honest before I asked you I wasn't going to put this in this video because I was in denial. Denial is a river in Egypt your husband is gay. But you all said it and it is Unwell Women by Erna Clecon. I'm very excited to read this so this is nonfiction about women and the way that women have been mistreated in medicine and how medicine and our perception of illness and sickness and different health issues have been built around men throughout the years. And I've been so excited to read this for so so long. I think I've made so many of you read and I'm just very interested to see it for myself. So I'm super excited about this. I also you know used to read a lot of nonfiction a lot of feminist nonfiction and so I'm excited to dive back into that a little bit. So that's our first book. Second book quite a few of you said you said anything in the tea dragon. Seriously we're going to be we're going to be reading we're going to be reading The Tea Dragon Festival by Kay O'Neill. Guys we're going to be finally doing it. So this is the second in the Tea Dragon Festival graphic novels. We're following these little tea dragons who brew tea and I think this one is a prequel to the first book and I've been trying to save these oh look we kind of match. I've been saving this for the perfect day and now we just we just have to read it. So I'm very excited. It's time to stop saving it and read it because guess what I could read this once a month if I wanted to. And I get I bet you it would still be perfect and incredible and have all its magic. So I'm so excited. I'm gonna love it. This is like a five star prediction guys. I mean lots of all these books are pretty much five star predictions that all books I've really wanted to read for a really long time but always say oh I just can't fit into a vlog. And then the final book I don't think any of you said when I asked you but for me this is the epitome of I want to read this book but I can't fit into a vlog because I think I've owned this book now for like three years and it's been always one of the books I've wanted to read the most. I just don't think I've mentioned it a lot in the past year or so because I'm kind of like embarrassed this me this long to read it but I used to say this so much about this book. I remember back when I was in Leeds I vividly remember saying this so much and the book is I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. So this is true crime about the Golden State Killer and it's basically Michelle McNamara's like unflagging pursuit it says on the back to find out who the Golden State Killer was and to bring him to justice. I have just heard so many good things about this book once again and you know true crime I watch a lot of true crime like documentaries on Netflix and stuff but I think it's always important to think about like the ethics of true crime. There's so many discussions around true crime like the perception of women as victims and like obsession with killers and stuff but I think this one is coming from a place of like justice and bringing justice to victims and so I'm really excited to read it. It was the winner for Best Nonfiction on Goodreads Choice Awards 2018. So there we go really excited. I'm hoping that I'm going to find this just super enthralling and interesting. I've heard such wonderful things so yeah that's the three books we're going to be reading in this vlog. I don't know what we're going to start with but shall we just begin? Let's get into it. Hello! Let's begin the reading portion of this vlog shall we? If my hair looks a bit crazy it's still wet. I'm trying to let my hair now that I've in the summer I tend to switch to washing my hair in the morning so I can let it dry naturally throughout the day. Something about what we've just said has made my face go really red. I got embarrassed about my other way my hair is looking apparently. How are we doing? I've just been sitting here watching Gabby. Hey Gabby, say hello. And I am 100 pages into Unwell Women and I thought I would check in with you. I kind of feel like I've only just gotten to grips with this book okay. This is like a five-star prediction. I've been a bit rattled right because I started it off. I've listened. I'm listening to audiobook and reading along and I'm reading it slowly guys. I'm reading it slowly. When I'm not reading physically I'm listening at 1.5. When I'm reading physically I'm listening at like 2.1. That's so slow for me. Wow. Crazy. You're crazy girl. So yeah I started it and there was just something about the writing style. I was struggling to process and I'm still feeling a little bit like this but I feel like I'm getting better with it where like a sentence will happen and I'll have to like process what that sentence just said rather than processing it real time. Does that make sense? The whole sentence will happen and I'll have to like okay what do those words mean and put them together. It's not easily perhaps as easy digestible as I would like. So far we've been in the first section learning about the way that kind of women's illness and women's bodies have been is pathologised the right word? They've been thought of and like described in medicine and in culture throughout history. Something that's interesting about this book is that it's got I think three parts. Yeah it's got three parts. Part one is ancient Greece to the 19th century. Part two is the late 19th century to the 1940s and part three is 1945 to the present and what's interesting is that it is therefore kind of telling us a story of like women's health chronologically. If you don't know this book it's a journey through medicine and myth and a man made wild. So it's about the ways in which women have been yeah thought of and the way that women's illness has been thought of and perhaps ignored throughout history. Women's health issues have been thought of incorrectly or ignored at their history. So yeah it is kind of telling