 Okay. Hi. I fully did not plan on filming anything. The heater is on. I'm in a cozy. But this book gets you up. I don't know if this video will be turned into anything. I just feel if it does turn into something I want to start now. I have just started reading Tokyo Ever After. I got it from the library in Minnesota and I brought it home to Michigan. I'm still in Michigan. I'm listening to the audiobook while following along. I cry. I am so close to crying. 58 pages in. I'm not too far. I love this main character. So Tokyo Ever After by Amiko Jean is basically a princess diaries but with Japan just can't help myself. I there's so much that I love about this book. I thought it was hilarious. It's fast paced here at the beginning and there are so many lines and little things that have stuck out to me that like it's funny or it's relatable but the thing that got me the most and what made me turn on the camera she goes shout out to all the girls who apologize too much. I feel you. That is me. That is 100% me. I apologize more than I say anything else throughout the day. This includes days that I work like 7 hour shifts and say hi or good morning or how may I help you like including all of that I apologize more often than that. So it's just it's nice to see like someone just putting that in a book like in in the most casual way but putting it in a book. This book is already causing so many emotions because like she talks about the very beginning you know she she's Japanese. She's Japanese-American so the she's very much in the minority because she lives in the south of the United States. Not a super great area and she just constantly the way that she views herself and talks about herself at the very beginning like made me so sad and then when she was talking about being excited to go to Japan because she won't be the minority she'll see people that look like her on TV. I just about lost my mind. I was like crying and it just oh my gosh and it sucks because this is true for so many people like this this is not a new concept at all whatsoever this is not anything unique to her this happens to so many people. Like I know that I will never understand as a white person living in the States but I'm glad that it's being talked about in all genres of books you know not just nonfiction but like oh my gosh okay so this may turn into just a short reading blog of this if it continues to like cause emotions and many thoughts it could very much turn into a reading blog. I should also mention that it is currently 11.40 on January 13th on Thursday so I have started this book late at night because I was initially going to finish my previous book and probably just chill go to bed maybe watch some booktube and then I decided you know what I have a lot of audiobooks and they're gonna be due soon and like I said this is a library book so I'm pretty much gonna have to return it as soon as we get back which is next Tuesday. I don't know I like I said I haven't planned this out at all so I don't know how much I plan to read tonight I don't know if I'm gonna finish this before I got in Minnesota I just nothing is planned but I thought this might be a fun impromptu like what in the world this book is possibly phenomenal I've heard such good reviews about it and I've been super excited to read it sorry my arms keep getting tired from holding the phone up and everything is shaky because it's my hands because again not planned but yeah so we're just gonna see how this goes I am gonna cry I'm probably gonna just keep reading for quite a bit we shall see I do have quite a few plans tomorrow so I really want to try and read as much as possible tonight 100 pages in I'm at chapter 10 like 30% of the way I'm like 30% of the way through I am obviously really liking this if you couldn't tell by all the emotions I love that our main character while is relatable and like awkward just kind of your regular South Californian person uh she isn't the author didn't make her go through a whole bunch of public cringy scenes like I'm gonna do my best not to compare this to the Princess Diaries too much because it's not fair in the book it should be its own thing but like when Princess Mia has her first dinner and thinks just go a total mess and that's like super cringy and I'm like uh like I love I love the Princess Diaries don't get me wrong but she didn't have that like she doesn't know what's going on but she doesn't make a complete fool of herself in public immediately and I I am so appreciative of that fact I just I like where it's going so far I like the romance that plot so far it's kind of an enemies to lovers but in a more of a comedic way than a serious way and I am enjoying it and I am perfectly okay with it um I'm just I'm reading it really quickly I love how beautiful it is I like I said I love her main character the writing is so thick with her personality like it's not just from her point of view describing how beautiful this thing is but it's like it's gotten I don't almost want to say an attitude because I feel like an attitude is a little bit more of a negative connotation but it's just it's got such a strong style of her character and I love that so much I love contemporaries that have that even fantasies that have that and I think that's one thing I have an issue with a lot of fantasies is that I feel like the characters when it's written in first person there's not enough character in the style of the writing of the narration but this has so much style and character in the narration and I I'm just so happy and it makes it such a quick read like even though I'm listening to it over audiobooks so I don't have control over my speed like I do want to read it faster but at the same time I don't because I want to take it all in and like I don't want it to be done too quickly but I'm gonna sit here and binge it as much as I can there are no faults and that makes me happy and I kind of hope it continues to be that way but I'm also scared because I feel as I am reading it and very much enjoying it my hopes for the entirety of the book are going up and I don't want my expectations to rise too much more so I really hope that you know it stays this way and it stays this good and unique and fun also it's 12 30 and I'm gonna keep reading because apparently I hate myself and don't allow myself to sleep it's 1 a.m. I've made it to page 130 I'm really liking the romance the whole bodyguard protection thing I'm liking it also yes I am ready for bed continuing to love it starting to mellow out a little bit but it's okay it is the next day it is just past 11 o'clock I had a very hard time waking up this morning obviously because I stayed up late but I gotta say getting an oil change at the local mechanic that we go to it's actually one of my favorite things because he lets you stay in the car when he lifts it up and does all the work on it which creates such a lovely environment for reading so I could just sit there and read for like 20 minutes as he gives our car an oil change but so I ran both of my car related errands this morning uh after coming home I have read another 100 pages of Tokyo I rafter I am now 200 pages in and it's just over 300 pages so I'm almost two-thirds of the way through my heater is kicked on but