 So it is eight days into the year and I have not read anything yet. I mentioned this in my last video but I spent the first week of this year rotting in bed, like the illest I've been in recent memory. I was so ill and I couldn't read because I couldn't film and I couldn't read without filming it for you and documenting my first book the year together because it's a very important occurrence. So in today's video we're going to be doing something I started doing last year and I think is going to be a running trend where I do a first chapter try a chapter tag to decide what my first book the year is because I need a five star. We need this. This is essential. This is a crisis. I have a superstition that if I only have five stars my first book of the year it's not going to be a good year. I think I only had one year since like 2019 where my first book of the year hasn't been a 4.5 or 5 and that year was not a good year. So it's like superstitious. It needs to be a 4.5 or 5 and we're going to find out together and I've got some books and we're going to try the first chapter of today and I'm very excited. Last year when I did this I had three books in mind that like were very clearly these are the three I'm going to try out. I tried out Little and Bone by Teaking Fisher, Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield and Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldry. I read Legends and Lattes in the last year's vlog. It was my second favorite book of the year. Last year was a good year and actually I picked right based on the first chapter because the other two books were like like fours to me. They weren't fives. So hopefully we'll be able to pick right based on the first chapter of these as well. And this year I was struggling. So last year I had a very clear idea of what those three books were going to be. These are the books I'm going to try out as my first book of the year. This year I didn't really have a very clear idea and so in my last reading sprint the year of my patrons we came up with a list together that is a good variety. We've got a really good variety because we've got five books we're going to be trying out the first chapter of. So let me hand you back to that live show when we figured it out together. I oh yeah I haven't thought about this. Maybe we'll just we'll chat about this in the next break in between sprints because I haven't decided. It has to be five star predictions. I'm hesitant to put book shops and bone dust in there because I feel like the expectations are too high. Obviously Legends of Lartes was the one I chose first this year. I don't know we'll discuss that what books we think should be. Guys we need to have a discussion about what my first book of the year should be. What the three choices are. I don't think I should I'm I don't think I should put book shops and bone dust in the top five because I think I think there's a strong chance I don't love it as much as Legends of Lartes and I'm disappointed by it. I don't think I'm I don't think I should even I hesitate not even putting it in the three let alone then choosing it as the book. How to tell a haunted house by Grady Hendrix. I just got everyone in my family has killed someone. The last words a good shout. The last words a good shout. Maybe the last word. Love theoretically by Ali Hazel words. Monstrario. Maybe Monstrario. Everyone in my family has killed someone. That is a possibility. Love theoretically. That is a good mix. That is a good mix. Love theoretically. Monstrario everyone. That's a good different but that might be it. Oh Starling House. I think I'm gonna enjoy it but is it a risk for fire? Like maybe that's too much for a risk. Oh my god. Only only wilds with a few fairies. That could be a possibility. That could be a possibility. Everyone in my family was a fire star for me but I don't think it's everyone would be a good one to go in the video to do a taste off that yeah interesting. I could try the first chapter of five books. Yeah. Yes. Love theoretically. Monstrario and everyone in my family. I think that's a good I think that's a good choice. Okay. Do I want to do five? Do I want to add five so I add Emily Wilds? Oh the last word. Okay maybe I'll add that instead of okay I'm gonna write this down so I don't forget. We are putting love theoretically. We are putting Monstrario. We are putting everyone in my family has killed someone. We're putting the last word. Then we're putting Emily Wilds with Cyclopedia. Okay I'm feeling good about that. I am feeling good about that. Okay fun. So yeah we have got two five star authors. We've got Allie Hayes would love theoretically if I want to start off with a romance. Allie Hayes would I think I gave Love on the Brain 4.5 but it really is a five and I gave Love Hypothesis five stars. Allie Hayes would it's a five star author for me. I haven't given her anything less than a five star so that feels like a safe bet but I don't know if people have loved this one as much. Then we have got the last word by Taylor Adams for me no exit is the perfect thriller. A classic? Classic. Not debatable. Not afraid to beat. It is the thriller. It is the thriller. So I feel like this one would be a really good bet. I've heard it's kind of camp ridiculous. I think if anyone's gonna love it it's gonna be me. So