 Hey guys it's Julia and welcome back to my channel and for today's video I'm going to be doing another reading vlog. Oh I feel really weird vlogging after the reading rush but there was a vlog that was supposed to go up for the week before the reading rush and all the footage got deleted. So no one's seeing that vlog because it's gone but it was all edited too but it's fine. So I'm going to be starting this vlog. It is a Thursday. I'll have the date on the screen and I'm currently reading I'm currently reading Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chiloski. I'm buddy reading this with Jesse from Bowtie's and Books. I absolutely love them so I'm so excited to read this with them. I'm only like 20 pages in so I don't have much to say about it right now. But today my friend Alyssa is coming over Alyssa Che on YouTube so I'm super excited to meet her and hang out with her and we might do a bit of filming or just talking or whatever. So I'm excited for that. I'm also nervous. I always get nervous meeting people so that's gonna be a time. But in the next clip you will see my little unplugged book unboxing. They sent me another box in exchange for an interview so thank you. I really do enjoy the unplugged box. I love the concept that they kind of mix self-care and reading together and I like that they had like the bath like they have a bath bomb in there and like a few like self-care items and they always have a postcard that has like some tips on it and stuff and there's a playlist included. So I just think overall it's a really great box. My only... I was kind of confused because for some reason I thought there was more items usually in the unplugged box but maybe that's just the one I ordered because it's YA or I'm not really sure. Maybe just because I've been reviewing very little a lot recently I was used to getting like 10 items so when there was like a few I was like okay. Like maybe I kind of thought that the last one I got had more items in it but there was only about like five items which is still a lot but like sometimes there's like a lot of items in boxes which it depends but I just wanted to mention that because it came to mind but yeah I really do love this box. The company like the people there are so sweet and the book I hadn't heard of so I'm really excited to read more about that and see what it's all about. How's it going there? They work. About to film. I should try vlogging. I've never logged on like a literal camera. He's logged on like my phone. I'm taking over to his vlog guys and I'm just looking at myself. This is so weird. I do that all the time people call me out. They're like, Julie what are you doing? I'm like someone in one of the real talk tags they said like looking at the camera this the viewfinder is like narcissistic and you're looking at yourself but I was like it's so much more exciting than looking at the land. I like to make sure I'm in frame and focus plus the only time I look good is when I'm filming. So I'm like who's that? I'm just taking over to his vlog guys. I'm also close to Jay. Go subscribe. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. What is this vlog for? I don't know. We're eating vlog. Oh filmed the go check it out. I'm really taking over your vlog. You're feeling that. You're like I'm gonna go buy a camera now. I know I literally am. I'm literally gonna go buy this camera. So guys quality channel. Okay we're gonna go film another video. So it is the next day and Alyssa came over yesterday and it was such a fun time. It's so nice spending time with like bookish people in real life and just hanging out with people that are a part of booktube and like know what it is and kind of know like the struggles of it but also like the little fun things that we could talk about as well and talk about books together all that stuff. So it was really fun and it's nice to also know someone like Canadians who knows the stuff in my area and we can relate to all that kind of stuff. That's always nice. But yeah she was super sweet. I'm super glad I met her. I will have her channel linked down below if you want to go say hey say that I sent you. But right now I was just watching Boston and it's one of her reading vlogs. I just finished watching also my friend Jesse and they did this disappointing read video and I was laughing the entire time but then I saw the fire on her eye and I literally gasped but like I definitely knew like the critique their critique that they made on it. I was like okay like I get that I get what you're saying. So yeah I was like saying but at first I was like the fire because I actually liked that book. Last night I finished this graphic novel and I ended up giving this one. I think I'm going to give it around a four star 3.75. I really enjoyed this. Basically this is just about an insurer and she loves books. She loves reading. She has a bit of social anxiety so she doesn't like going to parties or she feels like out of place and all of those things if those were like if you could relate to those things and those characteristics. Read this book because I could and it was really nice just seeing a book that was like okay like that's me. And even like the thought process when some people are like talking and then it would show kind of what she's thinking and it'd be like relatable. I enjoyed that book. I read it on Libby or Hoopla. One of them. But yeah I really like that. I have to write my review today but yes. And then I am reading Imaginary Friend with Jesse right now. I am only 27 pages in and the writing is so small and this book is like a lot. But I don't know how I feel about it yet. At first I thought the writing was like a little I don't know. I don't want to say patchy but like the sentences were really short at the beginning some of them and I was like what? Like I was a little confused. But like it's kind of stopped doing that. And then I don't know I like the main character. I'm interested where the story is going. I'm not really sure where it's going. I don't really know what's happening. Like I'm only 27 pages in so I can't really say a lot. But it's something that like has been hard for me to pick up. Which not because it's bad. It's just because I've been like procrastinating reading it I guess. But hopefully I can. I'm supposed to read Yep to 175 by the end by like Monday and it's Friday. Also reading Wildcard. I'm