it historically but it does like jump around within those parts. Does that make sense? One minute we'll be talking about ancient Greece, next minute we'll be talking about medieval, next minute something happened in 1800 and 1820 you know. It does jump around so although it is like it has sectioned those off and that we're kind of going through history learning about women's health it does within those parts jump around. It kind of tackles an issue or an area so I think we've just had like one on childbirth or whatever. It tackles an issue or an area and goes throughout those time periods throughout that section. It jumps around within it which I think is an interesting way to tell the story. This first section is a really wide like ancient Greece to the 19th century is a really wide time period and sometimes I'm struggling if I miss like the year or the century in which she says something's happening I'm struggling to like situate where I am if I'm listening to the audiobook even though I'm listening to it slowly. So I feel like that is I'm like where the fucking history are we? We could be anywhere if I just miss that one thing or like you know listen to it but don't quite take in as much as I should. So I think the second two sections are going to be easier for me to follow but I am enjoying it and I mean it's already deeply deeply angering. If I think if you're interested at all in women's health issues and this book does a really good job of like acknowledging gender and like how sex and gender aren't the same thing and you know the ways in which medicine and the way that I'm saying women's health issues is because medicine has only ever viewed health in man-woman binaries you know. So I would say this book is inclusive in what it recognizes and how it recognizes that like how intersex people haven't been recognized properly throughout history and etc. So we've already touched on stuff like that so I think it's doing a good job of being inclusive whilst also recognizing that like women's health issues I'm just using you know the general term have been treated very differently towards you does men health issues or normal like general health issues because men health issues are general health issues, women's health issues are viewed as women's health issues. Does that make sense? I'm enjoying it perhaps not as much as I thought but I'm just going to read this whole thing today. I've got no plans now, I did some work this morning, washed my hair whatever but now I have no plans so I'm just going to read this book. I'm going to go out and get lunch guys I'm so excited. My favourite, I've just really been craving it, my local vision chip shop does this halloumi salad pitta and I'm obsessed with it and I just feel like I need it so I'm going to go out and get lunch. It's so exciting guys I never go out and get lunch. What is this? Dear lord what a sad little life Jane. So anyways I'm going to go out I'll check with you and I'm a little bit further through. I am starting to enjoy it more, I'm starting to get into it more than initially I was like oh shit we're in deep shit because this is a book I've been so excited to read for so long and at first I couldn't get into it but things looking up. Anyway let me shut up and let's go get some halloumi. I know it doesn't look it but it is so yummy. Halloumi loads of different, I've got like red cabbage in there guys it's so fucking good I'm so excited. Hello I am on page 245 so I've gotten quite a good chunk through the book because loads of this at the end is references so the book ends like there so that's how much I got left. I am gonna hope to finish it tonight. That's not happening. Here's the thing I'm pretty sure this is on my five, was it on my five star predictions this year? I'm not sure. I don't think it's gonna be a five star because there is something about the writing that I am not like 100% jamming with in the way that it's written. It feels like it could have been edited a bit more and could have been a bit shorter and a bit slicker and I think this is a debut non-fiction and so I just feel like it could have been a bit more precise in the way that it was talking about things. Sometimes it's making links between things that I'm not sure is entirely like the the connection is entirely not justified but it has worked for that connection enough and I think some stuff could have been cut. I am enjoying it still. There's so much interesting stuff in this that I feel like a lot of it is stuff that I knew vaguely of. I don't feel like I'm learning loads more but I think it's interesting to hear in detail. I don't know if you guys know but hysteria this was like a term that was basically just used against all women for there are so much of history like she's having hysteria whatever she's hysteric. Historia comes from the Latin word for uterus so the the whole idea of hysteria is feminine and I don't know I just think that's interesting and so much our history is to do with women being more emotional than men and that's just got me thinking about a lot of things like in myself and like I don't know I think I am quite emotional. I was having an emotional breakdown last night just post about Instagram. I haven't told you about it. It was about salad well it was about a lot of things but it was about salad and I didn't want that salad but I wanted a different salad and it was just it was the breaking point and I basically this is like TMI but like I'm basically on the break from my pill and I've been running my pill for longer because of issues I was having with my period so a gynecologist I went to see told me to like I take my pill for like nine weeks now rather than three before I have a break and it's been fixing all those other issues I was having issues with fainting basically which is always fun and being sick and stuff and it's fixed those but I have been finding myself more emotional and I've been on this pill