we've got those two and then I think we've got three debuts which I know is risky business but I'm feeling pretty good about this. We have got a fantasy with Emily Wilds in Psycho Peter Ferris. Everyone who read this last year loved it. Everyone I'm behind with the times but this is like if we want to go down a cozy fantasy route again because we did that with legends and lattes at the start of last year. It could be a vibe where I read like a cozy fantasy at the start of the year always because I feel like that's quite nice the start of the year. We have got a horror with Monstrillo. Again I've heard so many good things about this one. Everyone's been enjoying it and there's just something about the cover. I'm gonna be honest it gives me five feelings. It's one of the books I want to read most. And then we have got everyone in my family has killed someone for a murder mystery that is very meta. You know I love a book that takes something to the next level that is imaginative. I believe the first chapter of this. I believe in the first chapter of this you find out everyone in this series kills someone. Oh no and you also find out what pages murders are gonna happen which is very exciting. Some of these have prologues. I think for most of them I'm gonna read the prologue and the first chapter. I think the last word has a prologue that's like 10 pages so I'll probably just treat that as the first chapter. But this one and love theoretically have short prologues so I'm gonna read the prologue and the first chapter for those. We're gonna get started on reading but it's snowing outside so Tom and I are gonna go on a snow walk first. Hopefully it doesn't ruin my makeup too much. We're gonna go for a nice little walk in the snow and then I'll come back and get cozy and start these books. But yeah this is actually my first time filming since I've been off ill in like two weeks although you will have seen a video before this is my first time filming. And like it's like we never left but also I don't know how am I doing. It feels very strange as we feel very strange to read but then I'm just gonna probably read most of today. Do some Patreon stuff but mostly read so yeah I'll see you in a little bit once we start reading the first chapters. Okay we're back from the walk. It like stopped snowing as soon as we went out and it was like it was kind of snowing but it was so fine the camera wouldn't have seen. So we're back and we're gonna start reading the first chapters of these bad boys. I'm just gonna pick one up and begin. Should we just get into it? I'm excited to get all cosy and to read for the first time like two weeks. What is going on? Okay let's start and I'll read maybe two or three first chapters and then let you know my thoughts. Read the first two chapters of two of our books and we're in trouble because we've already got two very strong contenders. What? No. I'm a little bit concerned. So first I read the first chapter of Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia for Fairies and I don't know much about what's going on. Our girlie has travelled to somewhere... bracket of place vibe we're getting. She's travelled there to study fairies. She's writing about them. She's studying them and it's written from her perspective that she breaks a fourth-world address as us as a reader. So like early on it's like um as with previous journals I presume a basic understanding of dried... dried dadology. Oh drier, drier, drier um in the reader. Though I will gloss certain references that may be unfamiliar to those new fields and I just love that. I love that. I just love that. I love when a book is like self-aware and it's like a thing. Like she is writing her journal of her studying and she's directing. She's talking to us directly. Emily, Emily, speak to me. I don't know. I loved the writing style of this and she just finds this little cottage with a sheep in it and it's her and her doggy and they're gonna go study fairies together and I really really enjoyed it. That's a strong contender. And then I read the first chapter of Love Theoretically by Ellie Hayes Wood and guys we're in trouble because I'm eating it up. Okay it's a thing. We know me and Ellie get along. We know I love her but there's just something about the chemistry of this one. I'm just eating up straight away. I like love... I love the couple straight away. I love them. The obsession that I got with it was was borderline unhealthy. I don't know how I'm gonna integrate in society after this. This one I thought it was fake dating again and I was like a little bit concerned because love hypothesis was fake dating and I was like why are we doing that again so quickly? But our girly is like a girlfriend for hire. She's a fake dating you know professional. She's a professional in it but the romance is gonna be with the brother of one of her favorite clients and like the first chapter was just with straightening the deep end with her going to an event with that client and seeing the brother there and like... Oh I'm already eating up their chemistry. Oh the way they spoke to each other. He's like trying to... you can tell he knows. He knows his brother in dating this girly because this girly is meant for him and he's like trying to capture out on the lies and he does capture out on the lies because