 It's Julia and welcome to this week's reading vlog. Today is Monday and for the start of the vlog I have a reading update for you guys so just in case you didn't see last week's I am currently reading the Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza on audiobook and physically I'm about almost a hundred pages in so I'm slowly getting through this one but I'm enjoying it so far. I'm also reading Heretics Anonymous the book's just in another room right now but I'm reading that one I'm over halfway through I'm really loving it so much and I want to talk with you guys more about that book or I might even do a review. Should I do a review? I don't know. I have a lot of thoughts they're all good thoughts so far but I have a lot of thoughts so I want to talk about it more but yes that's my reading update. I went to work with a bit with my dad this morning and stuff like that. My nail broke so I'm gonna have to get these done at some point this week. Busy week probably doing something I'm doing something every day so something's planned for every single day so that's that. So it's Tuesday I want to update you on my reading so I ended up finishing Heretics Anonymous today. This is by Katie Henry I really enjoyed this. This was so good in my opinion. I love the romance in it. I love the aspects of religion it talked about and it was set in the Catholic school which I go to Catholic school so this was super like relatable to me. Pagan in this book there is someone who's Jewish like there's just so many different like religions in this book and characters that all believe in different things and this was just so interesting to read our main characters in Atheist. Again there's a romance component that I really enjoyed there. It's funny the dialogue's pretty funny. The little friendship group is pretty entertaining as well but yes I really enjoyed this. I think I'm giving this one like a 4.5 out of 5. It was really good. For like a little haul kind of thing from HCC Frenzy they sent me The Black Witch, a finished copy by Lori Forrest and they also sent me an arc for the Iron Flower which comes out on September 18th and I'm going to an event with them so I want to read The Black Witch before that so hopefully I'll start that soon. I am still reading The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza. I want to read more of this today actually but I'm on page 117. I'm going to put that much through it. I'm enjoying it so far very interesting story as well but yes I will see you guys later. So I just filmed a video so now I just want to give you a reading update so I'm still reading The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza. I have about three hours I think of the audiobook left. Yeah I really like it so far. I don't want to start it like I want to finish that before I start Black Witch but I still have finished Black Witch before the event and I'm just like what do I do? So I'm gonna just take it easy with Elena Mendoza and then I might start The Black Witch soon. I don't know. I need to do some more video planning today. I'm going out later so gonna be a busy day. It's Friday so for an update I read a graphic novel so I'll put it up on the screen. I read it in length the middle of the night. It was kind of bad but I just wish it was like one continuous graphic novel and not like many stories because it just doesn't add much and it doesn't mean much and I'm like I don't care but some of the art styles are cute but they like switch artists too so then some of the art styles I hate but some of them I love. So yeah that's for that. I ended up finishing the Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza. I really enjoyed this book. I'm giving it around four stars. I think a lot of people would like this. There was just a lot of messages in this. Like if you enjoyed We Are the Ants you'll enjoy this as well. It's still different from We Are the Ants obviously but some of the messages can be the same and it's just it was so good and I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook so I'd recommend doing that if you're interested. So this morning I just started The Black Witch on audiobook so it's 18 hours so that's nine hours of me listening to that double speed and I'll hopefully knock out like an hour this morning out of the nine and then see. I just have to finish this by the Sunday. Right now I'm like I listen to like three chapters. It's very info-dumby obviously because it's like a new fantasy first book but so far it's interesting. There's just like a lot of like I forgot for a minute how detailed fantasies can be with their kinds of people and the government and how magic works and this and that and it's a lot because I'm so like contemporary is usually my jam right but I still do read some fantasy but yeah I'm looking forward to continuing with this one. I'm also reading physically I'm reading The Wolf Wilder. This is by Catherine Rundle. I'm trying to get more into middle grade and I want to do like a big middle grade video for you guys or like a series of middle grade videos so I'm reading this one. I've read like two chapters but so far it's cute. It's very wintery so it