 Hello, welcome back to my channel. Oh my god. So recently in my reading habits tag, I divulged how I've never been a mood reader. Even before I had booktube and kind of had set TBRs, since I've been a kid I would organize my books by the order I was going to read them in. But a lot of you in my recent reading slot this year have told me, mood read. Mood read. I just mood read and I'm like, what? I know a lot of things but I don't know about that. I'm not sure why. So this week I'm going to mood read and we're going to kind of put to the test whether that means I read more. I mean, that's not going to be hard because I haven't read many books yet this month. But I'm basically just going to read whatever I want. And I did do a spring TBR video with the books I'm currently most excited to read. And so this isn't like, I still kind of have a TBR. But this isn't my set TBR. I can still pull books from anywhere else. In fact, I probably will do because there's a couple here that I'm eyeing up. But I think I'm going to start with picking one from here because these are the books I'm most excited for. And we'll just see how many books I end up getting through. What am I most in the mood for? I think the book I'm most excited to read right now is A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. I just know this is like a YA murder mystery with some mixed media elements. And literally I've never had such an incredible response to a book when I've mentioned it. Like when I've mentioned it in a whole or a video. All of you are telling me how much you loved it. I've never had so many comments telling me to read a book. I'd read it not to expect because I haven't heard too much about the plot. So I think this is going to be what I read first. I'm filming this on Wednesday evening. So I guess we'll read until next Wednesday. We'll see if I read more by mood reading. It feels wrong. Like in my head, I'm already trying to go, OK, and then I'll read Concrete Rose. And then I'll read The Big Four. Like I'm already trying to like set the TBR for this video. Well, I know that's not the point. And like whenever I finish this, I've just got to pick whichever book I'm in the mood for next. But that's just so foreign to me. So we'll see how it goes. I'm going to go start this and I'll let you know what I think when I'm a little ways through it. All right. So I am about a third of the way through and like it feels it feels like a revelation. I'm really happy today. Yeah, this is for all of us. You guys weren't kidding. And no one was kidding when they said I was going to love this. I am loving it. I'm really, really loving it. So basically in this, Pip is doing her EPQ, which is like this project that you can do when you're in sixth form in the UK. And she is looking at this murder that occurred five years ago in this town where OK, it's a murder, but it's not a murder because the girl girl's body has never been found. But the boyfriend was found in the woods a couple of days later. He sent a text to his dad saying I did it. Her blood was on him and he supposedly killed himself. So everyone basically just believes that he killed her. But Pip, our main character, doesn't believe it. She doesn't believe that he actually did that. She thinks he was framed and it's so good. This is the first book, I think maybe even this year, like in months where I haven't had to set reading timers for myself. So like usually I've been doing like the Pomodoro reading method. So like I've read for 25. I've had five minutes off. I've read for 25. But that's like to make myself read. Whereas I don't feel the need to make myself read with this. I'm just I just want to read it. Like we did it. Of course, I've wanted to read other books because I've given other books five stars and stuff. But it just hasn't come easy for me the past couple of months. But it's like coming easy with this book. I feel like this book is like giving me like book therapy right now. Like it's amazing the way that this book has all these mixed media elements where there's a lot of interviews that Pip is doing for her research with all these different characters. And we've started to get like police reports and it's also got her production logs of her kind of like talking through her thoughts on the case. It's just so good. Like the way it breaks everything up. It's just so good. It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. I love it. I love it. And it gives me that buzz. I love mysteries. This is just like solidifying how much of a mystery gal I am. Like mysteries are the best thing to read. I can't emphasize you the joy I feel like wanting to read this, like not wanting to put it down. I really didn't even want to like put this down to film this clip. I just wanted to like carry on reading. So I don't know if I can promise you that I'm going to check in again before I finish this. I might just like read it. I'm tap. It's so good. It's so good. It's so fun. She's an icon. She's a legend. And she is the moment. Now come on now. It's like the perfect YA mystery. It's so good. I'm having such a fun time. The one thing I will say is that the production logs are in first person because Pip is like writing them. But the rest is in third person. And that's fine. But it is a bit jarring. Like when I switch out of a production log and then it's like saying Pip did this, Pip said that. And I'm like, hang on. It takes me a moment to connect that that's the same person. Do you know what I mean? Like Pip isn't some other character. I'm waiting for that. I did this. I did that to come in. So that does like take me out of it a bit. But I understand why it's done. I don't think it's like bad, but it is just a bit jarring for me. I'm gonna carry on reading. I generally can't emphasise you to draw a film with how badly I just wanna sit and read this. It's amazing. So I'm gonna go carry on. And I'll either check in with you once more or I'll just read the whole thing. It remains to be seen. I'm two times the way in and I'm just refusing to stop reading to talk to you. I'm still loving it. It's still great. It's getting increasingly interesting. I don't know who to trust, but I wanna go finish it. So bye. Right, I finished. A good girl's guide to murder. And I loved it. I'm