she don't know shit about this guy. He's like what is this and she says it's a science but it's a meditation retreat and he's just... he's connecting the dots because he's like this is the girly for me. There ain't no way my brother's dating her when the the cosmic fates have aligned that me and her should be together. So I'm really enjoying both of these from the first chapter. What? I... and these are all pretty strong contenders. I'm just gonna go read the first chapter of these now and then I will check in with you. I'm just gonna like speedrun these three but I... I don't know what to do with myself because I thought I was gonna... like this is gonna be easy. I don't think this is gonna be easy. I think there's gonna be a lot of good first chapters. Oh no. This is a problem because these are maybe all five star first chapters. I don't know what to do... I don't know what to do with myself. Thank you. This is all... I don't know what else to say. Thank you. It's amazing. It's so amazing to me. This is just mind-blowing. Let me review them and then we have to make a decision. So Monster Leo... this is... this first chapter opens up. We get it. We get straight into it, right? We don't hesitate. We get it. I'm straight into it. All of these first chapters, I feel like we're actually really good at diving straight into it. Anyway, this first chapter, our protagonist's son dies. Like child son dies and her and her husband are there with him when he passes and they're grieving and she decides she wants a piece of him and that piece is part of his lung. So she cuts him open and gets part of his lung. So if you saw my face I was like, you know, when it comes to me in horror, I do tend to read campier horror as we know, and this was quite intense from the get-go. So I don't know if this is like a five star prediction for me personally. I don't know. I don't know. I just feel like this is very different to other horror I tend to enjoy, but I did love this first chapter. I thought it was incredibly grossing. I could already feel the grief seeping out of the page. I don't know if it's a bit depressing. I feel like it's going to be very sad and about people dying and grieving them, but I think it's going to be a great book. I just don't know if it's the tone to hit the start of the year off with them. If you asked me my prediction of what I thought was going to, I was going to choose out this five, my prediction probably would have been everyone in this family, everyone in my family, I was going to touch wrong, everyone in my family has killed someone. And this one, there is a prologue where it tells you, I love it, it tells you all the pages of which your murder is going to occur and kind of sets up the rules and sets up like how this is like a self-aware murder mystery. Oh my God, it's so good. And then we get into the first chapter of his brother killing someone. I just love the meta-ness. Like I always say guys, I always say, I feel like now to get a five star from me, the book has to take a genre and imagine it in like a new and fun and exciting way. Do you know what I mean? It has to push the boundaries of the genre. And that's exactly what this is. It's meta, it's taking, making, taking the mick out of it. There's like a quote from a detection club at the start. I just love it. I love it. The detection club is like, um, it was a club of writers in the golden age of crime of like Agatha Christie was one, Dorothy Elsayers was one, my guy, Anthony Berkeley, my first ever solving video was one. So yeah, I loved that. And then there was like a rules of murder mysteries. And then like the book is going to flow the route. I love it. Well, the stage presence, I've got the voice, I've got the looks and I just have everything and I know I have. However, I don't know if there was too much pressure on this one and me thinking it was going to be the one I was going to pick, but I don't know if the right, I'm overthinking it. Like if this has been another selection of books, I would absolutely be picking this, but I know I've got, I have got too much choice. Yeah, there's something about the writing style that I don't know if it was 100% for me. And then, I mean, I loved it. I'm overthinking. I'm just like, is this five star, five star, five star writing for me? Do you get what I'm saying? Even though it probably is. Oh, I'm struggling. And then we have the last word by Taylor Adams, where our girly has just read this, the most terrible book she has ever read in her life. And she goes, I'm in one star. Yep, one star. And like says how shit this book is. And he, the author of the book is like, take it down, bitch. No, he starts off a bit friendlier, but by the end he's like, take it down, bitch. And from what I know of this story, it's going to be like a bit of a, I think he's going to like stalk her. I don't know. But the idea, I just love this idea as someone who reviews books online, sometimes in a very favourable way. I try to always be honest. Like honest, I don't want to lie and say I like to book more than I did just because I don't want to be mean, right? But I try not to dunk on a book unnecessarily and I try to meet books where they are. But sometimes a book stinks and I'm going to say it. And sometimes people don't like that, you know? There's always people