because this is a very casual vlog I don't care the emotions have continued uh there I've started to be some pop cultural references in here which have been very fun for me I've talked about the writing style before and how much I enjoy it I've realized it's the short snippy like starting the sentence off not necessarily with a subject which is kind of I like that I think I like the short quippy kind of stylistic writing which there is lots of in this book so that's been great uh the romance it started to I don't want to say generic like it's not generic but just the whole like road bump with the romance and finally that big embarrassing event for her has happened and I was a little bummed that you know it kind of follows the same the same like story arc and plot that like every book does pretty much by understand that's how literature works but I was hoping it wouldn't be done quite in the way that it was but I still very much enjoyed it and I will say at the very beginning of the book you get the uh Tokyo Tatler has this article that's the first thing you read even before we're introduced to the main character and it talks about a humiliating event so like we already knew it was coming even if we don't know the specifics of it and that event has just happened and we that happened pretty much like halfway through through the book maybe slightly after halfway so I'm really happy that there's more to go and you know it wasn't just like that oh really hard part and mellow out and it's the end like there's there's still another big event that's gonna happen and I really hope that that event turns out positive and it's not another like big embarrassing thing just because like I don't want that to happen to our character I think she has suffered enough but I am afraid I am afraid it's gonna happen anyway so I don't know if it's like the beginning there was just this glow of this new character new story new excitement but I am most likely going to finish it today it's only gonna take me like less than a couple hours to finish because it's like 1115 I still have a bunch of errands to run and other things to do today so I want to finish it today but I need to prioritize other things which is really difficult because all I want to do is sit here and read which just makes me happy that that's all I want to do I've been continuing to listen to the audiobook while reading I don't want to just listen to the audiobook or just read um because I have found this immersive experience to probably be one of the best ways for me to consume a story I will not be multitasking with the story I do not want to multitask I want to focus on it and just appreciate every bit of it so yeah I will probably have to take a break and this is gonna probably be like I said because this is such a casual blog it's probably going to be really boring not much like other footage outside of these reading updates but I hope it's still somewhat interesting for you so I will let you know either when I read another chunk or when I finish because I feel like at this point once I start reading because I don't want to put it down there's a very good probability that I'm just gonna finish it because I only have like a hundred pages left so it could be that I just update you again when I have finished this it's Sunday because I filmed a clip of me actually reading Tokyo ever after and actually was in that sitting that I finished it and then I didn't have enough time to like sit and talk and kind of give my overall review of it so it is the next day after finishing it it is Sunday and let's talk obviously I loved this book I talked a lot about it while I was reading it I think overall a highlight was definitely the writing like the narration style and the characterization within it it was amazing and it carried on throughout the entire book I loved it was a very fast beginning which I greatly appreciated it kind of just jumped right into the plot and we got going and then everything was just so beautifully described and it was wonderful and it was it was different you know it's it's the idea that this is a princess diary's retelling but with japan but it's not just like a retelling like the princess Izumi goes through her own events and figures her own way out and she's a completely different character like it's not really fair to have her try and hold the candle to princess Mia because they're just two very different characters with very different backgrounds even though the plot is still similar I just I if you loved prince us diaries I think you're gonna love this but it's still like so different enough that it's not like a copycat or a repeat or anything like that you know it's still original however I found the ending to be slightly disappointing haku's going to try and walk out of his cage again which is not how this works but he makes a lot of noise while he does it so please pardon the thumb being in the background haku buddy you're not gonna make it so basically I I loved the originality of the beginning and the middle but I felt like the ending kind of just went into a very tropey ending like I feel like it lost a little bit of its charm you know it kind of just everything was to be expected and it it ended how you would imagine any other book to end you know like because I felt the beginning in the middle were so interesting and unique and different and then for the ending to just be a classic like kind of the ending that happens in every book I wasn't super thrilled with that however I still think this book deserves a five stars uh just with all the growth and the realization that the character goes through like the politics of everything and I mean there are a few elements like I wish meeting the grandparents the emperor and the empress was a little bit more I'm still gonna rate it five stars I'm still going to highly recommend this and hopefully buy it soon expect to see this in videos coming up I like that there was a lack of awkwardness and I loved the romance and there's so much emotion like there was so many times where I just like just had one of those moments which was amazing because I don't really always get that a lot in books but this one definitely delivered I finished this book in two days and it was amazing I think the audiobook is really good so if you're looking for a new audiobook to listen to I would recommend it but also reading it physically is obviously very enjoyable yeah that is my review of Tokyo Ever After thank you all so much for watching I hope you like this video if you did give it a thumbs up let me know if you want me to do more reading blogs focused on a specific book this video was not planned at all in the slightest so please subscribe I post videos twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays and I love making content for you guys if you have any requests of anything you would like me to do in the upcoming month or year let me know in the comments I would love to chat with you all in the comments let me know if you've read this book or if you plan on it otherwise I am on a bunch of bookish themed social media down below Instagram Twitter TikTok all that so all my links will be in the description but until I see you all in the next video I wish you happy reading