 I've been working on this for five weeks. I did not enjoy this. I did not enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it. It's so annoying. It now is the first of May, so I am cheating on my owls. Welcome to my owls vlog. I am actually so, so excited. I have never participated in the owls before. In fact, I'm typically not great at readathons in general. I just struggle to do them. I'm not joining in. I'm not saying. I'm just giving you three, come on. No, I don't want to do it anymore. I've changed my mind. I think I'm gonna do well. I think I'm gonna do well. I think I'm gonna do well. I'm a Gryffindor, just to get that out there. I always feel like I should be a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff, but when I take every quiz that's out there, every Harry Potter quiz that's out there, I am apparently a Gryffindor. And I am taking my owls for the job of Hogwarts professor. I was originally choosing between Hogwarts professor and librarian, and I chose librarian, but some of the prompts for librarian, I just couldn't find a book that I wanted to read that fit that prompt. Whereas with Hogwarts professor, although you have to read seven books, you can basically pick which prompts you're gonna take part in. So it actually meant it was a lot more flexible for me and I can actually read what I want. For ancient runes, which is read something with a heart on the cover or in the title, I'm gonna be reading Heartless by Marissa Mayer. This is a book I've had, I've owned this for like a year and I bought it in hardcover, I bought it in Florida because I wanted this cover and then I've never read it. This is a Queen of Hearts retelling. I read pretty much everything Marissa Mayer puts out. It's not that I love her stuff, but I love the idea behind her stuff. Divination third eye, assign numbers to your TBR and use a random number generator to pick your read. I did this and I forgot to film it. So like I could recreate it for you, but you just gotta trust me. Lies, baby, lies, baby, lies. That chose Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray and I wanna read this so bad. I've been trying to figure out how to fit this into my like weekly themed vlogs because if you don't know, every Sunday I post a vlog and they're always themed around something, you know? And I just could never think of how to fit this into a video. This is the second in the Divinus series set in 1920s New York, lots of like kind of magic, demons, mystery, friendship. It's like a scuby gang, it's great vibes and I cannot wait to get to this. Again, I bought this in the same Barnes & Noble, which I bought Heartless at the same time, still haven't read it, need to get around to it because it's been a year. Next for Charms, which is something that which has white on the cover. I'm gonna be reading The Raven Boys by Maggie Seaborder. I don't know much about this other than if Blue kisses a boy that she loves, he'll die. And there's The Raven Boys, there's something called Lay Lines, which I don't really know what they are. So next is Astronomy and it's Night Classes, read the majority of this book when it's dark outside. So I chose The Grey Dild Book by Neil Gaiman, it's the graphic novel. My dad got this for me for my birthday, I don't know much about it, I don't wanna know much about it until I read it. I figured that, you know, graphic novel was something that's good for this because I can read it quickly. I read, I do the majority of my reading at night anyway, but I wanted to have a short book so that I wasn't super constraining when I could read it. And then the last physical book I have, Care of Magical Creatures, creature with a beak on the cover. I have gone with Ruin and Rising by Lee Bardugo, this is the final one in the kind of Shadow and Bone trilogy. Well, I don't even love it. I feel like I have to read it because I really wanna get onto Six of Crows, like ASAP. There's two audiobooks, which I'm also using to fulfill prompts. The first of which is for Defense Against the Dark, Arts, Grindelow's Bookset, The Sea or Coast. And for that, I'm going to be reading Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. And then for Muggle Studies, which is to read a book from the perspective of a Muggle or like a contemporary book, I'm gonna be reading Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson. I feel like I've got a really great selection of books to read this monthly out. Future Megan will decide whichever book we're speaking about there and you'll see now. I'm over halfway through. I listened to it a little bit while making lunch today and I read like 20% of it and I was like, oh shit, because I was on 40% and I wanted to check in the halfway. So I'm at 60% now. So if any of you saw my reading Light YA fiction, I'll put the pointing with my bookmark. That seals. I read What Just Rise by Renee Watson and Ellen Hagen in that. I loved that. But I feel like in that one I had a lot more to talk about whereas this book is really good. But I feel like I haven't got much to talk about. So in this, we are following a young girl who goes to basically like, I mean, I guess it's our equivalent of a grammar school, like a