 oh my god oh my god oh my god but i'm also nervous i'm also shitting myself i feel actually overwhelmed with the amount of books wrapped up in front of me i really don't know what to pick i am feeling like i want to read a bit of a shorter book for this first episode because i read a lot of longer books like plus 100 page books in november i didn't really read any short books and i do love a good short book now i'm not gonna choose this one because that's tiny that would be like illegal but i do want like a little bit of a shorter book is what i'm feeling like so what like we need to unwrap a book what are we gonna go for oh my god i feel like i'm about to throw up look at every okay just on first instinct this one is calling my name okay so i think we're just gonna go for it i think we're just gonna do it oh my god okay but before we find out what i'm gonna be reading in this video i know i'm sorry i'm teasing you um i want to say a massive thank you to the sponsor for today's video which is friends fire so friends fire is this amazing new app for book clubbers it helps you find save and share books movies tv shows podcast recommendations i've really loved using it it's so much fun to like explore it gives you these highly personalized book recommendations or recommendations for movies tv shows podcast but i'm gonna be mainly talking about books because make with books and it gives you those recommendations based on both genres that you tell it that you like or based on more ratings you have given books in the past it brings together also loads of information from other like recommendation apps in one place so it has all of the books good reads ratings for like movies and tv shows it has imdb built in so during the on-boarding process it gets you to tell it some of the genres that you like so i chose things like fantasy and mystery and detective and then it gets you to rate some of your favorite books so it can kind of have just like a rough idea of what books you like to get you started but you can keep like rating books um on there to give it a better idea of what you like so let's see what it's recommending me so on my home section we have some personalized recommendations it's interesting that project how mary is second the second highest recommendation for me because i loved that i gave it five stars like how does it know how does it know oh you've reached sam is one that i'm super interested in i've been really excited for that this year but i just haven't got around to it i'm gonna save that one this is a new release uh that i've heard so many good things about it was on my like most anticipated releases of the year video that i did at the start of the year and i've been really really excited for it so that's so cool that it recommends that to me so when you go on there it tells you the kind of genres that the book is and then if you scroll down you've got the good reads rating as well and you've got like a synopsis of the book you've got all the information about it also here you can see what the average rating across what your friends have given it is and what the average rating is across like all users on friends buy it and then you have the good reads rating as well if i wanted to rate a book for example i've already read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo i just click rate i tell them what i thought i'm gonna give it a 10 i absolutely loved this book and then if you wanted you can share it on instagram it generates a post for you easily twitter facebook any of those you could choose to share it on i'm just gonna click done and then woohoo that's got a super high rating that's got a nine average rating from 97 ratings on friends fire which i honestly it deserves so if it gives you a recommendation you want to save for later just click save and then you've got this section where all your saved books are together which is really cool and on your profile this will be where all the recommendations and ratings that you've given live so as you can see there's also movies tv shows podcasts and food and drink on this app as well which is so dope it's so cool so these are some of the accounts that i have followed already for example you've got Reese's book club you can see all the different books that Reese's book club has recommended and what they have rated them so yeah i have just loved using friends fire i think it's been so interesting i think it's such a great app i will leave the link down below if you download it i would really recommend it i'll also try to link my profile so you can follow me on there and we can like all see each other's ratings and recommendations and hopefully get some super great personalized recommendations so i'll see you on there and yeah i would really recommend you go check out the link okay okay ah oh my god it's started so i can't stop what is this episode the taking of jake livingston by Ryan Douglas what oh my god this is why i'm so guys all 2021 releases wrapped up because i am so excited for every book here so i meant to read this in like october spooky season but i didn't get around to it so we are kind of like mixing up seasons here but all i know about this is that it's about a guy who can communicate with ghosts but they've always been kind of like they haven't bothered in that much but then he makes this one spirit who was a murderer i believe and he like is really getting into his head and this was gifted to me by Fiona so thank you so much Fiona and i feel like this is a great one to start with it's one that a lot of people have been speaking about i feel like it's one that a lot of people be interested in so we're reading the taking of jake livingston first i am so excited oh my god hello okay so i have finally finished filming my last vlog which was the christmas cracker pic when i read vlog and so i can finally start the taking of jake livingston and like i have a lot of thoughts this book is about to be something okay so essentially we're following jake who can see ghosts but it's kind of in this very like detached remove state where they kind of like faint and he sees them reliving their deaths and he's just like but it seems that