 Hey guys, what's up? It's Kinsey and welcome back to my channel. Today we are talking about my favorite topic ever, which is reading. I'm a 24 year old lifestyle vlogger, podcast host based in Dallas, Texas. I do a lot of lifestyle vlogs and I always say like I think that I'm like Martha Stewart, but I'm not. It's like the whole bread winning housewife vibe thing. I have going minus the being a wife part. I'm a big part of my identity as you know, a self-proclaimed bread winning housewife would be my reading. I read very often. I've actually read, as I'm reading this actually, let's see. In the past year, I've definitely read 100 books. My goal for 2021 is 100 books. And as of right now, I'm on track at 78 books. This is my Goodreads profile. We will get into that. So if you guys are new here, be sure to subscribe. All of my bookrex and stuff are on my Instagram. And I've also been tabling in the book talk world recently. So go follow me on TikTok. I posted the other day that I was going to film this video and I had no idea how many questions you guys would have about reading. So I thought this video was going to be five minutes and might be a little bit longer. Giving you a background on my reading journey, I've pretty much always been a reader. When I was younger, I grew up. I read every single Judy B. Jones book and then I read every single Nancy Drew book. I like actually think I'm a detective now. And so I was a really big reader when I was younger and then I always did read. But as I got older, I thought that I was wasting time reading fiction novels instead of nonfiction, which is actually really stupid. I thought that if I was reading, it had to be like productive quote unquote. It had to be like a nonfiction novel and nonfiction book. And then I stopped reading fiction altogether. Then I started reading fiction again over COVID. And now I mean, here we are. It is half my personality at this point. So I'm going to go through. I'm going to give you guys my tips on reading. I use an e-reader. So I'm going to give you why I use my e-reader and the specific one. We're going to do at the very end. I'm going to answer a lot of questions you guys had. And then I'm also going to be doing a calling Hoover at book ranking because I've been getting a lot of requests for that. So buckle up, everyone. We're all going to become readers. Also comment below your favorite book that you've ever read. We can use this video as like a resource for bookrex. Okay, my book tips. So the first thing being like getting into reading, it really just takes one good book to get you into this rabbit hole of reading. Last year during COVID, I read The Last Wizard's Parish. And that book, that's by Liv Constantine, which is actually an author duo. It's not just one person, guys. Crazy, right? So you have to just find the right book. And I'm going to give you a lot of bookrex and we're going to go through how to do that. But one book really can just change things for you. Also find out how you like to read. I get the whole physical book thing, I guess. But I read too much to even read physical books. We'll get into that. But I read on my Kindle and there's a lot of reasons why I read a lot more when I have a Kindle. But basically figure out if you want a physical book or if you want the e-reader, you have to figure out what works for you and what you like and what's going to actually ultimately get you to read more. Also make a reading routine. This at least works for me. I read every single night before bed, honestly normally a minimum of an hour. Even when I'm coming home from the bars, I normally read before I go to bed. I read every single night. It like makes me, it puts me to sleep. I don't immediately fall asleep but I'll read for like an hour. Sometimes if I'm really like hooked, I'll read for like three or four hours. It honestly just depends. For me, setting a goal on how many books I want to read gets me just back into the habit. And this might not be for everyone but obviously a hundred books in a year is quite a goal. I don't think that I will make that my goal next year just because I'm adding like more businesses and things that I'm doing. I'll probably do 50. But it just gets me still back on track with reading. And reading is just something that helps me so much, like mentally, emotionally, that it's actually nice for me to have a book goal. Because when I think I'm accomplishing something, I'm learning, I feel good. Like even reading fiction books, I'll put like a Dr. Caroline Leaf thing as to why like reading fiction books she used to share to post is actually really good for you. I just know reading is good for me so I like having these goals because it keeps me accountable to reading. I also have a book club with my friends at home and that's really fun. So that's like another fun way to do it. You can also do virtual book clubs. I know like the Red Heads book club has the podcast, like there's so many ways to do it. In our Geneva group chat, we have a whole room of people talking about books. You can talk to people about books kind of like a little book club there. Okay, so for finding books, I do this in a few different ways. There are some people that I know I just have a very similar taste in books with like my friend Margot and I. We have very similar taste. I like following different people on Instagram because they're constantly sharing books. I think like joining a Facebook group like the Red Heads book club Facebook group. People are always giving book recs in there. I go on Goodreads. I have a whole like 2B Red thing. Like I will literally scroll Goodreads for hours just looking at books. I want to potentially read and add them there. Then I can go back to that and also show you like similar books to the ones that you like, which is really nice. It does them on the Kindle as well. I used to do it back when I would read physical books. I'd go on Amazon, see the book that I was reading and then go to like suggested books that were similar if I liked that book. Okay, something