gonna give it five stars. That's what we've been waiting for. It's what we wanted all along. It was so good. I can't believe how good this book was. Like it was the perfect murder mystery, the perfect young adult murder mystery. I think if you wanna get started in like murder mystery vibes, like this is where you should start. If you typically read a lot of YA, it was so good. Like so, so twisty and turny. I did not figure out what was going on. Not gonna spoil anything, obviously, but like there's a lot of layers to what happens at the end. And when we were done with like the second layer, I thought we were done, but we weren't. Like there's so many different aspects to it and so many different, yeah, twist and turns. And you keep thinking you figured it out and then you haven't. And you keep thinking you figured it out and you haven't. And I just thought it was so good. I think like the last 100 pages, you're really like not wanting to put the book down. You're just wanting to speed through it because it's so well written, like so well paced. I also thought the protagonist was aged really well. I think with murder mysteries when they're YA, there's either a tendency for it to be like a kid detective thing. And it's like they're 14. Or because of the like dangerous things they're doing to figure this out, it seems like they're like 25, you know, but she really felt 17. The way that she acted, I thought was really realistic. It was perfectly mature whilst also like being young, like being a young adult. It was so good. I really can't believe how good it was. I really wasn't expecting that. I need to, I like I need to get my hands on the second one. Do I break my book buying band for it? There's like a real possibility of whether I break my book buying band for the second one. Cause it was just so good. I also thought, I don't know if I mentioned but basically she kind of teams up with the guy who was, everyone believes, committed the murder. She teams up with his brother and their relationship and their friendship and the way that they interacted was really great. And the way that it explored grief when you're not allowed to grieve for someone. I just can't get over how much I loved it. Like I want, if you've ever looked at this and you're like, hmm, that looks okay. And you're like walked past it, cause that was me. Like I would always see this on Waterstones tables like laid out and I would never reach for it. So I just thought, she looks fine, read it. Like it was so good, such a fun time. I loved the mixed media elements as well. Oh my God, they were like my favorite parts cause basically Pip is writing the production log of what's going on. And they were my favorite parts. I really loved the production log. They are my favorite bits to read. Like her figuring out the mystery and kind of talking herself through it was really fun. Like really fun to see her just talking through the mystery with herself in her head and the interviews and stuff. I just thought it all worked really, really, really well. So I would really recommend picking up. Now I finished that Sunday night. No, I finished that Saturday night. It's now Monday because this is why mood reading doesn't work for me because I can't pick what to read next. Like I can't, I can't decide. I do not want to comment. Why? Why? This is why mood reading isn't for me. Like generally it's not. Like I will probably read three books in this video. I'll probably rate them highly but like the missed time in between when I could have just started on the next book. It's not it. It's not it. I first thought I was going to pick Wild Beauty and then I filmed, if you haven't seen, I did a video reacting to Tick Book Talks and a Root Discippetties book came up and it made me want to read Root Discippetties but I don't, I'm kind of in the lead for historical fiction but I don't think I am. So it's been hard. I really don't know what to pick but I'm just going to pick a book and go ahead with it. I think I'm going to pick Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire. This is what I was originally going to pick and then I went to Wild Beauty and then I went to that. So like this is what I originally thought and I think I'm going to go with this because it's really short. It is just, oh just over 200 pages. So I think I can probably read this whole thing today and I've been wanting to make more progress in the Wayward Children's News by Seanan McGuire. This is the fifth one. The sixth one came out earlier this year. I have given them all four stars though. This kind of portal fantasy series where these kids go into these magical worlds that are perfect for them. So I'm still holding out for a five star but they're magical, their whims are cool, they're amazing. So I think I'm just going to try and read this whole thing today but we're following Jack and Jill again in this one who are sisters who we followed in two of the other books already. And so I'm really interested to see where their story goes in this one. And yeah, Seanan McGuire's writing is just like so magical and so much fun. So I'm really excited to start this. Okay, so I am halfway through come tumbling down and I'm really enjoying it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm really enjoying it. So basically, it's a long story but like the first book in this series, Jack and Jill are in it. And then the second book is before the first book chronologically, it's a prequel and that's when they're in their world for the first time. And in this, Jack has come back to Eleanor West's home for a way with children. Basically her twin sister Jill has stolen her body. And so now a lot of the other students from the school are coming back to the Moors, which is like her portal world to try and get her body back, essentially. And that is about like what the story is so far but that's what the synopsis tells you. So like that's not any spoilers or anything. I'm surprised actually that that much of the story took up half the book. Yeah, a lot of it has been kind of like Jack telling the story of what has happened to this point that we've kind of missed in between all the other books. I just love the way it's written. Something that this does, which is if I was to ever write a book, this is how I