 Hello friends, welcome back to my channel and welcome to the first episode of watching the announcement video. This year's wrapped up is Wrapped Up Retro which is the 50 oldest books on my TBR. Wrapped Up and I'm Wrapped One and we read it. I'm feeling sick. I might not go back in. I'm gonna go home actually. I'm feeling probably more nervous for this than I ever have for Wrapped Up because I know there's quite a few starts of series. I know there's a lot of books that I am no longer as excited for because they've been on my TBR for four or five years. I'm feeling like my world is ending. Why am I not there? So yeah, we have to unwrap a book and we're gonna read it in this vlog. It's the first episode. I want it to be a good one. I want it to be a good one. I also don't want it to be a super long book because your girl has just been, you won't have seen the vlog yet but um your girl's been going through it. So what do I want to read? I'm feeling drawn. There's these two that I'm feeling drawn towards. Oh my god, I feel sick. Um god, I feel nervous. These are the two I'm choosing between. What am I gonna go? I keep changing my mind. I'm like, I'm gonna go for this one. No, I'm gonna go for this one. No, I'm gonna go for this one. No, I'm gonna go for this one. I'm gonna go for, I'm gonna go for, I have no idea. Oh my god, okay. I'm gonna go for the red one. Am I? Yes, I'm gonna go for the red one. No, you've made the wrong decision! I'm not looking at what it is. You can see what it is. Maybe. You're kidding me. And for the first episode is The Cousins by Karen M. McManus. This is, this was just in my video where I was like, these are the books I was supposed to unhaul in a year and I didn't. Now I'm, I am gonna read it. Oh my god. Get a grip, wee man. A lot of you told me this was trash and I should have just unhauled it, but we're gonna be reading it in this video. I told you that was a reason I was saving all those books. It was for wrapped up retro. Oh god, I've never had any Karen McManus. Everyone says this is her worst. If I hate this, I'm not gonna hold it again. So maybe I'll try out her books in the future. They don't super excite me. I got this in a book box. It's the only reason I own it. We've got cousins who were invited to spend the summer at their grandmother's resort. There's four children who were dropped by their mother with a single sentence you know what to do. I don't understand. Are those cousins the, the children's children? I don't, I don't understand. A lot of you told me this was shit, but I was kind of hoping not for a mystery though because I've just read so many mystery stories. Spoiler alert. But I guess we'll see how it goes. It's not too long and it's least, it's not the start of a series. Thank for Lord. Okay, we're gonna read the cousins, everyone. I'm not holding out hope that I'm gonna love this. I'm not gonna lie. So I am 100 pages into the cousins, but before I chat about this book with you, I want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video, which is Serious Readers. Do you guys know how much I love my Serious Light? And I just wanted to share my love for it again because it's genuinely my favorite thing. I love it so much. So this is a reading light and the great thing about this reading light is it uses daylight wavelengths technology which mirrors the daylight spectrum as closely as possible. So it's not a harsh blue light on your eyes. It's very gentle. It feels very natural to our bodies. Our bodies are like, yeah, I know it's up here. And you know, it's December here in the UK. It's dark babes. It's dark babes. It's dark divorce, babe. It's really dark. And so I just find I'm using this all day, every day. Generally, I struggle with seasonal affective disorder and I do have a special lamp that I use for that. 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But let's try about my thoughts about the book. My thoughts are it's fine. Fine. I, you know, I'm not loving it. I don't feel like it's offensively bad. It's, it's fine. So basically, all you need to know about this is there's this rich ass family, there were four kids, and the mother dropped them one day, you know, disinherited them, said, you know what you did. Is that what he said? Yeah, you know what you did. Bitch. That's what she said. Bitch. And then the three children of some of those children. So the cousins receive a strange invite to like the family resort on this island, and they're gonna work there. And that's basically it. And I'm 100 pages in. I haven't told you I'm 100 pages in. It's fine. There's something about this that is reminding me of We Reliars by E. Lockhart. And I think that just could be like the family on an island thing. I read We Reliars when I was like 12, 13, something around that age. And I am recently discovering I have a very bad memory, which we need to improve. I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't remember things other people can remember. But there's something about it that is like scratching the part of my brain that like remembers reading We Reliars. Is it We Reliars or If We Reliars? No, it's We Reliars. See, I don't even remember the title. I don't remember. I don't remember love. I don't remember at all. I really don't. I know for a long time ago. It's such a faint memory. It's like really, it's not even really a memory anymore. It's like a shadow of a memory and it's scratching at it. But it could just be because Family on an Island, which I think that book has. So don't take my word that they're similar. We did just have a plot twist that I did not see