on the fourth wing, the fourth wing vlog like, she's stupid. She didn't understand why there was that info dump, but it makes total sense because explained, just because you explain why the info dump is there doesn't mean it's valid or validated. So the idea of this book is incredible. I don't know what, generally it's like ip dip do between all five. Okay. Okay, I'm overthinking this. Let me take a quick moment to say a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video, Serious Readers, My Serious Light, which I use to read all the first chapters of the book has helped me out filming this video this evening. So let's cut to Megan thanking the sponsor who I love because I love My Serious Light more than life itself. I love My Serious Light so much and I cannot tell you guys how important it is to me in achieving my reading goals this year. Listen, it's new year. I love a new year. I love a new year and I for the very first time read 150 bucks ever in a year last year. And I generally feel like My Serious Light had a lot to do that. It was my first year owning it for the full year and I cannot tell you how much quicker this makes me read, how much more enjoyable it makes reading. I cannot read without it. I can't read without it. I refuse. I think I love doing so. So something great about Serious Lights is they have daylight wavelength technology which replicates the daylight spectrum as close as possible. And what I find this means is that it's so gentle on the eyes. It makes reading such enjoyable experiments. I used to get eye strain all the time. All the time, especially when I lived in Leeds, I used to get eye strain all the time. And I think it was from reading so much in dimly lit areas. I like a, I don't like the big light on, I like lamps on. But that then meant that I wasn't reading in like well lit circumstances. And this means I get the best of both worlds. It's a cozy reading experience. But at the same time, it actually is good for my eyes. And I have a code for you guys for the new year, which is SR440, which will get you 100 pounds off a high definition light. It is such a good deal. 100 pounds off. Guys, go check out the link down below. Use my code SR440. I cannot recommend this enough. I use it every single day. Well, I haven't been reading the last two weeks, like I said. But now that I am going to be reading, I was about to show you what the book was because I have, I'm filming this after the last clip because I wanted a little teaser, but you don't know what it is yet. I'm going to be using it reading all the time when I'm reading this book over the next couple of days. And listen, it's dark all the time at the moment. And so I'm using it literally, I use it in the day because it's never sunny. It's never light outside. It's essential to me all day, every day. So go check out Serious Readers down below. I cannot recommend it enough. You guys need to get your hands on one of these because it has genuinely revolutionized my reading. Okay, if I'm honest with myself, I think I'm going to narrow it down. I don't know if I'm just not including this because I expected so much because I expected to pick this, but I think it's between these three. I don't know. Okay, this one is reliable because I always give Ali close to five stars or their abouts. And it would be a fun start to the year. This one with Taylor Adams, I've given him a five star. I also read Hairpin Bridge by Taylor Adams, which I absolutely hated. Maybe the book was based on me. I hated Hairpin Bridge. So it's not reliable. It could go either way. But I think this is going to be fun, right? I don't think it's going to be necessarily the greatest writing I've ever read, but it's going to be ridiculous. It's going to be fast paced. This is going to be a more gentler, softer, cozier reading experience. I generally don't know. I can't make this decision, please. I can't make this decision. Hang on. Tom, in the filming video, she's my first book of the year, which has to be five stars because if I don't have a five star book with first book of the year, I'm not going to have a good year. So I read the first chapter of all five of these books and they're all like five star chapters. Sorry, but I don't know which one to pick. I think I've narrowed it down to these three. So Ali Hayes would always tend to give five stars. She loves the doctor, doesn't she? Yeah, she's all stem, good. Seminist, all sciencey romances. Seminist, I don't know. Taylor Adams is a thriller about a book reviewer who gives a one star review and an author who stalks her and wants to kill her. Taylor Adams wrote No Exit, which I loved, but wrote another book that I didn't love. And then this is a debut and it's like a cosy fantasy about this woman who's like cataloging fairies and it's like written. I didn't go with that one. Do you? It sounds like he's got the coffee shop vibes. Oh yeah. The cataloging fairy sounds quite interesting. Okay. You didn't want that? No, I think I did want that. Okay, look at me. I'm a genius. Five in here. I can't believe that. I actually can't believe that. Thank you. There's my switch. Shall I show them your switch? Uh, you've changed your all. It's a bit smashed up. I'm trying to mod the EV control. I've got an EV Pikachu switch. Everyone, they can't be hating. Oh, it's