 Hello hello welcome to the channel my name is Laura and this is Laura's Little Library. I'm starting the actual vlogs, the things I've been talking about for a very long time it seems. I am so ready so this first week obviously thrills and chills, thrills, chills, spooks, that's what it is. So excited. So I will be reading mostly thriller kind of generic, horror, spooky just your overall spooky by mystery books and this is the category that I have the most book choices of. I have so many books that I bought and own for this category and I'm not expecting to read them all but I would love to read as many as possible. So with that in mind I've decided that the first two books that I'm going to read are going to be the two shortest that I have on the list. So that will be House of Hollow by Crystal Sutherland and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Gracia. I am going to start with these two books because they are very much the shortest books that I have and so I think I can get through those very quickly. So my goal is to read three. I always wanted to read at least three books a week. I made sure I have at least three books in each category so that is possible. So I want to read these two plus one more but theoretically I would love to read way more than that because these are so short. Like if you haven't seen my haul where I've kind of explained all this I'll have it linked down below. It has a whole reading extravaganza talked out and expressed in a way that hopefully is understandable but I do have four other books. I've got like One by One by Ruth Ware, The Final Girl Support Group by Granny Hendricks, 56 Days. I don't remember who that's by but it's Catherine something and then I also have Wildo Girls by Rory Powers and two of them if you're not following me on Instagram or Twitter or any of my other social media then you don't know that I am participating in Spoopathon and one of the prompts is a trick or treat and so I've actually chosen two books from this week's TBR. One is my trick, one is my treat. So far one of them is definitely winning by far on every account of social media but I'm telling it all up between all of the accounts so that is the one true winner. So that was Between One by One by Ruth Ware and Wildo Girls by Rory Powers. Looks like Wildo Girls is going to win which I am a-okay with because I want to read it and I got a comment saying that One by One is like winter revives which makes sense because it takes place in winter and winter causes them to be all trapped together so I'm not super upset if I don't read it during spooky season because I'll read it during winter season maybe when winter ween is happening because I would that would actually be very perfect but yeah I've got my comfy pumpkin pillow here I have got my cup trick or drink full of apple cider I am ready to go I'm gonna start with House of Hollow because this is one I have an audiobook for and so I'm gonna sit here and listen to the audiobook and read that is something that I've started doing recently and I found that I love doing that is listening to the audiobook while I'm reading it so I have the audiobook for this one I'm on hold for the audiobook for this one but I should be getting it soon so that's the plan it's six o'clock yeah it's just past six o'clock and I've already come home from work and kind of done most of my things so I can really just spend the rest of this time reading and that is what I would very much love to do so I'm gonna move one chair over into my reading chair so I can get started on this book and on my spooky season reading extra veganza oh I'm so excited I do a very quick update it's almost midnight I'm dead tired and I didn't read too much of House of Hollow I got like 50 pages in yeah I got 50 pages in I'm up to chapter five and it's good I think I'm a little nervous because it's been so hyped up that I don't want to read it and have to be disappointed because of the hype so I'm trying to clear my mind of it all and then I got the audiobook for Mexican Gothic so I will start that as soon as House of Hollow is done and that's pretty much all I have to say I'm really tired I'm gonna go to bed also my work schedule changed and it's terrible so it's not terrible but I'm definitely working a bunch of overtime this week so that leaves for less reading time but you know what it's okay because I'll deal and I'll come home from work and I'll read and then I'll fall asleep because I'm tired and reading makes me even sleepier so goodnight catch up with you tomorrow on Friday 11 30 on Saturday I did not update you at all yesterday on Friday I meant to and then I didn't because I came home from work and I was tired but then I did a lot of reading but then as soon as I stopped reading I just went right to bed because I was super tired so I have things to update you on and I'm gonna do that now so I got 150 pages into House of Hollow I took the dust jacket off which is not something I normally do when I read hard cover books but I did it this time so I'm 125 pages in I'm almost halfway through and basically kind of what it's been like is it's been under the lull like oh the sister is missing okay they need to find her they keep reaching out they keep reaching out and I just felt like they weren't doing anything other than sending her texts and that just wasn't very exciting to me and then all of a sudden I hit page like 70 or 80 or something and oh I like like I wish I had been filming myself I I wasn't filming so I was like it's kind of out of law nothing's interesting and then all of a sudden like like a sentence happened and I just went I had like this big reaction it was really stupid looking so I'm sorry I missed