else I'll do like in January. I think I read every single Taylor Jenkins read novel. Like every single one because I just went on this kick. Like I will just go get really hooked on one author. Read every single book that they have and then go to the next. Like I like Renee Carlina. I like Colleen Hoover. I like Liv Constantine. Renee Carlina. I think I already said that. Emily Henry. Lucinda Berry. Jennifer Hillier. Like all these authors that I know I like. So I'm constantly like in that. Pretty much at night my night reading routine is I get in bed. I don't want to be on my phone in bed. And I will say this is something that has helped me tremendously in every aspect of my life. Worth the boundaries with work with honestly like emotional health with not over thinking. I literally just put my phone down like face down on my nightstand right there. And then I have this like patch restore little alarm clock, which is like a recent edition and it has a nighttime routine. So it'll put on like little bit of like music like waves and stuff and then the light will go down. And then I'll just read for hours. I don't get back on my phone. I think it just takes a lot of self-discipline like there. I wouldn't even say when I put my phone down though that I even struggle at this point with wanting to pick it up. I think it's just like discipline and over time you kind of lose a desire. I also don't want to be on my phone at night. So like I don't really have like that urge and I try like my friends know if you text me after like nine. I'm probably gonna reply the next morning at like seven. I just end up on my phone at night. Reading before bed helps a tiny if you're going through a hard time like a breakup or like friend problems or family drama or whatever it is. Because you're not thinking about that at night and you're not just sitting there overthinking all of your problems in your life and whatever. You're sitting there thinking about the book. Like I actually dream about books now. So it helps a lot. Before we get into why you need an e-reader or why I like my e-reader. We're gonna go through a little bit of book racks. Again, you guys can follow me on Instagram. You can follow my Goodreads and see when I'm writing books. I'm constantly sharing them in videos and stuff too. I post on my Instagram story every time I finish a book and like if I liked it or not. I tend to read thrillers and romance novels. Those are my favorite. It took me a while to realize I liked romance books and we'll get into that. But thrillers I love. My favorite thriller of all time is Little Secret by Jennifer Hillier. I think that's how you pronounce her name. It's such a unique thriller honestly. All of the thrillers that I'm going to share with you are unique in the sense that it's not the wife that kills the husband. You know what I mean? Like I brought a lot of those and they're all the same. And I like some of them but like these are very unique thrillers that I would recommend all of them. Little Secret by Jennifer Hillier. Verity by Colleen Hoover. This one's huge on book talk now. It's Colleen Hoover's only thriller. Unless you count Layla as a thriller. But that's to me that was more like I don't even know what that would be. And so I'm like I don't even know. Verity is very good. When she returned at Lucinda Berry I actually just read this one and it was so interesting. Like it was a thriller that was unlike any other thriller I've read before. I liked it a lot. The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier. This novel. Honestly I made Margarita and she actually really liked it. And I'm like it sounds so weird and the cover looks so weird. But it's really good. Again that's another author that I just went through on all of her books that I really like her. And all of hers are based in the Pacific Northwest which is cool. And then The Silent Patient by Alex. I forget how to pronounce his last name or her last name I'm not sure. I loved The Silent Patient. I read it in a day. Those are all books that I would rate like 4.5 and above out of 5. Romance. Okay the book that got me into romance novels that made me believe. Not believe but made me realize I liked them was. This is not going to come as a surprise if you are anywhere on the internet. But before we were strangers Renee Carlino. Wow I actually had Renee Carlino on my podcast. I'm going to listen to that. We'll link the episode below. It is just so beautiful. It's based in New York. Murray Hill which like literally every romance novel actually is when I think about it. So good. I don't have time to like give you the bio of every book so I'm just going to list them off. 28 Summers. I want to say 28 Summers. Ellen Hildebrand. She's like Queen of Beatrice. I liked it. I like her books a lot. They're definitely long. But they're just the perfect like Beatrice. I don't know. And then speaking of Beatrice. The book Beatrice by Emily Henry. I just don't think the name and the cover do a justice. I would have never thought I would love this book the way that I did. I like this book a lot better than her most recent one. People we meet on vacation. I liked Beatrice a lot better. And I just love Emily Henry. I just think she's so cute. Okay for miscellaneous because I don't really know where to put these in like genre wise. Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I mean if you're it is just it follows Evelyn Hugo and her seven husbands and the stories behind it. It's kind of like an old Hollywood book. I was on my to be read list for probably a year before I read it and I read it in one day like in one sitting. It was amazing. Like that book is in no way shape or form over hyped. I didn't love Daisy Jones in the six but I love Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Then it ends with us calling Hoover trigger warning. There is some like domestic stuff. Just trigger warning. But it ends with us by calling Hoover is one of my all time favorite books ever so good. Like oh my god. Then we have Magnolia Parks just a Hastings. Jessa has been on my podcast for very good friend of mine. I don't say this just because she's a friend of mine. Like I wouldn't put it on the list if I didn't feel this way. I love Magnolia Parks. It's one of those books where it really comes to life. Like I feel like I know Magnolia and it's a book I think about often. It's really cool. It's totally different than like a lot of the books on this list. She's like very fabulous. They leave these in the same lives. Like I don't know. Very good. Then we have The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave which I think could be a thriller but it's not really. I don't know if it's just because it's based in Texas and then there's like a part in LA and that's what makes me like really like it. This book actually got me out of a rut with reading at one point and so I just really really enjoyed it. And then Celebrity Memoirs. Jessica Simpson Open Book was one of the books that really got me into reading. It was one of the ones that I was like okay like let's get this get back into this. It is probably the best like Celebrity Memoir. She goes into detail on like all of her relationships, her marriage with Nicholas Shea, how they hooked up after, her relationship with John Mayer, Tony Romo. It's really good. Also the church she grew up at is really just like probably 25 minutes north of me, maybe 30. So I just feel very connected to this book. I love it. Blowing My Way to the Top by Jeannette Kinn. I really enjoyed as well. Girl with no Job, Claudia Autry left that book as well in a very unbiased way. I actually thought it was incredible. So those are my favorite memoirs as of like recently. I'm not going to get into nonfiction books just because that's just not really what I care about. I do read a very good amount of nonfiction still. I'm not going to get into that in this video but I can on Instagram or something to let me know if you guys are wanting those. Moving on to why I love my e-reader and why I just think that they're the best way of reading. I get the paper feel and you want the actual book. I understand that. I can't do that. I read too much that I don't have room for all of these books in my house. And also my Kindle, it's not like a iPad screen. It gives you like a paper feel. Like you can see on the Kindle it looks like a page. I get it's not the same thing but it's just, it truly is to me better in so many other ways. Number one, you read more and you don't have to worry about having like a hundred books in your house that you really just don't have room for that you're not going to reread. Number two, the books are cheaper. Yes, I do buy all my books. I know you can use like the Libby app and stuff but I am just too much of an instant person. I don't mind spending money on books because of how good they are for me. And also I actually feel like I learn more from a fiction book sometimes than I even knew from a nonfiction book. I just really like it. I also think it's a great hobby to have and it's a great like personal development tool to have to be able to read like fiction novels. You can also use like the Libby app so you can basically be reading for free if you're like checking out books and stuff. I just don't want to wait to like get off list and things like that. I'm honestly just too impatient but I'm honestly just like too impatient and lazy. This one is huge. You can lie down fully. Like when I'm reading a book I have to like sit up but when I'm reading my Kindle I'm just laying around and flopping around. I can lay in any which way I want, lay down fully. I mean, wow. I know Jackie has like a pillow for her Kindle and like a remote for the pages so she doesn't even have to hold it anymore. So there's like a lot of pros in that way. And the last one which honestly I think is the biggest reason as to why I read so much more now and this is going to sound crazy but I know a lot of you guys are going to relate to it. You don't have to get up to turn your light off. And listen, I know it sounds crazy. You can continue to read even once your lights are off. So once I turn my lights off for the night I'm like oh I don't really want to read, change your eyes, whatever. No, no, no. That's not a problem when you have a Kindle. You can see it in the pitch black. It's amazing. You can also just start in your bag. It doesn't take up a lot of space. It fits in most of my purses. I just have it on the go. If I'm reading at night and I'm on a roll, if I finish a book and I want to start a new book I don't have to wait to order it and wait for it to come in the mail. I can just pick a new book right off my Kindle. I mean there's just like so many pros. Okay, so in terms of what Kindle to get, I have the Oasis. I have gifted the Paperwhite to honestly probably like five people at least. It's a really, really good gift actually. I don't think it's necessary to get the Oasis. I definitely prefer the Oasis but I also read way more than like the normal person because I just am so like hooked onto it. So it depends on how much you want to read. There's definitely pros to having the Oasis. I'll put something on the screen of like the differences between the two. I love my Oasis for a price point. I believe I paid around $250 for my Oasis and I use it probably... I mean I use it every single day. I probably use it like I mean 10 hours a week at least. And then the Paperwhite is only $99. You do not need to spend the extra money on the Oasis unless you really care and you want that. For me, it was worth it just by how much I read but it's definitely not necessary. I'm going to answer some of your questions. Number one, how do you find the time to read so much? I really live by the philosophy of you have time for what you want to make time for. But also really practically speaking, I never watch TV. So I think everyone would read this much if they didn't watch TV. And I'm not saying TV is a bad thing. I just can't focus when I watch TV. Like I'm way more into books than I am into watching a show and I don't know