gone on track. Show them the game with the player. Okay, so whilst I've been ill, we were like, what can I do? What am I capable of? So Tom and I have been playing this game nonstop. As recommended by Erica, one of the travelers on the Costa Rica trip. Can you load? And we've just been playing it nonstop, but we haven't been getting any better at it. It's these little fruits. I don't know if I can play. I don't know if they can see. I've got to hold it an angle. They can see. You've got to drop these fruits. And we've just been playing it for hours, but we don't get any better at it. We've both sat there on our switches playing next to each other. That's not your strategy anyway. You can take it. Okay, bye, love you both. Okay, I'm going to be reading Emily Wilde's then. Is that what I wanted? I think it is. I think in my Deep Heart of Hearts, this is what I wanted, but I was doubting myself because it was the first book that I read the first chapter of. But I think I'm going to go with it. Yes, I am starting a new series. We already talked about that. We don't. Oh, are you all right? Yeah. Oh, sorry, darling. We didn't realize. We only talked about the three of the other ones, these were stand-alones, and I'm starting the off of the series. We don't need to talk about that. We don't need to talk about that because I haven't made my goals video yet. I could actually pretend that finishing series is not a goal of mine. I could do that this year if I wanted. Anyways, I'm going to go read this. I'm very excited actually. I think this is a good good start to the year. And I think Cosy Fantasy is how I might start the year every year because like I just I do love Cosy Fantasy. It feels very, you know, it's midwinter, guys. We actually shouldn't be saying goals. We should be hibernating. That's not how I operate. But I've been seeking for way too long. I'm going to go read Emily Wells' encyclopedia of ferrets. I'll let you know when I'm a little bit of a way through. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm 95, 96-ish pages into Emily Wells' encycl... I always got the title wrong. Emily Wells' encyclopedia of ferrets, which is about a third, about a third of the way through. And I'm really enjoying it, but I'm getting very anxious. It's not going to be a five star. And it's, it's... Yeah, I'm getting worried it's not going to be a five star. But I've got to, I've got to tamper that because here's the thing. When I did Legends and Lattes last year, it was just immediately so obviously a five star. Like it was my second favorite book of the year. It was beyond a five star, right? It was a five star plus if I can exist. Whereas this might be a five star, but it might not be five star plus. And you know, not every book is immediately a five star. And you can't get too anxious about it. You can't worry about it. You're just going to let it live. You've got to let the book breathe. That's what I'm going to try and do. In terms of the plot, you don't really need to know much more about this is that Gully is writing an encyclopedia of ferrets. She's writing about the ferrets. And maybe her academic rival has maybe turned up. That happens at like the 60 page mark. I don't think that's a spoiler. It's in the synopsis. I, this is like minus spoilers. Well, it isn't spoilers. I'm at the point that I am in. And I believe the, I always believe the first third of the book isn't spoilers, right? I think it's pretty obvious from the synopsis and from what I've never read in the book that this dude is the love interest, right? Because this is kind of romantic. I've seen some people call it romantic. I'm not live love loving. I don't like this guy. I don't like him. He's not meant to be in here as he got in here. Get out. When I started the book, I hadn't read the synopsis. And I thought the romance he might be with this other guy who's like this guy in the town that she's gone to visit. But he might be a bit young. It wasn't clear. The age is quite clear. Well, there's anything wrong with an age gap romance. And he might be like 15. I don't know. I thought he seemed older than that, but who knows. But it's become clear it's going to be with this academic rival who's like followed her there. And I just don't like him. I don't like him. I don't like this man. This man can get off the pages of my book. And he's what I'm getting concerned about. Because if it turns into a romance between them, I'm just, I'm just not into it. I'm not into it. I'm not, not into it. However, there are a lot of plus points to this. I'm loving the nature of the book. I'm loving her going and investigating all these fairies and meeting all these, I don't know, fairies. What's the right thing? Fairies? Yeah. But it's like fairies. Fairies. It's not just fairies. It's fairies. You know what I mean? The certain gymnastic choir and this spelling of fairies. Yeah, I'm loving her meeting them and like getting to the customs of them. And guys, something that I forgot when I read the first chapter, because it wasn't in the first chapter is there's footnotes. If you know me, you know I love footnotes. I love footnotes. I love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love footnotes. No, I don't think you understand. I'm up for that. Especially I think it does work for me in a fantasy because