this ghost of a serial killer a school shooter from the area has come back and is kind of making much more tangible connections with jake is doing things that you know ballooned into the real world that other people can see and he seems quite determined and quite you know scary and then we are also following that character's perspective in the past and this is why it's such a hard read because with this character it's a diary that he's writing in the past before what he did happen it's it's a hard read because i feel like instinctively i don't know whether you don't want to sympathize with him is the right phrasing but you don't want to like have an attachment to this character because of what you know he goes on to do but it's very it's a very hard read because you know trigger warnings for child abuse child neglect everything under that kind of son is happening to this character he's had like i mean shitty upbringing doesn't even begin to cover it and so i feel like it's a bold move that ryan douglas has made to do that because it's a conscious choice i feel like that's kind of the whole point of the book for us as a reader to kind of have that be stuck in the middle of that questioning of like i don't want to i don't want to sympathize this character because i know the horrific thing that they go on to do but i'm kind of being led to feel that a little bit a little bit i mean not completely like a little bit i would also say you know trigger warnings and big trigger warnings in this for school shootings and particularly kind of like the mass trauma that students in the us feel because of that we've already had some like hard scenes within this first 50 pages and i also think it's going to deal very much with like microaggressions and ingrained racism in white spaces jake is one of the very few black students at his kind of prep school that he's at we're already kind of seeing biases and microaggressions and stuff so again if if you need trigger warning for that you should be aware of that but um with jake's perspective listen there's a lot of words i'm not going to conversate with you i'm not going to invest time i think it's coming just say talk i'm gonna talk to you there's a lot of words we've got is it ectoplasm or ectomist death loop like there's a lot of stuff there's a lot of supernatural stuff and i'm already feeling actually like this book could be a bit longer and listen i love a short book listen we all know i i love a short book that's the whole reason i unwrapped this but i've already had at least two instances in this first 50 pages where i've been like i don't have a fucking scooby what is going on all right i'm like looking around the room like anyone else anyone else kind of action scenes we've seen with ghosts i'm getting confused as to who is saying or and i can't visualize what is happening and i'm hoping that's not going to be something that continues throughout because that's like one of my pet peeves if i can't visualize it what's the point in those scenes i feel like every other line has been cut out i'm like what is going on the editor it's a bit too slapdash but yeah i really like jake as a character and i find soya the the the you know the shooter it's very hard to read but it's very interesting and that is the whole point and it's and i i actually i have to applaud ron douglas for like writing a ya with this kind of perspective because that's a hard thing to do and i feel like it's an ambitious thing to do and i think it's a very easy thing to do badly and so far i don't feel like that's happening so it's currently is it like nine o'clock it's caught past nine i want to read to halfway tonight and check in with you again even though i'm tired the next check in i'm gonna be a bit like you know that's like another 70 pages so i'm gonna try and read to there and then we'll check in again and then i'll go to sleep and we'll read the rest in the morning is the plan i have the audiobook and at this speed that i'm reading it physically we only have about 2020 minutes left so quick maths we can do this halfway through the taking of jake livingston and like i don't understand anything i don't understand sorry about it i don't understand i have the audiobook as well i got the audiobook for like optimum reading experience was all i was thinking in my head the audiobook is very good like the narrators are really good especially for soya but i i don't understand the supernatural other worldly other dimension element of this like there's just people like he's like oh then a guy fell through a ceiling and then a guy fell through the wall and then this person was and then and then i flung myself that 10 miles and i'm like what i don't think it's just me either right i don't think it's just because i'm sleepy i've looked at lots of reviews and lots of people are like the time is what the fuck they're like i don't understand either so it's not just me it seems to be a bit of a problem with this book we have had like a queer relationship introduced to jake has a love interest with a new guy at the school and that's cute but i feel like it's been a bit insta-lovy like the guy was like do you like brownies or cupcakes and jake was like oh my god let's get married but also to be fair i do feel like criticism criticisms of insta love in ya are a bit unfounded because when you're 16 you fall in love straight away yeah i can attest to it but um like it's fine like i'm enjoying it but i'm confused i really enjoy the moments that aren't those otherworldly like elements because i just don't understand i just don't know like the fact that i'm halfway through i'm like where are we gonna go and i don't like this because i wanted the first episode of wrapped up to be like outstanding like a five star new favorite but like it's not gonna be that it's not gonna be that if i can just become a little bit less confused in the second half of the book that will be a win morning i got to page 190 last night and like it's fine just need a bit of space i thought it was okay yeah i'm still enjoying it i'm still really enjoying the audiobook i think the audiobook is great and i'm enjoying the direction that the book is