would want to write a book. And it's that the authorial voice, it has like this narrator that's kind of like sarcastic and dramatic and theatrical. Like, I don't know how to explain it, but you know, sometimes in a film, it'll open with a narrator or sometimes switch to a narrator perspective. And it's really like theatrical and dramatic. I'm like over the top and like, mmm. This is how I imagine it. Like, mmm, mmm. It's almost hurtful to me to watch her be so dumb. She's got mad, Joanna. And I love that. I love when we have this like narrator who's kind of like omniscient looking over the story and is really dramatic. I think this is making my favorite one actually so far just because I've actually always listened to the audiobook. I've never owned them physically. I do want to get the rest of the series one day physically and reread them, but that's like for a day, much further in the future when I have money to be able to justify that. Cause I don't typically buy books I've already read. That's just not something I can justify right now. That's something I definitely want to do one day because although I think the audiobooks are great, sometimes with these like magical, whimsical books, I think I prefer to read them myself. I'm just really loving reading this myself a lot more. I think, I don't know, I just think the experience feels a lot magical just in my head. But I would recommend the audiobooks as well cause they're really short and they're great for like readathons and stuff like that. So I've always recommended the audiobooks but I think I'm realizing that there's something really special about this book. In my noggin. It's very strange. And Jack is such an interesting character. Jack is very science-based like as a character and the way that she thinks and I just find the way that she speaks to people. I just love it. I just really, really love it. I'm gonna go take my makeup off. I'm gonna go do some yoga. I'm gonna come back and I'll probably finish the rest of this tonight and then I'll check in with you with my final thoughts tomorrow. I have finished Come Tumbling Down by Sean McGuire and I actually think I'm gonna give this five stars. I can't believe that. I actually can't believe that. But here's the thing. I don't know if it's my favorite in the series but, but, but I, I wouldn't check. And I actually read the rest of the series back in 2019. And I think my reading progressed a lot in 2020 and maybe I figured out why I liked a bit more, my taste has changed. So like upon reflection, this series is a five star series. And I have a sneaking suspicion that if I went back and I reread the first four, they'd be five stars, partly because now I've had time to become attached to the characters in the way that you would in like a full length book. So I think that definitely has something to do with it. I'm giving this five stars. Like it was perfect. Like it was really good. And you know, I had reservations at the halfway point because I was like, are we really gonna spend like a hundred pages like setting up and talking and chatting and then another hundred like with the action. But it actually felt really well done in that the start pace was a lot slower. And then the second half, the pace had picked up a lot. And we were like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that worked really, really well. I really loved the ending. I really loved Jack as a character and the way that she reacted to what happened and spoke. I feel like Sean McGuire's characters often speak in very poignant ways. The talk around like becoming a monster was really interesting. And I really liked it. I think it's this perfect escapist novella and this whole world that has been built up. I just love you to know how I feel about you. If there was any hope that I could actually be or it's when I aspire to, you know, you're the one. And also I didn't realize, but these have illustrations in them, which is kind of fun. Like only maybe four or five illustrations in the whole book. It's not like every page, but I feel like that adds something extra to it. Sean McGuire is a genius. Sean and McGuire is a genius. Like generally one of the best writers to ever have existed. Now it's actually Tuesday evening and this experiment needs to end tomorrow evening in terms of like how much we're reading a week. So I have to be realistic. And so what I'm actually going to read is shit. That was a metal bookmark. I'm going to read The Big Four by Agatha Christie. So this is the next in the Occuparo series. I'm a bit tentative of this one because I've heard not a lot of good things, but I just want to read them in order as someone who loves mystery and wants to write mystery in the future. So basically this one is like these four evil masterminds kind of the context behind this book that I've heard is that basically this was the book that was published after Agatha Christie went missing. So she actually went missing for a couple of days when her marriage was like dissolving. She was in a really bad place. So she just like up to and left for a couple of days. No one knew where she was and she was really struggling. And so I think it's either her brother or her brother-in-law suggested that she collate some short stories that she'd written in magazines. So like it would be quite common back then for authors to write these little short stories in magazines and kind of like make it into one story. So that's how this story began. I've heard it's a bit disjointed and like a bit like crazy because of that. Also I am gonna be keeping like a critical eye out for any like racism or xenophobia in this. You know, I've spoken before about how I haven't read a lot of Christie, but like I've done my research and Agatha Christie is very much a product of a very racist era. I'm gonna be definitely keeping a critical eye out for this because I've only just read the synopsis and there's like in the second line what I would consider to be a racial slur. I believe is a racial slur. Right at the start. So like it's not passing the vibe check to start off with. So yeah, but we're gonna read this. It's really short and I think it'll be like a fun read back with Poro, another murder mystery or short story collection I guess. I've only got like a day