it really, it gives so much gravitas to the world building. And I think I like that. Like it makes it feel so real. It makes it feel so important and official, you know, the world building and same thing happened in Babel for me. And I just, oh, I get so excited at the thought of footnotes and there's footnotes. There was, they started like just after the first chapter and I got very excited at the thought of them. So yeah, I'm enjoying it. I'm getting anxious about it, about whether it's five-star or not. However, if Wendell, Wendell isn't very nice name, Bambel, Bambelby, Bambelby is his last name. That's more dashing. If he wins me over, if the romance wins me over, that might be a story to tell. That might be a moment, you know what I mean? That might be an important moment. So we'll see. I'm feeling anxious about it, but I'm probably going to end up finishing this tomorrow. So I shall see you once I've, once I've made progress, but I'm just getting a bit anxious about it, you know. I'll see you in about 200 pages end. So like another third of the way in. I don't want to talk. I don't want to talk. I want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to you. It's been days. It's been days. And I am now on page 205 of Emily Wilds and Cyclopedia Ferries and I'm still not, I'm not loving it. Now here's the thing. Right. Okay. Can I focus, can you focus on me? You play my camera just. I remember thinking I'm about to beat this bitch up. Here's the thing. I have struggled. I don't feel like I'm back into reading yet. If you don't know, I took like a week at the end of last year off of reading to like be fresh the new year, but then that turned into like two, almost three weeks of not reading because of when I was ill. And I genuinely, I just feel like I don't know how to read. I've forgotten how to read. I can't do this. There's just something about this. Maybe I feel like I'm overthinking it, right? I feel like I'm like, I have to love it. I have to love it. I have to love it. Oh my God. What if I don't love it? Like I, it has to, I have to love it. That is making me overthink it and it's making me place too much pressure on it, but I'm just not connecting to it. I don't like Wendell. I don't like him. I find him incredibly annoying. I'm sorry. I think we should have that conversation. And I picked up the audiobook. I was like, okay, right, the audiobook is going to save this. Usually for the first book of the year, I wouldn't listen to an audiobook. I would just like sit down and like cozy up with a book and like get into the vibe. I don't like the audiobook, but I'm having to listen to it because otherwise I'm just not reading it. I have no inclination to pick this up. I think I should have gone with like, I think I should have gone with Love Theoretically the last word because both of those would have been like propulsive reads, right, that you can't put down because it's a romance or something like fucking memory card is about to run out of battery. Give me, Lord, give me strength for one second. As I was saying, what was I saying? I think I was thinking it made the wrong decision. It made the wrong decision. I've just made a massive mistake and now I'm really annoyed. I probably was like, oh, should I DNF it and redraw the other one? That's because then technically I'm still in my first book of the year, but I'm not doing it. That's not the point of this video. Based on the first chapter, this is generally, I know Tom picked it for me, but this is what I was going to pick. I was just wondering if I was picking it because it was the first one I read and thus it felt the most fresh because it was the first thing I read, you know? But yeah. And I gotta be honest with you, I've got a level you guys, something's happening in my life. It's pretty great, great. I spoke about these in the reading goals video, but I cut it out because I didn't feel like a good job of speaking about it and also I didn't know if it was gonna happen at that point. It's been all very up in the air for the past week, but basically me and Tom are moving across the country in like five days for two months. I know I've mentioned us buying a place together, this isn't that. We're not buying a place, but he's just got, has to go there for work for two months and so I'm moving with him and I've got like to pack all my life up, got to decide what books to take. This is a very stressful situation. It's very exciting, I'm very excited, but like that is going on behind the scenes and I feel like I just can't do anything until we go. We need to go, you know? I need to pack all my shit and go until then I'm kind of living in this limbo. The year hasn't really begun for me, it feels like, because I was ill and then this has happened immediately after that. And so even though it's exciting, I just feel like I can't really begin my life until we're there. Do you know what, does that make sense? I don't know. But yes, there's something about this that just isn't connecting for me, but I'm kind of trying to let go of that. I'm gonna sit down now because my reading has been very broken up during these past 200 pages. This last 100 pages I'm gonna sit down and like make a real focused attempt to read and read well and we're gonna have fun. So I'm just gonna sit here and I'm not gonna leave