it but like and then I started to like freak out and I was a little bit like hauntedly freaked a little bit for the rest of the night and it was so cool and it just it was one of those things where like oh it freaked me out and I loved it so I am very motivated to keep reading this I I want to finish it today I need to run in an errand and do a couple cleaning chores around the house but then as soon as that's done I'm gonna finish this book and then I'm gonna start Mexican Gothic that that is my plan yeah that's my update I'm loving House of Hollow I felt like it was a little slow at the beginning but if it picks up I'm afraid that it might be a book that like it's super exciting and then lulls for a bit and then gets super exciting again but I'm hoping that there's no there's no lull there's no dip if it can keep being exciting that would be would be what I want but we'll see I'm just super excited so yeah I'm going to run my errand listen to an audiobook obviously but I don't the two audiobooks I have for this week's reading I have the physical books for and I want to sit down and like read with the audiobook so I'll probably be listening to a non thriller audiobook which was not my initial plan but it's okay it's okay because I want to read the book anyway oh one other thing oh as I mentioned in my recent reads video so if you haven't seen that video you should check it out it'll be linked in the description but I recently finished reading Beach Read um like right before I started this week's thriller theme so it's a very interesting contrast of going from contemporary romance to thriller um I finished reading Beach Read and I and I loved it I just got cried at the end again I talked about this in my recent reads video but then our housemate went and bought me people we meet on vacation by Emily Henry because this is the same author and I had mentioned that I wanted to read this next or at least read it soon again it's another summer read so I don't know if I try and quick fit it in now or wait till next year I'd love to fit it in now but again thriller week it's like the week with the most books to read so but she got this for me and it was so sweet of her it was so nice and kind of her to do that I am forever thankful but yeah so now I have these two books and I am really excited okay now I'm gonna go run on my ear and listen to my audiobook I'll catch you up when I am about to like start reading or like do something interesting hello so it is about nine o'clock Saturday night and I finished it also if you hear a noise in the background that's the dishwasher but I need to film this now so it's nine o'clock and I finished House of Hollow by Crystal Sutherland oh my goodness it went there it it took me a bit so I read this in two big sittings pretty much and I loved this book it was like the perfect amount of like creepy weirdness without going too far for me like it all tied together it all made sense it just it blew my mind and every time you would figure something out it would be confirmed like the next page like there were so many elements to the story that as soon as something started to become clear that it would be confirmed that's exactly what it was and so it was nice and I loved the plot twists and so basically yeah this follows three sisters who disappear for a month and they come back and they have no recollection their hair is now white and their eyes are dark and a lot of crap happens and then when they're older their oldest sister goes missing like this is 10 years later so the other two try and find her and I feel like it had a slightly slower beginning than what I would have liked but once it got started it got going and I was like on the edge of my seat almost the entire time I was just constantly I need to know what happens next I need to know what happens next I wish I had been filming myself reading the second half of this book because I'd be like halfway through it and I just go like like I had those big reactions I was like catching my breath I was flipping out it I have not reacted as much to a book in a very long time and it was so nice and refreshing and it just creeped me out and it had such beautifully eerie themes like with nature and death yeah it was like the perfect amount of mystery and thriller and just oh my word like there's a one point it was almost like a jump scare in a book and it solidly creeped me out because I had to stop reading after that to go to bed last night and it's my word it got me it got me so good it was exactly what I wanted and it was so satisfying and I am so glad that the person at the store like solidified my idea to purchase this I would highly recommend this book for its spooky vibes my goodness that is one book down for this week's reading vlog and the first book completed for my reading extravaganza now I will pick this book up next I will pick up Mexican Gothic mix because it is my shortest book and I know what vaguely my priority of what book I'm gonna read next and keep going pretty much all the way through this week um but I'm hoping I could read this just as quickly as I read House of Hollow if not faster um so that by the time Wednesday comes I will or so if I finish this like tomorrow ish I still have a couple of days to read a couple other books but we'll see yeah I'm really excited to read this um this was really popular like a couple years ago it's about a girl who receives a letter from her sister sending her to Mexico because there's trouble in the house with her husband and she goes there and then her sister's like oh no everything's totally fine but she just does not feel comfortable so I hope to start this tonight I'll probably I would love to update you before I