left. So this was basically what I wanted to choose. And I wanna like get onto the mystery of the blue train which I have there. I wanna make more adventures into the Poro series. So we just gotta get through this first. I'm halfway through the big four. I mean, it's only like, I'm already 80 pages in. It's not very long. I prefer really not to speak. If I speak, I am in big trouble, in big trouble. Yeah, I'm not vibing with like the racist attitudes particularly towards Asian characters in this. Like it's been very distracting and not something I particularly wanna read and like it takes me out of it. Definitely. In terms of the structure, you can definitely tell. Well, here's the thing. When I'm reading this, I can definitely tell that it was the 12 short stories because this is the 12 short stories. I tried this into the audiobook and it was different. And I realized because other editions are the adapted the big four which was released with like an extra 2000 words to kind of join the stories together and the stories were split up into different chapters and like moved about a bit. Whereas this is kind of just like the 12 short stories put together, like how they are originally written which I don't really understand why they did that but whatever. I don't hate it. It does feel a bit ridiculous like Proro running around Europe, chasing these super villains. And Hastings is back in this one. You don't know Hastings is like Proro's friend who narrates some of the first few books. And I'm just like, why? Get rid of this man. I don't like Hastings. He's boring. He is the most boring character. I hate her. I tell you now. So, it's okay. It's probably like, here's the thing. It's like a three star in terms of the mystery and like the story. But because of like the racism I'm probably going to dock it another point just in terms of like, you know, the racism and my enjoyment of it because of that. So it's probably like a two star right now and I can't really see it changing because I don't think the story's going to change too much because it's just more short stories. Listen, I'm going to be glad when I've read it because it's short. It's another book off my list and it means I can move on to the next Okuparo book which hopefully a lot of people like that one. So hopefully it won't be as bad, but yeah. I've given Agatha Christie two stars before. I've given Agatha Christie five stars. She's not consistent for me and that's just something I have to accept. So it's actually Thursday afternoon. I only just finished this. So I did cheat on this challenge a bit because I just didn't want to read this book last night if I'm quite honest with you. I am going to give it two stars for the reasoning that I gave before. Like it's a three star in terms of, you know, my enjoyment and the story and the writing but I'm docking a point for the racism and the of its timeness of it that drew me out of the story. So it is going to be a two star in total. Yeah, I just wasn't that into it. Mawzen didn't have the usual pace of a paro. And I think going from the murder of Roger Ackroyd which was such a good one, like such a surprise and such a good ending to that book. Then to go to this, it was like, Hastings again, you know, this man, this man haunts me. I hate Hastings. I hate him. Security! Can you please escort this lady over here, Al? I don't have much more to say because it literally just carried on being the same thing. The ending wasn't anything special. It was pretty boring, if I'm honest. So it's gonna be two stars. That's, I don't really have anything else to say about it. I'm glad it's over. We can move on. We can read the mystery of the blue train at some point. That's all I'm gonna say because it was a bit disappointing. But listen, Agatha was going through, she was going through it. She was going through it at this point in time. Whatever, we'll just forget it. So basically now it's, no, the conclusion of this video does mood reading work for me. And I'm gonna say no. Although I read three books for the first time in, I can't remember the last time I read three books in a week successfully. Like that has been a long time for me, probably like a month at the very least. So in that sense, it did help me break a reading slump a little bit. It helped me get a bit more back on track. However, there was a lot of wasted time where I could have even read more if I knew if like the decision of what to read had been removed for me like it usually is. Usually I should be able to go straight into the next book. I wouldn't have to come and film. Like I could just like start the book and then film a later day. Yeah, just the decision, having to make that decision was stressful. I didn't enjoy that experience at all. I didn't, I just want the choice to be partly taken away from me. So I don't think I'm gonna be like mood reading again because I don't think it really worked. I found it, yeah. Like I said, I found it very stressful. It wasn't for me. Ha, ha, this is not for me. No, it wasn't for me, but that's okay. Listen, this just proves it's not for me. But we did read, we had like a pretty good, apart from this last one, we had a pretty good week with two five stars after not having a five star in ages. So in terms of the quality of what I read, it broke that cycle of not getting five stars for me. But in terms of the experience, I didn't enjoy it and I wouldn't change the way I read. Also, just so I'd let you know, because early in the video, I was like, am I gonna break my book buying ban to buy the sequel of Good Girl's Guide to Murder? My grandparents actually got it for me for Easter. And they have, obviously this video hasn't even come out yet. So they just chose very well. So I've already got it in my hands and I didn't have to break my book buying ban. So I'm very happy. Let me know if you enjoyed this video. Let me know how you read whether you're more of a mood reader or you're more of a TBR kind of person. And if you've gone to the end of this video, comment. We've had a lot of murder books, like two murder books. So pick your murder weapon, whatever, knife, dynamite, whatever you're gonna use to kill someone, leave that emoji down in the comments. And yeah, I will see you very, very soon in another video. Bye.