if it's because I make videos for a living and I really like watching YouTube but I don't know what it is. I think just checking out completely from like TV screens whatever and reading on a Kindle makes me just relax more. I also get questions of does it feel like you're on technology when you're reading your Kindle? Not at all, like literally in the slightest. Especially because I can only read on there. I was reading on my iPad for a while but I just wanted something that was completely disconnected from like work and you know like connection to other people. So no. What were your first hair books growing up? Judy B. Jones, Nancy Drew. I remember reading Twilight in fifth grade and I was obsessed with that. I cannot believe I read that series in the fifth grade and I feel like a lot of people that I know did, insane. But those are like my first books that I remember just like loving. Obviously I read Judy B. Jones and Nancy Drew when I was in like kindergarten. But yeah. Do you finish a book if you're not into it? Okay, it depends. I get a lot of samples. This is another pro of getting a Kindle. You can read the first 10% on the book for free with the sample. So if I like the sample, so I'll read 10% of every book basically and if I like it I'll get the full book and if not then no. Then there will be times where I'm reading and I'm still not into it and I have the full book and if I'm there at like 30% and I still don't like it I'll probably stop reading it. It very rarely happens but it does happen. But very rarely. And then if I'm at like 50% like at that point I'm like I'm just gonna like suck it up and go through. But there are a few books like two books I stopped at 50%. It's very rare but sometimes I do and I like to live by the 30% rule at this point. How do you put your phone down and actually read? My phone tells you how to serve always. I literally place it face down so I can't even see if there's notifications and I just turn away from it. I don't know over time it's just gotten a lot easier but once I'm just hooked onto a book and I put it away for the night and I know that like I'm not touching technology before I fall asleep it gets easier. I very very rarely pick up my phone again after I start reading for the night. But again this is like a year into me being very disciplined in that way. But it's honestly really good for me mentally. How do you get through a bookrat? I just have to find a really good book. Like I definitely get in that to where I will read like five books in a row that I'm like that was just not that great. So I just like focus and I try to find the right book. I have a TikTok of bookrex that can help me get through a bookrat. How do you stop feeling like you're unproductive? So I'm assuming this is a feeling unproductive when you're reading fiction novels. So I shared this before I did feel that way and then I realized it was like really dumb to feel that way. Not saying that like your feelings are dumb but you still learn a lot. And like not every single thing that you do in society or in life needs to be something that's going to get you from like point A to point B. Sometimes you actually just need to like check out have a hobby, enjoy life. Like have your own thing that you like doing but honestly ultimately I learn a lot through reading fiction novels anyways even if it's whether it's like learning more about a like life situation or more about a location that they're living in or whatever it is. I will read books and even just like certain dialogue from the characters I actually learned from. So I don't know regardless reading makes you smarter. So here's my Colleen Hoover Book Ranking which honestly looking at this list just feels wrong because I feel like there would be more. I don't know I like a lot of them. There are some that are just like very YA but there's something about Colleen Hoover that is so comforting. She definitely has a wide variety of books and some of them are definitely a lot more YA some of them are a lot more mature. Number one obviously it ends with us Colleen Hoover so good. Number two Verity her thriller which is great I didn't love Layla but I loved Verity. Layla wasn't really a thriller. I think this might be an unpopular opinion but all your perfects by Colleen Hoover. This book actually made me cry like I literally cried at the end of it. I loved it so much it's definitely really emotional and kind of depressing but it was so good. I personally really loved Heartbones I know that was also a controversial one. I don't know if it's because it's based in Texas either. There's something about it that I really enjoyed and I was really excited obviously like another Colleen Hoover book so I liked that one a lot and then for fifth I put November 9th which I actually really really love that book it's extremely unrealistic but I really enjoyed it. I also did like Ugly Love but it's not my favorite I feel like everyone's top three Ugly Love hits it and I think I still would put it at like number six in my Colleen Hoover ranking but I loved November 9th that book was really good and I liked Ugly Love too but I don't think it was like my all time end all be all favorite. I've read a lot of Renee Carlino I think I've read every book of Renee Carlino if you like Colleen Hoover and you need a new author I've read every single Colleen Hoover book besides like the last two of them maybe someday series so I've read like 21 of 23 or something like that try reading Emily Henry and Renee Carlino I think that those two are like a safe kind of bet if you like Colleen Hoover. If you guys made it this far comment below books but I love you guys so much I hope you enjoyed I know this is a very niche video but I get a lot of questions about it and I feel like we should all be readers it'd be fun. Anyways hope you guys enjoyed today's video subscribe if you guys haven't already follow me on Instagram everything whatever it's all down below love you guys so much and I'll talk to you soon bye. and you can't see dirt on Navy sheets