school for clever kids. I actually can't remember her name. That's bad. I can't remember what her name is. She's an African girl, her name's Chanel. Chanel! And the school she goes to is predominantly white. She's black and it's basically her story of trying to learn how to find her way through all of this. She comes up against a lot of prejudice based on her race. I almost feel like it's too similar to the character of Jasmine and What Just Rise. They're experiencing a lot of the same things and I think these are things that should be told over and over again in our stories. I just think maybe I shouldn't have read these books so close to one another. It's fine. I'm enjoying listening to it. It's a nice short audio book that isn't too taxing. You can kind of just chill out too, but I don't think it's anything like revolutionary. So I finished it a few days ago. Nothing notable really to say about it. I gave it three stars. I think it's fine. I think it tackles important issues but I feel like there wasn't really much of a plot. I didn't feel very connected to the characters and I don't really want to waste much more of your time talking about it when this is a seven book video. So that's all I have to say. You guys go drag me for this, huh? Okay. I did however start, what is it? A gentleman's guide to vice and virtue? The gentleman? I don't know which, I don't know really what it's called. I don't really know if I like it. I don't really like it. The characters just seem so annoying, like so up themselves. If it hurt your feelings, okay then I am sorry that it hurt your feelings. I am not sorry for saying it. This is a book that I was kind of wary of to begin with and I'm only reading it because it fits the prompt. I realize I haven't told you the plot but I don't really care too. I've forgotten the main character's name. I know we've got Felicity in Percy as like his sister and friend, friend. He's on his Europe tour and things go wrong. They've gotten involved with these people. I don't really know what to tell you. Like it's just kind of nothing. That's how I feel about this book. I feel very nothing. The main character is very annoying to me. I don't know if he's supposed to be annoying but he's pissing me off. Like I'm just done with this shit. He's so up himself and I know that's the character but doesn't mean I have to like him. I don't particularly like you either. I can't find one damn thing to like about you right now in the moment. To me it just feels very juvenile. It feels like a really basic story and I'm just not really here for it. I'm finishing this always at the end of a chapter. Like I'm not finishing halfway through a chapter but I can never remember what's going on. I cannot tell you what country in Europe we're in right now. I actually have no idea. And I think the bit which fits the prompt of this being set at the Sea of Coast has actually happened but I actually don't recall any of that. Like it's weird. It reminds of when I read Rebel City of Indra by Kendall and Kylie Jenner how I often struggle to visualize where we are, what's happening. I feel the same way about this. No. Not this. This book ain't good. This book is Hot Trash. I finished it. I forced myself through it and I'm giving it two stars. The characters, no personality, no flavor, nothing to them. How was this book almost 11 hours long, audio book and it feels like nothing happened. Like what are you doing? And the writing just like nothing special. The protagonist, he is so annoying. I'm just so happy this is done. Also there was a bit of drama surrounding the author last night. Obviously that drama will be like old news by the time this video comes out in two weeks but for me it happened last night. This girl has been going around autographing other author's books, authors of colors books. Like defacing them. What do you have to think of yourself? To think, oh yeah someone is gonna wanna buy this author's book with my signature on it. Wow. Needless to say I will not be carrying on with this series. I did not enjoy this. I did not enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it. So annoying. Quickly before we get into this book I do need to make this sad announcement. I am not gonna be reading The Raven Boy is in this vlog. I just knew by the time I had left to read these books one had to go and charms which is read something is one on the cover was the easiest one to sacrifice. So for that I am counting Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay which I read in my last reading vlog which was reading three feminist book. I'll link that up above if you're interesting. Interesting, interested. I gave it five stars, loved it. And if there's some rule that you're not to change your TBR like, I don't know. Put me into tension with Snape. I don't care. No offense but I really don't care. 60 pages into this. I've just read that this morning in between doing stuff. And so far I think I may be preferring it to The Diviners. The one thing that I kind of wished happened in The Diviners was I wanted it to be way, way darker. It felt very surface level darkness. And when I read Ninth House right after obviously one is an adult book one's