go to bed if I actually do read a significant chunk on this but yeah and the other thing with House of Hollow is I kept being like I should stop and I should fill my reactions and fill my theories and things I think are going to happen and then I was like no I just want to finish I just want to keep going but yeah so I'm a little nervous though to be picking up another thriller book so quickly after that just because it was so good I'm reading it five stars so I don't want this to be not as good because I'm reading it right after something else especially since it's been so hyped and I've been wanting to read it for so long so we'll see activity slash my follow up to the Renfest we went to the Renaissance festival here in Minnesota it was so much fun I've gone a couple of times in Michigan but oh it was so much fun learned lots of things bought one thing met an author who is self published and so I will probably look into some of his books just because it sounds fun and they sounded like really cool fantasy with really great worlds he just you had to be the only way he's going to do it was through self published so I might order some books from him sometime in the future after I've recovered from my big old hole and if you haven't seen that it'll be linked in the description you can watch my big haul um but yes so it is now uh sunday night ish because like it's past six o'clock what time is it yeah it's six fifteen so it's sunday night and I didn't update you last night because I was tired but I did read the first chapter of mexican gothic um I like that it got to the point in the first chapter in the first 15 pages it just like here's who this person is here's the situation here's what you're going to do and I really appreciate that because in the other one it like in a lot of other books and even in house of hollow it took a little bit to uh really get going but this just went right to it um yeah I would love to do some reading tonight although I know there are some other things that I need to do I need to like work and do some planning and whatnot so I would like to read more but I think that this is mostly going to be a monday book which only leaves me like two days to read some of the other books I wanted to this week but you know what I read this and I read one other book I'm gonna be happy but I'm looking at my selection and I'm like oh I really wanted to read that one and that one oh and that one so we'll see how this goes but as long as I can finish this and one other I will have completed this week's reading vlog but we shall see so yeah I hope you enjoyed the little glimpses of Renfest I did dress up a little bit it was kind of a last minute but I had like a good poofy white shirt belt leggings sandals like and a lot of like uh Renfest style jewelry so yeah it was so much fun and I love doing it every summer early fall it was really hot really dusty but yeah all right I will catch you guys up when I have done some significant reading of this probably won't be till tomorrow but you never know hello I figured I should probably update you um so it's Monday it's five o'clock it's later uh in the day and I'm not feeling very well it's not COVID I don't have any symptoms it's something completely unrelated um don't worry but so I'm kind of taking it easy today I've been watching a lot of booktube and I hope to do a lot of reading just because it's a lot I think it's gonna be a lot easier to read when you're sick when um you have the audiobook and the physical copy so yeah that way I don't need to be doing something when I'm listening but I also will hopefully be able to concentrate when I'm sitting there reading so very short clip for today um I think that renaissance festival yesterday burnt me out but it was so much fun and so worth it but yeah so I may or may not update you later with what I've read I haven't made any progress on Mexican Gothic so I will make progress on that tonight hopefully I'm feeling better tomorrow and I have more interesting and entertaining day especially a better day to show you so see you then hello yes I did just take a shower my hair is wet we're gonna have to move on from that but it is Tuesday morning so good morning um I have realized that I'm probably gonna end up finishing this vlog either tonight or tomorrow so I'm gonna use all of Wednesday to edit the vlog so I can go up on Thursday but because I work both Wednesday and Thursday um I will probably be ending this Tuesday night which is tonight so either I do all my reading I update Tuesday night and that's it or I do some reading and then I update you Wednesday after work and then immediately go into editing so that's kind of how the vlog is gonna end but don't worry it's not ending yet because like I said it's Tuesday morning so I've decided that I am going to watch my spooky movie of the week um and while I do that I will get some work done and then when that's done I'm gonna spend as much time after that reading as I can so yeah it'll kind of be the mad dash to finish the thrillers for the week um so yeah I'm just gonna get started on the movie do some work and then we'll read and I'll give you a final update also there are so many options for thriller movies thriller slash horror movies for this week but I've decided to go with a kind of more ridiculous and comedic one just because it is like early in the day and I don't want to watch something really good because I want to leave all the goodness for my book so I will be watching a ridiculous funny movie that makes fun of the thriller horror genre and I will be making fun of it as we go so yeah don't judge me on my movie choices I I choose terrible movies I always do on Tuesday um I finished this