since I was what like 17 you know six years of my life I could turn quite a bit 18 17 18 and I just wonder like what would I be like off it you know some people come off the pill and it's like oh it's great I'm so I'm like oh I've unlocked this whole new level of emotions that have been suppressing and some people come off it and they have really negative experience coming off it and have to go back on it and I just like wonder who am I I haven't been an adult without being on the pill and I just wonder who I am without being on it I don't know and I've been thinking sometimes I think I tried to suppress my emotions but I don't think being inherently emotional is a bad thing I think it's you know feeling emotions for other people is a good thing so I don't know it's just got me thinking about stuff like that I would say this book is in is incredibly US and UK centric I think the author is from the UK it's incredibly focused on just UK and US and that's not inherently a bad thing I think any nonfiction has to have a focus right like it can't be just like about everything some of the faults of this book is I think when it tries to extend into topics that it isn't inherently like there's a whole chapter on women's suffrage and women's right to vote and like although that is connected to women I don't think it's necessarily it wasn't quite connecting it to like unwell women which is the rest of the book is about medicine and women in that you know so I don't think it's inherently a bad thing that it's very UK and US centric because that's the perspective that this author can write from but just if you're wanting a book that isn't this isn't the book for you is what I would say but yeah I'm gonna go ahead and finish it it's very interesting but I do think it could have been condensed I think it sometimes gets a little bit lost in the weeds so yeah I'm gonna go cook dinner I might show it to you me cooking but I'm feeling self-conscious because I've got my ugliest clothes on I'm doing a wash I don't know if you can hear the tumble dry I feel like I'm constantly doing a wash and constantly I don't have a lot of clothes guys I constantly don't have enough clothes particularly I don't have a lot of summer clothes I have so many jumpers but I can't wear any of them I have like three t-shirts that I like that I so I should probably like buy more I just don't really buy clothes I don't know that's like a whole we don't need to get into that that's a whole can of worms to open I might feel me cooking but like if you just see my clothes I got these hideous like shorts with strawberries on that I haven't worn in years because it's that dire anyways I'm gonna go I'm gonna go cook dinner I may show it to you if not I'll probably see you tomorrow morning having hopefully finished this tonight to finish Unwell Women I don't have a ton more to say to you because I feel like pretty much the same I did enjoy I think this last section perhaps the most I'm gonna get this a four star so it's not a five I'm gonna give it a four star but my personal enjoyment is perhaps more of a 3.5 3.75 but the reason I'm giving it a four is because I think this is a really important book that's discussing things that have not been spoken about enough and that I think a lot of people get something from there was just something about Ron and Starle they're like it wasn't entirely for me something about it perhaps it's because it's a debut but it just wasn't easiest to follow it wasn't the easiest to engage with sometimes I felt like the points that she was making were a bit meandering I've told you that all already but that was what held me back in my personal enjoyment of like loving this for me it was okay an enjoyment but what it was discussing was a four star perhaps I've heard some people say that there's some inaccuracies in this and I don't know enough about anything to know if there's inaccuracies so I would just point that out there but for me I think this is a book that's so many people especially if you're someone who is you know a woman identifies as a woman and is unwell and it could be in a many different ways that's outlined in this book I think this could be a really helpful book for you to like see the history of women's health and women's issue and the way that women's health issues have been ignored and mistreated history doctors basically weren't interested in anything that was associated with feminine and not with masculine right like they just weren't interested and the way is it's so angering like yeah when you think of all the different ways that women have been ignored and mistreated with their health throughout history um it's angering G saying so that's where I land on this and giving it a 4 for me it was like 3.5 enjoyment which is a little bit disappointing but I did get a lot out of it and perhaps that is the point of non-fiction you know okay I don't know which I'm gonna start next of the tea dragon festival when I'll be gone in the dark I'm leaning towards maybe just reading tea dragon festival but it depends whether I have time tonight whereas I might because I want this to be like I sit down I get all cozy like it's the perfect reading experience you know so I don't know if I have time for that today so I might start this and then read this and then finish this I don't know you'll see next whatever I'm doing basically something about you isn't right I swear you can make me lose my mind lying here awake at night if this is love then I don't want it why you gotta be so complicated I'm sick and tired of contemplating be here waiting if this is love then I don't want it I can't be the one you keep running to but never be that someone will always be there with something I shouldn't even actually need to say anything five stars I've been watching all my videos you know a bit in struggle city I haven't had a proper five star since like mid-april but we're back baby these are never gonna