this spot in my bed until I finish this book. That is what we're gonna do. We're gonna do this together. You're gonna see me. You'll see me in like an hour when I finish the book. But yeah, we're gonna finish it. We're gonna finish it. We're gonna finish it and I'm gonna love it and I'm gonna get into the coziness. I think perhaps, I mean, I didn't love, what was the other cozy romance I read? I enjoyed but didn't love Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater and I'm just feeling similarly about this. I think I like my cozy fantasy to be song romance. It just, I just don't, I just don't like the romance at the center of it. I don't, I'm gonna go finish it. I'm gonna finish it and if my first book of the year is not five stars, we're not gonna allow that like for me to think the year is gonna be terrible because I do, I will think that and we're not gonna, I need you all in the comments telling me I'm gonna be okay and I'm gonna have a wonderful year with the best of my life. What exciting year. Okay, I'll see you in a bit once I finished it. Two hours later. I don't want to talk about no. It's not, it's not a five star to start the year. Everyone. We're gonna go like, we're gonna like, we're gonna let go of the, the super positions. Um, I do love starting the year with a five star at last. I made the wrong choice. I wonder if any of those other four would have been a five star because this, I'm gonna give a three. Also, this is a bad start. I would have been happy if it was a four because if you know, my goal this year is to have a bum of 3.8 average rating. Just starting on a three. Yeah, I just didn't love this. I just, this is a spoiler. I'm gonna put spoilers up on the screen. Mild spoilers for the romance here, but I just can't get by the romance where like my guy is out here sleeping with every girl in the village and then proposing to her under the same roof and expecting her to be like, yes, you know, I just don't, I just can't like if a, if a guy in a romance is like, oh, he was a serial Philandra or whatever, but like the idea of her seeing the village girl circling it out of his room and then being supposed to be like, yeah, I just want no connection between them ever. Okay, spoilers over. Yeah, I just want no romantic. I did not feel the feels for this romance. I'm anti this, I'm anti this guy. I'm anti him in this romance. I just, I can't, I can't vibe with it. And perhaps this is something to do with Faye and like Faye tropes. I'm just not, I don't think I'm very well versed in Faye, Faye fantasy. I don't think I've read a ton of it. So some of this could be the author expecting you to go into it with like a certain level of understanding of the tropes and style and me just not having that. But girls, it's pretty sad out here for us right now. Yeah. I mean, also I think part of this issue was it was maybe just wrong place, wrong time, not the book, the saying where I can imagine myself enjoying this in a different circumstance. I think just me having gone so long without reading, I should have picked a fast paced thriller or like an Allie Hazelwood, which I know there isn't an entry level difficulty with that. If I'd picked an author I'd read from before like Ted Adams, Allie Hazelwood, I think you're not spending the first part of the book like trying to figure out how you feel about the writing whatever, you kind of just fall into it easier. And I think I should have done that. Because I just think this was a bit slow. I thought there was some issues with the pacing. I didn't particularly like the ending. I feel like it dragged. And I don't think that's just because I read it slowly. I think this could have been quicker, right? I think it could have been quicker. It's 300 pages long, but the audiobook is like 12 hours long. And I always think audiobook is a better judge for time. You know what I mean? Like the audiobook for this one, I was looking it up because I got it as well, because it was on sale. The audiobook for this one is nine hours long, right? And it's like 370 pages. But just because of the pacing and the size of a font in the book, it can massively differ, right? So I think audiobook size is a better judge for that. Anyways, I'm gonna go cry. This is the worst. This is the worst. This is the worst. Yeah. I'm gonna go cry. I'm gonna go cry, because also the next book I'm reading I don't think is gonna be a five star because it's for my book club and people haven't been enjoying it. But I'm gonna go cry. It's fine. It's fine. I'm gonna have a great year. Please send me all the positive vibes and positive thoughts because I need it because I'm feeling so very superstitious. Maybe my new year begins now. New year begins now. New year. But also I don't, my next book isn't gonna be five stars. So that's besides the point. But anyways, I love you guys. Let me know what your first book of the year was and how the year has been going for you in terms of reading. I cannot believe I've made it two weeks into the year and I finished one book. But alas, it's my life. I've got to speed it up now. I got a lot of videos planned for the next couple months that are very exciting. So I got to speed things up a little bit. But thank you guys so much as always for watching. I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.