no idea what I'm gonna rate it I don't want to rate it five stars but I might I don't I just I don't know it's too soon to tell but wow that was a very different thriller than House Apollo just oh so very different definitely a look out trigger warnings for this but also I can't tell you what they are because I don't want to spoil it but it's very different still very good still very good but oh my goodness it left me in a different kind of shock where like House of Hollow was just amazing and creative and a very interesting story and this compared to it is like I see the contrast with him the thriller genre but I also see like the similarities and even just like themes between these two books specifically are really interesting if you like look at the themes of plants and uh flower and natures um it's very interesting reading the back to back in that way but oh my goodness so I have finished these two books I think this one is still a little too fresh to talk about whereas this one I would just love to talk about I think Gray was just such an interesting character and I'm so glad it wasn't from like I'm I'm so glad we followed the youngest sister the entire time because I loved seeing the contrast between the sisters but I especially just loved like hearing and learning about gray with the other sisters and learning about you know what happened to them and what was going on versus this one was really interesting because it started off and it immediately kind of knew what was going on but then it was just at a medium pace all the way until the end and then the last like 100 pages this is only 300 pages long so the last like 75 to 100 ish pages it just was like the ending but the ending lasted like you're like oh my word is it gonna finally be done but oh my word there's so many pages left and then you know things just kept happening and I kept reading it faster and faster and I was like oh my word and I still have 20 pages left I was like what's going on but my goodness so I very much liked both of these books which was really nice obviously I have like some very small issues with them but not really anything special um and again too with this one because of it's just so interesting um if there was anything that I predicted or I was like oh I bet this is gonna happen it was either revealed very shortly or I learned like more information especially why that wasn't the case so again it was really nice but again I also don't know if that's because of my inexperience in the genre or like these were actually really good books but both I've heard so many good reviews of these books that I like to assume it's because they're good books now it is Tuesday and I so I'm not quite sure what I'm gonna do well okay that's a lot I kind of know what I'm gonna do so for the last like 45 minutes before I go to bed I am going to start Wilder Girls by Rory Power this was the book that was the winner of my trick-or-treat thing um so I will be reading this to fulfill that there is one other thriller book I would love to get to I just really want to get to the final girl support group um and I'm hoping that will be a quicker read this one feels thicker than the other ones but I know that the final girl support group had some mixed media in it and that generally helps the reading of it to go quicker um obviously I'm not going to finish both of these books like obviously not tonight I'm not even gonna finish one tonight but what I'm thinking I'm gonna do is I'm going to read thriller all the way through Wednesday and then start next week's theme dark academia on Thursday however I don't know if I'll be able to update you on Wednesday with all of my reading for this because I will be editing and putting the vlog up so I will hopefully update you either one more time tonight or very quickly tomorrow and it will be in Thursday's vlog that you'll get the final like if I actually finished another book or got a significant chunk into another book um but when Thursday does happen I will stop reading whatever thriller I am in and I will switch to the dark academia and because I have so many extra thrillers and even if I don't finish one more I can push them off to Halloween because I I have everything planned up all the way to the Thursday before Halloween so that leaves me a couple days plus Halloween itself and so I'm kind of gonna use that as a leftover of I didn't get to this thriller and I really wanted to or I need to finish this book Blush or whatever so yeah that's kind of the plan I'm gonna read a little more I'm gonna read thrillers through Wednesday but yeah so I will update you at least once more uh just to give beginning thoughts for another for another book I've just been holding this one up um I'm sorry I didn't give very many thoughts of like Mexican Gothic as I was reading it I read up to chapter five uh before yesterday really air conditioning I was so close okay the air conditioning kicked in but I don't want to stop filming this and turn the AC off it's just gonna be too much of a hassle so I hope you can still hear me but oh shoot what was I saying yeah I don't know I'm gonna finish reading thrillers through Wednesday Thursday I'll start dark dark academia um for that vlog but leftovers will be for Halloween oh I remember what I was saying Mexican Gothic I had read up to chapter five yesterday and then today when I started reading which was later in the day that I wanted to I just sat down and read the entire thing basically in one sitting um I didn't really break at all and that was because I wanted to make sure I finished it today so I was like either I could break and possibly not finish it or I could not break and just talk about it more at the end so