listening to this one on audiobook actually. And it's okay so far. I like it. I like the characters. I like I love the I love the work. I love like the world and stuff and I love like some of the characters. It's annoying me though how often the main character is like oh my god I have rainbow hair. Like since we know you have rainbow hair you talked about it all during the first book. I'm 44% through and it's like not really much is happening. And I don't know. I know a lot of people think Wildcard the ending is disappointing. So I that's why I delayed reading this so so long. But hopefully it will be okay. I feel like it's like for so far it's not living up to Warcross like at all. But that's okay. I'll still keep Warcross as my little it's little own little thing that I love. And then Wildcard will just be there I guess if it's disappointing at the end. Sourcebooks also sent me a book. It's a middle grade book with like illustrations. It's really cool. So it's called The Star Shepherd. So this is about an 11 year old boy who his father was a Star Shepherd. So a lot of these a lot of stars begin falling and then disappearing. So they have to kind of figure out what to do about that and to like make sure the stars stay there and are present. So what our main character has to do is find a way to save the stars before all these like dark creatures come back. And so I guess when there's no stars or there aren't many stars like dark creatures come out at night kind of thing. That's what I think it's going to be. But it sounds really interesting. The cover is beautiful and I love the little illustrations. It also says that there's like a dog in this book. So I'm really excited as long as the dog doesn't die. So it's going to be our main character Cairo Andrea who is like the a big a baker's daughter in town and the dog are going to like go on a little adventure together and try to like make sure to save the stars. And it just sounds so so cute. So I'm looking forward to this one and seeing if I like it. But thank you so much to Source Books for sending this over to me and for emailing me. I'm really excited about it. So in the last few days I have I finished some books before I left. So I finished Just Peachy which was a graphic novel and no I was yeah I was talking and then I heard you come in down the stairs and I was like okay that's awkward. I read a graphic novel called like Just Peachy and it was this one. And it was about like depression and anxiety. Yeah I didn't like it. It just it was really flat. Like a lot of the jokes fell flat because it was like trying to make a comedic side to like serious issues. Yeah. And I was like cool. But it's not funny when you deal with it. Yeah I know it just wasn't I don't know. It was just like a lot of it contradicted itself so it would say one thing and then a few comics later it would say something different that would literally like change the meaning of the other thing. So we don't like that. So I gave that one two stars. I read Empty Bottles Full of Stories by R. H. Sin and Robert M. Drake and I've always liked I've read both like a ton from both of them and they're just duo just didn't work. I was really sad because I've always given R. H. Sin's works like good ratings because like I love his work but this just fell so flat and I just don't think the writing worked well together and none of the like the use of repetition was so overdone to the point where it was like irritating. Like you can use repetition in poetry and make it good but then there's a time when you're making it like so annoying and repeating the same thing and it was literally just all repetition the entire times and they were all the poems were like sappy and inconsistent. You know what we should do. As a teenager I used to write really angsty poetry about all my boyfriends I dated Frank and I shouldn't make you review them. Oh my god no. Like we had to do a project for my class where we had to write poetry and in front of like my teachers in the entire school I wrote about my boyfriend at the time. Me. I was so cringy when I think about it because like they probably I was like 12 they probably all rolled their eyes at me. I felt that. So since then when I got here I am currently still reading imaginary friend with Jesse. I'm 381 pages in and it's actually really good so far. I'm really liking it and I love like the main character Christopher that we follow and his mom and it's like kind of creepy and so far I'm just liking it a lot. Like Jesse and I keep complaining because there's like a plastic bag in this. Like as a character. Kind of yeah and he's just like this bag and one time like Christopher like throws the bag out the window and he's like be free and the mom's like what the hell are you doing. So we're making fun of the bag but I would kind of cry for the bag though. You would like the bag. Like things that aren't supposed to have emotions that do like just destroy me. So I'm on page 381 of this I'm over halfway through which is exciting. I'm actually making progress. I'm also reading wild card on audiobook which I haven't done like I haven't listened to any of that while I've been here. Was it your first time reading it? Yeah. Really? Yeah I know I always talked about Warcross and then I never got around to the second book. Is it because of the reviews that you've been avoiding it? Yeah but it's not that great like I'm about half over halfway and like nothing really has happened. Also reading Resurrection Girls this is like an arc from that galley. I read like two chapters and I'm budding reading this with another friend but we're both slacking. So yeah I'm reading those three things. Relatable. And then last night Kayla kindly let me read her copy of Heartstopper and then I read the other one and these like warmed my soul. I was so content like I didn't need to read anything else last night. Yeah. I was like I am happy with these. I'm happy you like them. So I gave the first one four stars and there is a trigger warning for sexual assault which nobody really mentions but you should like you should take note of that. So be aware that it's in there but and I read the second one as well last night and I like this one a bit more so I've been giving this one a 4.5 so yeah I really really like these and they were better than I thought they would be and they're so cute too the way they look.