coming. Maybe I should have, but I did not see coming and I enjoyed the plot twist. Listen, I went into this with such good expectations because when this was in my books, I should have unhauled video. Loads of you told me you've read this and they're your least favorite Karen and McManus. You think it's shit. I should just unhaul it. You know, so I'm going into this with like probably the lowest expectations I probably could for a book that's on my TBR. But I'm not hating it. I think the writing's okay. I think the mystery is okay. I think the setting is pretty good. I will say we have got mixed perspective. We are alternating between the cousins, three cousins perspectives. We also had one flashback so far into the past, one of the siblings perspectives, but for the most part it's the cousins. And I will say there is no difference between the perspectives in terms of narrative voice. And that is a bit of a bugbear for me. Is that the right word? I'm having a bit of a mare today guys, from honesty. That is a bit of a pet hate. That might be the right word for me. When if you're going to do mixed perspectives, there has to be a reason. And like part of that reason has to be they're each giving me a different flavor. They're not. It's the same writing. It's the same voice. It's the same thought processes. I guess for this one, the reason is they might have secrets, but like you can reveal... You could easily do that with one perspective, right? I don't think the three perspectives is adding anything to this. And I don't think the different perspectives are done well in this. Yes. Yes. That's just what I'm having. So you know, it's okay. It's my prevailing thought. I am mintry to see what happens. I'm glad that I am finally reading this. I do think that if I was 12 or 13, I would have eaten this up. So like we have to remember YA at the end of the day, it's written for young adults. And I think there is a space for older YA and younger YA. Like I think there's space for YA written for 11, 12, 13. Because let's be honest, once you're in secondary school, you're reading YA. You're not reading middle grade anymore. So there's a space for YA for 11, 12, 13-year-olds and there's a space for like 14, 15, 16, 17-year-olds, right? But I always do have a bit of a problem with younger YA because there's something about it I don't have an issue with middle grade that I do have an issue with. And we know this. This is 10 years old as time, right? And I think sometimes I struggle to separate, is this a book written for younger YA or is it shit? Because it's shit! Because we think of YA as one blob, right? With middle grade, I know what I'm getting. And so I never feel like middle grade really, unless the book is bad, like I never feel like middle grade disappoints me in that way that younger, what I call younger YA, that I often term as like, oh, I think this must be younger YA, often is shit. For me. I find that a difficult thing to balance, but it's fine. I'm enjoying it somewhat. It's an easy read at the end of the day and I'm glad that Wrapped Up has forced me to read this because otherwise, you know, this would have been on my TBR forever. Never, never to be read. But I don't think it's gonna get above a four. It might, it'll be lucky to scrape a four. I think it will be a three-star middle of the road. Maybe a 2.5, maybe a 3.5. It's not offensive to me, but it's not great. So yes, I'll see you in the morning, but hopefully I've read some more, but it's just fine. It's just a bit boring, isn't it? It's just a bit boring. What do you want me to say? Bored shitless! Oh, here's the thing. I'm 200 pages into this now. Babes, it's not bad. Do you know what I mean? It's not bad, but it ain't great. One thing I need to say, it has a trope in it that is common throughout some way. I really don't want to say what it is because it was actually a gag, right? An element of this trope. But it just has a trope that's a little bit icky and I don't like it. And I don't want to say what it is because I don't want to spoil it. But I don't like whenever this is done. If you've read the book, you probably know what I'm talking about. Between Jonah and Millie and the implications and like, early on in the book and I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. It makes me uncomfortable. I don't like it. Really the biggest problem with this is there is absolutely nothing, not a zilch, moving this plot forward. There's nothing. There's nothing that I care about. There's nothing that I am invested in. It's just words on a page. There's nothing moving the story forward for me. It's the trope. I guess the mystery is why the grandmother cut their parents off. But I don't really care about that because we don't know their parents. We don't really know anything about their parents. We have Alison, who is Millie's mother, one of the cousins. We have Alison's perspective in the past. So Alison's the one I'm most interested in, but she's the least we hear about in the present. This makes zero sense because we now know why they were invited to the island. So that's no longer the mystery. So the only mystery is what did they do? What did their parents do? But I'm invested in these children and they don't even really care about what they get out of this. If they get inheritance, they don't really care. So no one cares about anything. I don't care about anyone. And it just leaves us on a bit of a sticky situation. Does anybody care? Oh my god. Do you care? I don't think the writing is bad. I just kind of don't see why this exists. No, I'm being genuinely truthful. I don't get it. I don't see why this exists. So maybe because this is a standalone, and I believe current Manus is used to writing series, at least that's my assumption. Maybe she didn't really understand how to paste a standalone. But like, this is a classic example of YA that I don't like where just nothing is happening. There's nothing is happening. How have you got like a fast-paced YA thriller with a lot of scenes and yet not much is happening? Anyways, I'm going to finish it tonight. I apologize that there hasn't been anything really Christmassy in this first Christmassy vlog. We haven't done anything Christmassy yet. But in all the other laptop vlogs, there will be Christmassy activities. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no. It is what it is. It is what it is. But I am not loving it. And I'm just excited to finish it and be done with it at the moment. It's probably sitting at a three-star because it's not offensive. It's like a 2.53 for me at the moment. We'll see how it ends. But it's just aggressively mediocre. Well, that was fun. Chat soon, guys. We need to be honest. It's really bad. I've turned bitter and spiteful. Don't even like myself. I'm going to give it a two-star, okay? I'm giving it a two-star. And the biggest thing I have to say is I, when you see me in those earlier clips being slightly positive, that's because at different stages in a book, you expect different things from a book, right? A third of the way in, you're like, right, we've just set up a scene. This could go so many places. Two thirds of the way through the book, you're like, wow, the ending could really amp up and so many amazing things could happen. And at the end, right now, I'm like, well, nothing happened. You expect, you still have some expectations of what a book can do and how a book can save the day a little bit. And this, it didn't do that. It didn't do that. We were at pages, this is 320 pages. We were at page 260, 270 before they were even thinking about trying to figure out what's going on. And then everything just happened in two seconds and it was the most unsatisfying ending ever. But at least there's another book off the TBR. We just got to view it in that way. And I want to talk about the thing that I was referencing earlier that I didn't want to spoil. I'm going to spoil it. So I'm going to put spoilers up on the screen because we need to talk about it, right? Okay, so you go into this thinking they're all cousins, okay? Millie and Jonah, when they first meet each other, she's like, oh my God, my cousin's so hot. And he's like, wow, she's so beautiful. And like, then the twist is that you find out that Jonah is not the cousin. It's one of his cousin's friends or not even friends, like a guy from his school who he's paying to impersonate him because he didn't want to come, right? And then Jonah and Millie fall in love and start making out. And there's a ball where they're making out and everyone sees them and everyone's shocked because they're like, you're fucking cousins. And they end up dating, okay? And here's the thing, obviously they're not related, right? But I feel like YA, and this is like a big, you know, Cassandra Clare did it, whatever, like I feel like YA, it likes to like play with an incest trope and I'm not here for it. Like, even though they're not related, it's a little bit like, but you thought they were. You know what I mean? I feel like YA just sometimes has a bit of a problem with this and I don't, I don't want to see even tease it. I don't want to see you even think about it. I don't want it to even be a discussion. Like why? There didn't need to be romance in this. They didn't even fall for each other. They didn't need to be this, you know, oh, I thought he was my cousin, but he's not, which means I can fancy him now. Like, do you know what I mean? YA does this a lot where like, it's not like, oh my god, it's actual incest, but it's like, you know, playing with it. And I'm just not here for it. Okay. Spoilers over. Yeah. This doesn't make me, you know, very excited to pick up a future Karen and McManus, but I probably, I mean, if I have to, I'll try. One of us is lying or whatever it was. You all told me this was the worst one and then I should just not bother reading it. But it's just so nothing. Like this did not need to be published. In what world did this need to be published? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Karen, but it's the truth. What, this did not need to come out. This, it's gonna stay in the drafts. Like it's just so unremarkable that, yeah, I'm giving it two stars. It's not a one star because it could have been worse there were moments where I was like, this is okay. So I'm giving it a two. Tom also said, if your name was Karen McManus, why would you add your middle name initial because then it's Karen Anus? He wanted, he wanted me to tell you all that. He thinks that's a very important philosophical question. Two stars. Well, it's not a great start to wrap up, is it Besties? I'm sorry, there wasn't a ton of B-roll in this vlog. I didn't do a lot these past couple days, but more exciting stuff will be happening in the future in the future wrapped up vlogs. But thank you guys so much for hanging out with me. Let me know what you thought of this. Hopefully, I feel like last year our first book was a two star. So maybe we just, the first book is not good vibes. It's not good luck. It wrapped up and hopefully next week's episode will be. So I will see you then. Again, make sure you check out Serious, read us down below. And thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.