all right I'm gonna get to reading now okay let's close out this vlog now it is Wednesday night and I am going to close like I said close out the vlog because I need to get to editing so I can go up Thursday morning um but first most important business of today happy first day of fall um yeah it is the first day of fall which is why I have changed into a sweater because even though it's not super sweater weather outside it's still fall so it's it's very much where I live it's sweater weather in the morning and then in the afternoon it's still t-shirt and shorts weather so we're getting there we're getting there but right now I am wearing a sweater um because it's the first day of fall and it's one of my favorite fall sweaters so anyway now that that has been acknowledged let's talk about the books so I finished two books as of right now uh House of Hollow by Crystal Sutherland and Mexican Gothic I talk about these quite a bit so I will keep it brief um House of Hollow 5 out of 5 stars couldn't guess it because it was just it seemed so random but at the same time like yeah um so much fun once it picked up I got really going into it couldn't put it down loved it loved the themes of nature in this and how nature plays a part I love the world building while it is still set in our world not mythology here I loved it and then Mexican Gothic I'm still gonna rate pretty highly I don't I keep going back and forth between four and five stars so at the moment I think it's a 4.5 star I don't have too much of a good reason to rate it five star or four star I mean I obviously very much enjoyed it there were only a few little things here and there that kind of were a little like hard to get through or like the pacing was difficult to deal with or you know just little things here and there but just enough to make me think was it a five star read but not like enough to really say this is a four star read because no this was still a really good book that I enjoyed and very different kind of thriller than this one so it's really funny but again with the themes of nature in here like the writing is beautiful I love the writing so metaphoric such vivid imagery and oh my word it definitely made me think about some other things in my life but I don't want to say too much because all the things I want to talk about are spoilers I am thinking about starting to add spoiler sections to videos but making it very clear so you can skip ahead I don't know I haven't decided let me know if you think I should start talking about spoilers but making it very clear so that if you don't want spoilers you can skip it and keep going in the video I don't know let me know so these are the two that I've finished for the blog now Wednesday is not over which means I will not stop reading thriller books for this week tomorrow I will start on dark academia and put down the thrillers but until then for the like four more hours that it is Wednesday I still have some books I want to read for example I've started Wilder Girls and I am how many pages I'm like yeah I'm 34 pages I'm chapter three I'm not that far into it it's it's interesting because it kind of just plops you right in the middle of the situation and you're kind of learning as you go along and so it seems like these girls are quarantining on an island because there's this disease that is changing them in some way shape or form so it's interesting I have the audiobook for this as well so I'm doing that thing where I sit and listen to the audiobook as I read so I could read a little more of this tonight but also I also started the final girl support group because these are two books I need to read like for readathon prompts and that I just really wanted to get through so I did start the final girl support group and for this one only 23 pages in so I'm not like further into one over the other I honestly don't know which one I'm going to pick up they're about the same length the thing is that I think this one's slightly more interesting to me right now but this has large prints in the audiobook so I it feels like it'll go by quicker but then there's one more issue I got the audiobook for 56 days today like two hours ago I got this audiobook so now I'm sitting here like ooh do I want to start and read some of this one while I have the audiobook because I'm only gonna have it for like three weeks and I'm gonna be busy during those weeks so like do I start it this one again is also like just over 300 pages so it's only slightly shorter than the other two but I haven't started it um but it's a tall book but it doesn't look too bad so there are three books that I want to read and finish right now and that's not gonna happen but I really want it to happen so that is currently my dilemma whatever reading I do tonight I will update you next week's vlog on Thursday or next week's vlog tomorrow and Thursday when I start uh Dark Academia um I have three books for this as I do most other weeks and I'll let you know in that vlog when I'm starting with but yeah that's where I'm at so far uh thank you all so much for watching subscribe if you haven't already and click the bell so you can get notified when I post which vlogs will be going up on Thursday and regular interesting content type videos will be going up on Tuesdays so I'm posting twice a week now which is really exciting and I'm loving it um also give this video a thumbs up if you liked it or if you're excited to see more of my future vlogs voice crack comment down below if you're reading any thrillers if you read these what your thoughts you know I would just love to sit and chat with you guys um yeah otherwise I will see you all in the next video until then I wish you happy spooky reading