now going in it's kind of had a little a few things happen that i wasn't expecting and i think is very very interesting but i just i still have some problems with it in terms of the kind of world building and like a reader understanding of what's happening i will say though i feel like this book has great pacing i feel like the pacing of this book is amazing we're always moving on to the next thing you know it's constant the plot is constantly constantly moving which you need in the short bit like this but like you never feel like you're in a scene for too long or too short of a time i feel like it's paced really really well i just think maybe we needed some extra scenes in there to kind of explain stuff actually very interestingly i forgot to mention this at my last check-in but there was like on the audiobook there was like two pages worth of a scene which was pretty like much world building explanation that wasn't in the book so i wonder i feel like a while ago i couldn't access the audiobook so i wonder if the audiobook is newer and that has perhaps been added in to like later editions of the book so it explains stuff a bit better i'd prefer i didn't really take in what it was because i was more just like looking around the page like where is this but it was kind of like yeah like world building on how like the dead world ghost world works which i found very interesting i was like huh so like that i feel like that shows a bit of a recognition that the reader needed a bit more explanation as to what was happening i feel like this book wasn't a great pick for the first episode of wrap up like i feel like this book kind of needs to be in a multiple book reading vlog i don't necessarily feel like it holds up on its own because i don't think there's necessarily much to discuss about it i will say i really also am loving the look at you know racism not even microaggressions i've saw i've seen a lot of actually reviews before i read it call it microaggressions i don't think it's microaggressions i think it's aggressions in this school where he's one of the only black students and i think that is being looked at really well but something has just happened listen i was a little bit shocked i was a little bit spooked so i'm gonna go get ready for the day and i think i've already got like 50 pages of the book left so i think i can pretty much finish it listening to your audiobook whilst i get ready so that's what i'm gonna go do and then we'll check in i feel like this vlog hasn't been very good as well because i've literally read this book over last night and this morning like i'm gonna try and pick a little bit of a longer one for the next episode i think i just finished it and i'm gonna give it three stars i'm gonna give it three stars i it just didn't want to do it for me it didn't quite it didn't quite do it for me the whoa i i need a drink of not being able to picture any of the action scenes persisted and if anything got worse for me throughout this like and it's not just that i was listening to the audiobook because i was listening to the audiobook when i was doing my makeup really slow like i was listening to it way slower than i would usually listen to audiobooks if i'm not reading them physically if i'm just listening to them and i still couldn't follow and i've read loads of reviews i watched a bit of gabby's live show because it was one of this was a book club pick for her book club and like everyone is saying they couldn't picture it so it's not just on me and i feel like that's a shame because that is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to books is if i can't picture what is going on it it was so hard to follow i will say i did really enjoy the premise the plot where this book went in the end i thought that like the kind of concept i can't spoil it but like what was happening was very interesting and fun to read about i will say perhaps on reflection i'm not quite sure the whole like soya perspective thing worked it's a very difficult thing to do like the author is trying to make us in many ways empathize with this boy who's done something so horrific and i feel like he had too many chapters like it was especially at the start it was every other chapter wasn't his perspective and it was something that was very hard to read from and but in movies also i feel like towards the book towards the end of the book it was getting confused over what whether it wanted us to empathize and feel bad for him or not you know he'd been through terrible terrible things but like he was also doing terrible terrible things so it's a very hard thing to read about and i'm just it was such an ambitious thing to do and i'm just not a hundred percent sure it was pulled off like perfectly i think it was i know i said my the book for like taking a risk and doing something different but i just don't i don't think i felt the way that perhaps i wasn't it was intended for me to feel by the end of the book the queer rep in this also i would like i'd like to have more of like that was one of my favorite parts of the book i thought it was such a cute relationship i just like this book could actually have been like maybe even a hundred pages longer i feel like it needed more in the way of explanation in the way of world building to make those things not confusing because they were just not it for me so yeah i mean i loved all of the social topics that it touched on there was a lot that i really enjoyed about it and i think i would pick up from this author again i think i'll try out their next book because one of my main issues was just those action scenes that i couldn't picture and i felt that's something that's very easy to fix so that is episode one of wrapped up revamped um i'm a bit disappointed that it wasn't like a five star book but hey ho we move on we move so i hope you've enjoyed this video anyways it was a very quick vlog because literally i did read this last night and then this morning if you've gone to the end comment the wrapped present emoji if like we have to do every episode comment the wrapped present emoji if you've gone to the end and thank you so much for watching and i'll see you very soon bye