 Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. The Thousand Dolls readathon is about to start. The weekend edition of The Thousand Dolls Readathon is about to begin. I am so excited but I'm also very tired. I think you can tell by my face that I'm extremely tired today. If you don't know me, I'm a grandma. Being awake in midnight or like, alert at midnight is not normal for me. It's almost midnight. The first prompts of the the weekend edition of The Thousand Dolls Readathon are about to open for everyone and start. I am so excited. I love this readathon. I think it's like the most fun readathon ever. Listen, not to to our horn, our collective horn, but I love it. I love the readathon. I obviously know what my first prompt is but I haven't watched MAs or Tasmans. I don't know. See, I quite like my prompt. I feel like that girl thinks she is disgusting, stupid, a lot of rat. So I don't know if I'll go with mine or if I'll go with all of theirs. If you don't know, by the way, Thousand Dolls Readathon is a kind of choose-your-own-adventure star readathon that me and Emma and Tasman host. I am relegated downstairs because my boyfriend is asleep upstairs. Like I said, we are we are we are old. So he's asleep where all my books are. But I grabbed four before I came down here that I think are like good lengths for for a readathon. So I grabbed Blackout, which is like this anthology. If I disappear, which is a thriller with like this true crime podcast element, I grabbed a graphic novel called Quarantine Comics. This is set, I believe in like the first lockdown. It's just like a cute little comic book style thing. So that would be really quick to read, which I listen. That feels like a vibe. And this one's a little bit longer, but I grabbed Love and Other Natural Disasters by Misa Seguria. I'm really excited to read this. This is like a sapphic YA romance. So they're kind of like where my initial thoughts are of my like 2021 releases that I feel like are manageable in a readathon. I am going to be with you as the prompts go live. And I will fill myself watching Emma and Tasman's. And then I'll decide whether I want to go with mine or one of theirs. Okay, change your plan. I'm too tired to make a good decision right now. So what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to post a poll on my Instagram and Twitter now for in case I do my prompt and then I'm going to watch their prompts in the morning and decide then because I'll be much better for you and I'll be much better for me. Good morning. This was definitely the right decision. I've looked at the polls that I put up for my prompt. If you don't know, my prompt was this meme. I mean, let me ask the audience. And so I put a poll up to ask the audience what I should read. And the winner of that is If I Disappear by Eliza Jane Brezier. I don't know if I'm going to read this. That's not happening. All right. I'm going to go watch Emma and Tasman's videos first and then we'll make a decision because I want to see what their prompts are. Okay, so let's watch Emma's prompt. My theme throughout this readathon is going to be games. So all of my prompts will be about games. As you know, I just love new games. So for this first prompt, we'll play a little mini game of Articulate. This is so much fun. So the first prompt is going to be owl. The word owl. All of our prompts are deliberately left super open for you to interpret them however you want. Okay. Okay. So that's Emma's prompt owl, wisdom. Do you know what, honey? See you later. Take care, my love. Call me again. I don't know. What would I read for that? I have no idea what I'd read for that. Let's find out what Tasman's prompt is. Out to the important. Oh, give me the prompt. Okay. My first prompt for you guys is the Man of Skins live performance at the Eurovision 2021 final of their song Zita of Borny. If you haven't seen this, you're in for a treat. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we've got owl or we've got the Eurovision performance. Hang on. I'm just going to watch it again, but I can't put it in because copyright. You can't hear this, but I can. Here's the thing. I don't, no. I don't know what to do. I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing. I'm going to do Emma's prompt. I'm going to take the idea of a night owl. You know, owls are associated with the night and I'm going to read blackout by all of these amazing authors because this is set at night in a blackout in New York. So I'm going to read this. That's how I'm making the link. I thought it's a good link. Owls, night time, night owl, blackout. Okay. I'm going to do Emma's prompt. I feel like this is what I need right now and it's only like 250 pages, not long at all. So I feel like we'll be able to read it quite fast. I'm actually going to pop out now and go get my second vaccine. I'm hoping it doesn't knock me out for the readathon and I don't have any like bad reactions. Okay, vaccine went fine. I haven't actually started blackout yet but we're just about to have our first live show with like reading sprints for the readathon. It's currently three o'clock. So I'm going to start this now and I don't think it will take me that long to get through it. I haven't read any more than what I read in the live show. So I'm only 70 pages in. I love this. The obsession that I got with it was was borderline unhealthy. I don't know how I'm going to integrate into society after this. So so far I've read the long walk part one mask off the long walk part two and made to fit. So this is a anthology. It's a story, a collaboration story by all these black authors about a blackout in New York and there's all these kind of romance stories that are happening amongst the blackout. And we open with Tiffany D Jackson story and that's called the long walk. That's about this kind of ex couple who both turn up to this company for an internship they both think they've got and it turns out only one of them can get it but just as they're about to find out who's got it the lights go out and they have to you know walk back to where they live. It's like the other side of New York. They decide to walk back together and their story is going to kind of take from what I understand is going to kind of take us through the rest of the story. So they're kind of like passing one of the stories. They maybe mentioned something. So in the first one she mentioned oh I