a young adult book but that was kind of the grittiness I wanted from this series. And from what I've read so far I think the kind of trouble in this book has much more potential to be that dark, to be a bit grittier. It's also a really interesting new character we've been introduced to who I think is gonna be so good. I'm very excited and we're just meeting back up with Uncle Will. If you don't know, I fancy Uncle Will. But I don't know if I'm imagining him properly in my head. You know, I have this trouble a lot where I struggle to imagine ages properly. Right, so everyone's fancy Sam or Jericho or Memphis. But for me, I imagine Uncle Will as like Matthew Goebbler with a bit of graying. You know, like a bit older Matthew Goebbler. That's just how I imagine him. You can tell me if I'm wrong and he's supposed to be really, really old but like in my head, it's fine. I think I'm actually gonna fiend. Then the Diviners. I'm enjoying it much more. So the Diviners are like this in terms of like imagine like three storylines. They're very much tight, right? And then this one, this is my brain. Imagine, let me do it this way, right? Like that, imagine three lines or four whether how many stories we've got. And then in this one, it feels like they're going to then go back like that, right? It feels like they're going apart to come back together. I think the writing is a lot better in this one and I think the stories and the characters are benefiting from in some cases a bit of time apart from one another. We've got like four different storylines going on and I think they're all equally fleshed out. They are all equally interesting. My only gripe is that Uncle Will is not, he's off doing something. And that is I think gonna be a big reveal and like we're supposed to keep guessing and keep wondering what is happening. But I just need Uncle Will in the book. Like I just love his character. And so that is the only thing I'm like, so why are you not here? And I really scratched my head and I wonder where's God when you need him? Kind of evil in the Diviners felt, I don't respond to anything but it felt much more tangible, right? Whereas this one feels a bit more insidious, a bit more difficult to overcome. Like it's extended beyond their control. It's already gone too far for there to be a resolution which I enjoy. I hate in books when I think, oh, this is just gonna get resolved. Oh, I know how this is gonna get resolved. Whereas I don't know how this is gonna get resolved. The world seems so vivid and the storylines are very complex and different. And we're wondering a lot of different things and I think that helps. And I've always said how I like how sometimes it zooms out almost. Like it feels like in a film where the camera will be on Eevee maybe or Jericho or something. And then it will zoom out and you'll see something else of New York. I think she does a very good job of keeping you set in the scene and keeping you feel like there's a bigger world out there beyond these characters. Cause sometimes in fantasy books like this it feels like everything revolves around the characters. Whereas when we zoom out we realize there's a whole city, a whole world at stake and I really enjoy that. So I'm excited to read more of this today. I finished Lair of Dreams last night. I really enjoyed it. I'm giving it 4.5 stars. It's not quite a five style for me. I feel like the plot was a major step up in this one. It got a lot darker which is what I was wanting from the Diviners. I didn't feel like we had enough darkness. I wanted higher stakes. We got to spend a lot more time with Henry who was a character I really really loved in the first book, but we hardly spent any time with him. He became a really important character in this one. There was a great new character called Ling who I like loved. She's one of my favorite characters in the thing so far. The only problem is there wasn't any Uncle Will. Like Uncle Will just wasn't here and I'm angry about that. But I think Lair of Dreams does a great job of tackling issues that America faced then and still faces now, you know, racism, xenophobia, all of these kind of things. Ableism whilst placing it in a fantasy setting that is relevant to the time period it's based off of but incorporating all these magical elements too. I loved the ending. I felt like the last 80 pages were great pacing. The kind of 80 pages before that I was like, okay, let's just get into the ending now. I felt like we could have cut like 50 to 100 pages from this and it would have still been as good. I feel like some editing was needed. You are a mean girl. The kind of love triangle that's in this is kind of starting to annoy me. Like I'm kind of done with it. I've kind of had enough for the record in all of interest I am Team Jericho even though I don't think that's the way it's gonna go. Like I'm Team Jericho but I recognize that's probably the losing side. I cried but in case you haven't seen my most recent video which was books I made me cry. This is now on that list. I actually started the audio book and in a bid to finish all of my owls because it is current in 27. I've been working on this for five weeks. The audio book is