be anything less than five stars like they're always gonna be five stars the third one is gonna be five star I don't I could rate it now and not read it for a year and it would be five stars this book oh it's so beautiful I mean just look at it I don't want to like I didn't want to show you too many of the pages because I don't want to spoil the whole thing for you but this is like a prequel to the first tea dragon society book so we've got little tea dragons in this but this is more about an actual dragon a big dragon that I'm in character finds and stumbles upon that's them there and like their friendship and it's just so beautiful guys in terms of the representation in this the dragon character is non-binary slash gender fluid I'm not sure what they would be like technically classed as but there's this section where they describe to ren our main character how dragons can switch between genders and like how they switch between genders and I thought that was just such a poignant and beautiful moment and we've got two characters in my relationship who are in the first book who appear in this and there's also a character in the village who uses sign language to speak who is deaf and the whole village has learned sign language for this character and just like isn't it so beautiful it's just by the way I read this last night I was feeling really down I've been having a really really rough mental health week guys like it's been rough but I read this last night I didn't want to film anything I just wanted to like sit down and read this and it was incredible and I just read it again I just went in for a second time because it's just so beautiful you know I know these aren't technically kids books but I whenever I read these I just get so excited to read these to my future child one day because the way that these view the world is the way that I would hope I would raise a child to view the world does that make sense I'm already like when I'm reading it I'm like what age could I like could they fully start to take this in it's to say I'm having this discussion I think that is stuff a lot I was having this discussion with my patrons we had a high school musical movie night very different tone but we were having a high school musical movie night the other night and I was like what age would be best to introduce high school musical to my kids to make them obsessed to like fully you know make them love it very disturbing go see it counselor but yeah if you're looking for a cute heartwarming inclusive joyful gorgeous graphic novel this would be the one for you obviously well you could read this one first technically because it is a prequel but I would recommend the tea dragon society first but yeah I I'm almost tempted to just like read these all the time like just every couple months just like read the books again I need to read number three soon because they are just perfection and what it teaches you about friendship about found family about community right I think the community is such a special thing and the community of the village in this is so special and what it's saying about caring for others and being there for others and our duty as a community to care for others I just think is the most gorgeous thing on this app like this is perfection to me it was five stars I adored it I loved it I don't know what else is there to say to you it's so gentle cozy gorgeous it's perfect it's perfect guys if you haven't started this graphic novel series yet I don't even know what to tell you like you have to because it is just perfect I loved it and I cannot wait to read number three and then I think I'm just gonna read all of K. O'Neill's past stuff like I'm gonna have to get all of K. O'Neill's graphic novels because they've published a lot and so I need to go back through the archives and just read them all okay so it's time to get into our final book I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara and you guys know I told us about it's the one woman's obsessive search the golden state killer and excited to get into it there probably won't be a lot of b-roll in the rest of this vlog just because I am feeling a bit like sensitive a little bit emotional so I kind of just want to be you know I'm I'll check in with you when I have thoughts but I probably won't film much b-roll but yeah I'm gonna try and get through a good chunk of this today it's only about 25 past two I need to probably just edit what I've just filmed of this into this vlog because this is Friday and it's hopefully going up on Sunday I'm out Sunday so I have to get this all done by tomorrow and then I will just be reading this for the rest of the afternoon so hopefully I will make a good chunk and maybe I'll check in with you when I'm about halfway through okie dokie good morning good morning it's time to do my skincare and I'm halfway through I'll be gone in the dark so I thought I would chat to you also I do both two birds one stone yeah so this is Michelle McNamara's story of kind of her hunt for the golden state killer and trying to figure out who it was now I don't think she manages to solve it before she passes away there's elements of this book that are like pieced together from articles that she wrote or like pieced together from her notes where she hadn't written that chapter yet so yeah there is that element to it but it's basically her taking you through it's got a very interesting timeline we're jumping around in time so sometimes like she'll talk us through one of the murders that happened and then she'll go to something that happened with the police in the 90s that led them to discover something new about the case because a lot of this was happening like in the 70s and 80s and then we'll go back to like the 70s where he before he was murdering people he was like a serial rapist and she'll talk us through like that element so it's jumping around in time a lot I am enjoying it I here's the thing