can't imagine what it must be like for all the people trapped in the subway and then we cut to a story about people trapped in the subway and so they're taking us through the rest of the story and that's the only story that's in parts and all the other authors short stories are like singular blocks if that makes sense. I'm loving it. I think it's so much fun. I think it's really really interesting. I've read it so far so far. I have never read from any of these authors apart from Angie Thomas but I do own Don Yel Clayton and Tiffany D Jackson's stuff so I'm this is making me even more excited to read their stuff. I'm really excited to read Don Yel Clayton's story but I've really enjoyed Tiffany D Jackson's one so far and I just think this is such a fun idea and all of the stories are kind of slightly interconnected so I listened to this podcast called First Draft Podcast. They did an episode on there. It's like a writing podcast and they spoke about how the father of the love interest in one of the stories is in another story and they're all linked and a lot of the characters know each other and it's just super interesting. I'm loving it. I love the whole concept and I feel like this is such a great pick for readathon. I am gonna go shower now and then I probably am just gonna try and finish the whole rest of this thing this evening if I'm honest. I'm really excited. I'm excited to just like take my makeup off, come into bed and finish the book. I just love it. I love it already. I'm really really enjoying it. I would recommend to you that you pick it up if you've been interested in it or kind of eyeing it up already. I've only read 70 pages so... Welcome to day two of the weekend edition. I finished Blackout this morning and I really really loved it. I'm gonna give it four stars. I just didn't have that like five star feeling but I would still really recommend this. Wait, hang on let me shift over so you can see the queen herself. Ladies and gentlemen, her. Ladies and gentlemen, her. I loved this. I loved all the different romance stories. I loved how many different kinds of stories there were. There was so much sexual representation. There was some gender representation. It was just beautiful. A beautiful story. I really loved how all the stories kind of like flowed together and linked up to one another and one thing that I think really sets us apart and makes it so great is that often with like if you have anthologies where it's lots of short stories they'll be quite different in tone. Like you'll feel very differently about some short stories. Some might be a five, some might be a two you know. But in this it was such a cohesive voice. You almost couldn't tell the differences between your authors. It was very slight you could but they were so cohesive and obviously the the vision that they had for this book and the kind of journey it was gonna take on and they they worked on it together that it felt so cohesive in a way that kind of like collaborations often don't. I think this is great if you love romance or if you don't typically read a lot of romances. I think this would be great as well because they're just these kind of short meet-cutes or little stories of like little moments and it teaches self-love and you know putting the importance of yourself above relationships. I just really really loved it. I think it was great. I would really recommend it. I need to find out what my next prompt is so I need to go back to Emma's video and click through. I think the question is what star rating did you give it? So I'll click through the four to five star door. JK my food has just arrived. There's this new bagel place that has just opened up in town and we've literally been waiting an hour. I think my parents have been queuing a long time so I'm gonna go eat bagels and then I'll come back and choose my next book. I'm back. I'm back. I had my bagel so now we're going to see what my next prompt is. You ready to look? I'm excited. I got Emma again. I'm so glad that you so enjoyed your last book. I did. That is great news. So let's see if I can do just a file and give you a prompt for a second book that you're also going to enjoy. So the next game we're gonna play. I love Dixie. Me and my family play it. It's not as popular a game as it is. Such a great game. So I'm gonna randomly select one of these cards and that is gonna make up our next prompt. Okay. Oh my god, I'm nervous. So this is the one. Here you go. I have an idea for this book so I feel like Emma's gonna give some tips on how we could interpret it but I'm just gonna go with what my gut is. I feel like this picture kind of looks like positivity in the hard times. I think I associate a tree with no leaves aka winter time with sadness because... Sees my depression. The tree's kind of got like a half smile and he's got these flowers. So I think I'm gonna try and pick a book. I'm saying this as if I have a book like that but like positivity in difficult times. So I'm gonna go look at my card and I'll be right back. Okay I managed to find one that I think is gonna be perfect. So I'm gonna read Quarantine Comics by Rachel Smith. This is a like comic book strip style graphic novel about lockdown and I think on the back it says an award winning graphic memoir of lockdown life. Quarantine Comics is a funny tender heartfelt and insightful look at isolation and loneliness. So I feel like it's gonna be looking at this hard time that we all struggled with like lockdown but kind of trying to look at the positive side of it or trying to look for the joy in such a difficult time. And I've wanted to read it for ages. This was very kindly sent to me by Iconbook so thank you Iconbooks for sending this my way. And I'm so glad I'm finally gonna give it a read. I'm very excited. So I finished Quarantine Comics by Rachel Smith and I really love this you guys. I'm gonna give this 4.5 stars. This was just such a great graphic novel. I loved the illustration style. The facial expressions were really great. That's always one of my favorite things and those really important to me in my enjoyment of a graphic novel is the facial expressions of the characters. I think it makes such a big difference. If I love the facial expressions it just makes me love the book. Simple as. When a graphic novel has cute facial expressions. Sorry this is incredible. And there's um her cat in this as well. The cat like talks and