makes me want like the winter season to come soon. So bad. Last year in Australia then you had the winter season. Lucky you. But yes that's my reading update. I'll talk to you guys later. So it is later and I just got my package from Kayla so if you don't know we do this book swap every now and then where we send each other like some books and some goodies and all that sort of stuff. We do it every summer and every Christmas so I will link all the previous ones down below. They are so much fun and I'll link a link. Her unboxing down below where she unboxes what I got her so let's jump into it. It's a pretty decent sized package here so we're gonna get right into it. So this is all wrapped and this is something that we started doing a while ago and I've continued to do and like wrap everything so it looks so cute. So I'm gonna open the card. I don't know if there's spoilers in the card or not but I'll open the card anyways. Oh it's cute. It's a little typewriter card. Yeah that's spoilers so I'll look at that later. So we'll open number one first. This may be like a pouch question mark. I'm not really sure. Ooh socks. I love socks. She knows I love socks. Yeah so this is just a little pair of two pairs of fuzzy socks. Thank you. I'm gonna be using these for sure. Number two. I knew she was gonna get this one for me. I knew it cuz she likes this book but this is The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn. Thank you so much. Tape tape. I'll get it off later. But thank you so much Kayla. I appreciate it. Three is this one. Oh no these are little notebooks. I mean so. Japan notebooks. These are perfect. Thank you. I cut it with the box. Yikes. Good job Julia. Sure it was just a cardboard. I knew it. Okay next is this one. Oh my god. This is it. Oh yeah I forgot this was on my list. Thank you. Oh my god. I forgot about this. This is Nevermore. I wanted to read this one. Thank you so much. Totally appreciate this. This was on my list. I didn't expect to get that though. I don't know. I just totally forgot about that. We now have number five which looks like a bookmark of sorts but it's a cat. Oh and I think she made these. Yes these are adorable. So this one she didn't make but this one she bought and then this one I believe she made. So yeah very cute. Thank you. Thanks. Oh my god this is like a little mirror. This is so cute. Oh my god it's a little Japanese mirror. Thank you. I love that. I love that you got all the Japanese stuff. Number seven. It's not gonna focus on it. Cool. This is like a little pouch and you can put whatever like maybe a little change in it. This feels super weird. I don't know what this is. Okay I knew it was gonna be a mass market but what mass market is this thick? Oh my god you got me the Way of Kings. Thank you. We had like a list like I have a to buy list on Goodreads. So I sent her that and she sent me her Amazon wish list to make sure we got books that we absolutely wanted but I forgot that all of these were on it or like I didn't expect her to get these ones but the Way of Kings they were in Sanderson. I'm trying to get more into fantasy and Jay from Catchment Wars talks about this so highly so I got it because of him. I also got Mistborn because of him. Nevermore I want to get into because it's supposed to be a really good middle grade. Sounds adorable it's like a little fantasy-esque one as well. I knew she was gonna get me the woman in the window because I know she loves it so I'm very excited to read this one and then we got some little notebooks, a coin purse, a mirror, two bookmarks. Thank you to Kayla for sending this all my way. Very much appreciated. We also got the socks and in the card there's the spoilers and stuff. Thank you so much Kayla I really appreciate it. Thanks. Anyways I'll catch you guys soon with another reading update. Hey guys so I'm just gonna be wrapping up this week's reading vlog. I really hope you guys enjoyed it. Comment a blue heart if you did and if you made it to the end I would really appreciate that. So yes to wrap up the books I read I read three books this week I read a graphic novel and two one novel and then one audiobook so that's pretty good for me. I read Bee and Puppycat Volume 2. This was just okay I think I gave it 2.5 stars. I'm not a really big fan of that series it's like sort of cute but then I read Heretics Anonymous which I loved and I'm giving like at least four stars. I would highly recommend it. I think it has a lot of interesting discussions about religion and it's also super funny and there is a really nice romance in it as well so I recommend that. And then also I finished the Apocalypse of Elements Doza. This book was so good I'm still thinking about this book it's basically about a girl who can heal people and I really enjoyed it and I would recommend the audiobook as well but this was just such a good read and I've been just thinking about it a lot. Like it's a very interesting concept and it was a very good read. So yes it was a good reading week. So I would suggest both of these books and thank you guys so so much for watching. Like, subscribe, comment, whatever you're feeling. Thank you so much for watching. Bye!