on the back all of the like all of the endorsements was applied for this like blurbs all of their blurbs are like Stephen King propulsive can't stop reading this is a one sit down read this is how riveting this is I tore through it in two days like I if I didn't have to read this like within the next like three days I probably wouldn't be reading I'm finding it quite slow read I've just caved and got on the audiobook which I've been trying not to do and I know that's kind of ridiculous to do when you're halfway through a book good god get a grip girl but I've been kind of like trying to resist because I feel like a lot of the books that I've read recently I have had the audiobook so I was trying to like tone down on it a bit but the way that this is written is like you're sitting across some hat and this person who has put so much research into this and like knows this inside out but like you're just having a conversation with her I don't know how to explain it like it's still written with so much research and like dates or whatever but you feel like she is with you like her presence in this book I feel like is very strong as the author um and you feel like you're just sitting across from her and she's talking you through the case and like what she knows and she's so excited to like share this with you and so I just thought that the audiobook might bring that to life for me a bit more because I was feeling a little bit detached from it and a little bit like just not loving it perhaps as much as I was expecting but um I think it's so well researched so well done and she's really like telling the complexities and she's got so much information about the case that I just can't imagine how long it would have taken to like research this so yeah I'm enjoying it I would say at the moment it's like a strong fourth star do I mean like it's not I'm not not enjoying it but so many people I know have given this a five star and for some reason it just wasn't quite clicking but maybe the audiobook will help me do that so yeah I'm just gonna go ahead and finish it today and I will chat with you I guess a little bit later today on my thoughts because I don't think it will take me long to get through it now that I've got the audiobook it will probably speed up my reading a little bit okay it's much later the same day but I just finished I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara and I'm gonna give this four stars this is a solid four star for me you know this is a kind of true crime topic I've never really heard anything about this guy and what he did and he was so prolific and the terrible things he did and how they escalated and I think it's just crazy that until her he'd never really been given much media attention or the public had never been like held attention to this guy in the way that they had with other serial killers yeah I thought this was really fascinating I thought it was really interesting there was just something about it that wasn't a five star for me but you know nonfiction I always feel is a little bit difficult to rate like what is a five star nonfiction I mean I have some like I don't exist but um I find it a bit more difficult to quantify especially now that because I don't read as much nonfiction as I used to but this video has made me really excited to read more I just think this is if you're interested in true crime this is perhaps one of the best investigative works I've seen of really having a genuine personal desire to see the person brought to justice and putting the victims at the center of your story without also like taking advantage of them or like dramatizing their stories or whatever like the victims are there they're ever present but it's not the focus isn't always on them in a way that sometimes I think it can feel exploitative so I just thought her balance of the way that she wrote this and the way she approached the case was wonderful there was just something about it that wasn't like it didn't jump out at me I wasn't obsessed you know but I enjoyed the reading experience I don't think there's a lot more to say I think if this is something of regular interest here I would recommend picking it up something that you should be aware of that I think I kind of misholded at the start is that she doesn't solve it like this she passes away before she finishes the book and in her lifetime she didn't solve the case you know so of course now we know who he was but this book isn't necessarily like solving it or playing an important role according to some of the detectives of that being solved it's more giving us an insight into the type of person he was and what influenced him and all the different factors at play and different the ways his personality shifted and the ways what he was doing shifted and I thought that was really really interesting so yeah I really enjoyed this and listen I am so glad guys I have finally read these three books and I always said I couldn't fit into vlogs and I had to do a whole vlog about the books I couldn't fail the vlogs to fit this into a vlog the standout for me is the tea dragon festival but I mean this series I already know the third one's gonna be a five star like I don't even need to read it I could rate it today this graphic novel series I think is one of the best cozy gentle fantasy out there with a lovely heart at its core and I couldn't recommend it enough these two are both non-fictions that I enjoyed and I am hopefully I'm gonna start reading one on fiction guys okay these are both ones I enjoyed and I think a lot of people could get a lot of from both of them but neither of them were a five star for me I preferred this one I would say to this on the whole a pretty successful vlog so I hope you guys enjoyed it I've got some really exciting vlogs coming in the next couple weeks that I think you guys are gonna enjoy so I love you and I hope you have a good rest of your day and I will see you soon bye