is a character and he gets super cool. And also her depression is this like hang on is it a dog? An imaginary dog called Barkie. And yeah it kind of takes us from the start of lockdown in the UK through all the way to like I guess like the end of last year the end of 2020. And it's funny. It's heartwarming but it's you know it's relatable because it's dealing with the bad kind of mental health side effects and difficulties that a lot of us struggled with in lockdown. So the duality of it I really appreciate and I think that's useful when it's talking about such a difficult topic. We're all going through similar things and it's really important that we talk about it. Such a insightful look at loneliness. And yeah I really enjoyed it. So it's time to find out what I'm going to be reading as my last book. I think the question is what's the ending satisfying? And this doesn't really have an ending because it's not like your traditional story. But I think I'm still going to say yes because I liked the epilogue. Oh it's me! Welcome to your third door. Let me just scrub your actually and find out what only is. Okay this is one of my this is one of my favorite favorite memes. So obviously for this you would typically choose a mystery. Here's the thing with a lot of my mysteries like I feel very protective of them that I want to read them at the best time. And let me tell you right now I am tired. I didn't sleep well last night from the vaccine and I am just exhausted. Okay I picked what I'm going to read and it's actually what you guys voted for me to read if I'd start with my prompt in the first place for Thousand Doors. I know it's If I Disappear by L.A. to Jane Brazier. This is about this woman who loves true crime podcasts but her favorite podcast host disappears. She travels to where that woman was living to try and find her. Now this hasn't got great reviews. It's got like something like a 3.1 average rating on Goodreads which is low. So people haven't been loving it so I am a bit tentative to read it but sometimes I find I do disagree with everyone and end up loving books that everyone else hated. I am about 100 pages into If I Disappear and it's okay. Like it's okay. It's fine. So basically we are following this woman who's obsessed with these true crime podcasts and the woman who does the true crime podcast goes missing and she decides I'm going to go find her house, the farm that her family lives on and I'm going to go pretend to, you know, I want to work for them and I'm going to infiltrate them to find out the truth. That's suspicious. That's weird. She's like a bit obsessed with the woman who does the true crime podcast so it's a bit like unreliable narrator I think and I am feeling like that's the route we're going to go down. I'm not sure I can really trust the narrator is what I'm feeling right now. I don't know. It's just nothing is, I'm a bit bored. I'm just feeling a bit bored and not not not not very interested. I've been feeling like this a lot with thrillers and mysteries lately. I've just been a bit bored. The atmosphere of the farm isn't interesting me enough and just nothing's really grabbed me yet but also I'm listening to the audio because well and they haven't taken advantage of the podcast element. Each chapter opens with a section of one of the podcasts and also we occasionally have snippets from the podcast. I just feel like we could put like a sound over that and make it sound like it's a podcast or something. Like I feel like we do something because it's just not really grabbing me yet. I'm not feeling that interested. I need it to amp up a bit because I'm not super engaged in it right now. Besties. This book was bad. It was bad. It's actually the next day because it took me so long to read this because I hated it. I should have actually DNF'd it. This was a struggle to get through and it is short. I just don't even want to talk about it. You know what you've read? Okay sometimes I read a book and it's so bad. I'm excited. You know excited to talk about it and sometimes I read a book and it's so bad. I don't even want to discuss it. I don't want to discuss the experience of reading this. It was so boring. It was so boring. Like it was it was it was so boring. The twist was annoying. There was nothing that had led up to it and yet it was predictable at the same time. I knew that was where we were going the whole book but like we didn't set it up for that. How can it be both things at once? That doesn't compute. I had the audiobook and the physical book and I was still bored. That sensory like you know I've got all my senses covered and I'm still bored. How is that even possible? I don't understand. I was angry. I was angry. And I'm just annoyed. I'm just annoyed because I wanted to love it. It had a podcast element but the podcast wasn't taken advantage of. If you're going to bring in that gimmick let's at least have fun. Do you know what I mean? Let's at least go for something but we didn't go for anything. So I wouldn't recommend this book. It hasn't got very good reviews and I can understand why. I just felt like the ending yeah it was just like a cheap ending for me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said it. I literally have nothing to say because I literally switched my brain off when I read this book. I was that bored. I was that bored. I generally have no thoughts and we ended a thousand doors on a disappointing end. I'm sorry. I hope you guys enjoyed the readers one anyway. I still had pretty good reads on my first two. They were still great reads but this one it was just bad. Make sure you let me know down below if you're participated or maybe if you're still participating. There's no real like time limit on this. The prompts will be up forever. You can do it as many times as you want but yeah I hope you had a lot of fun. We had so much fun hosting it. I love it. I love a thousand doors. I love interacting with you all like having fun reading together doing the live shows. So I still had a lot of fun even if this last book was like a struggle to get to and I feel like it's ruined my life a little bit. Like I feel like it's like put me in a bit of a life slump. It's gone now. She's over. I'm gonna read some middle grade I think to kind of cleanse my soul. I feel like I need that and yeah I'll see you guys very soon with another video and thank you so much again for taking part. Bye!