amazing. I think what I needed with this series was the audio book because it feels like it needs something to liven it up a bit. The narrator I can already tell is great in conveying meaning, she does great accents for all the different characters. I like the beginning of this but what I always felt with the other books in the series was I loved the beginning of the books and then just my enjoyment level would decrease slowly as the book went on. So I'm hoping that's not gonna happen here. Yeah, I'm actually feeling optimistic about this book and that may be my favorite in the series. I'm not sure yet. Oh well, all you can do is laugh. Yo, oh my God, don't fall over. I don't know why everyone dislikes this. I feel this is everyone's least favorite in the series but for me right now, it's definitely my favorite. It's probably sitting at like a 3.5. I don't know if this series is ever gonna get a four. I can't see it for me. Like I just can't. I like something a bit more complex. I love coloring. I don't see it for me but okay. I did reach the I am become a blade line which is like, I knew that was coming. I knew Mal was gonna have something to do with I am become a blade. I don't get it. Like I actually don't understand what's going on there. I'm just choosing to ignore it quite frankly. I'm hoping the pace picks up a bit now because we have kind of like hit a slow point which I find in these series. I really love the first 50 pages and then we kind of hit a slow point for the next 150 and you're like, what is going on? Like it just feels a bit stagnant. I think this is much better than the other two so far but I feel like I always feel like that and by the ending I'm like, oh fuck this. You know what I mean? What is it about these books that the start they're great and by the middle I'm bored? What is going on in this series? Like why does this happen in every book that the beginning I think it's gonna be great and then by the middle I'm like, nothing's happened. So I actually finished RuneRising yesterday but I feel like I just needed a day to collect my thoughts and figure out what I actually thought about this book. I think I'm giving it 2.5 stars. Oh, smell! You didn't even show it! You didn't even show it! Smell! Let me sleep in another room tonight and I'll call this show. There wasn't anything I hated in this book. I quite liked the resolution at the end of the story. I feel like it was quite an interesting choice for how the series ended and I didn't have a problem with how any of the characters were represented necessarily. I just feel like nothing happened. I could not tell you what the plot of this was. Like I could not, I can't tell you what happened. I have no idea what happened in this book. I kind of feel like I can't give any higher because although I like some aspects of kind of the characterizations and stuff, I really don't feel like I read anything. And this is the way I always tend to feel about this series. I feel like a lot happens at the beginning. It's got really strong opening 80 pages and then the rest of the book nothing happens until we're at the end and we have like the big final battle. It always feels a bit aimless and a bit lost in the middle. Also, I don't hate Mao. I know he's a bit annoying. Again, he just feels a bit like nothingness. Everyone feels like he's always trying to constrain Alina's power, but I understand where he's coming from a lot of time. Like he sacrifices a lot. As a character, I don't like the darkling, but at least he has a bit of something. Mao, I don't hate, but again, like this book, I don't feel any particular way towards him. Bored shitless. I'm hearing the same conversation over and over and over again. I'm glad this series is finally over so I can read Six of Crows in Critical Kingdom. I'm gonna have an exciting announcement coming soon and I'm hoping that I'm gonna be reading, that that means I'm gonna be reading that series soon. So look out for that on Twitter and stuff. Make sure you follow me on Twitter and Instagram down below if you haven't. It's just like, you know, listen, we're like probably 25 minutes into this vlog by now. So like if you've stuck this far, you don't mind me saying that. I've been waiting until it's dark outside. Apologies for all our clothes that you can see. To read the Grey Dads book by Neil Gaiman. I don't know much about this. My dad just got this from me out of the blue for my birthday. But I feel like it's a cool kind of thing to read at night and it's a graphic novel that's really like comic book-y style. So I don't think it'll take me too long. I'm gonna read that. I'm gonna chill out, sit here. I'm gonna have some ice cream, the golden syrup on it. Nice combo. Oh my God, there was just dead bodies like on the second page. I thought it was like a kids book. Oh my God, why is there dead bodies on the second page? I just finished it. And like I kind of love it. I'm debating whether it's five stars. No, I think I'm gonna do it at 4.5 stars. It was very good. So this is about a boy whose family is murdered. I don't know why I'm laughing. His whole family is murdered but he wanders away into the graveyard and he basically gets adopted by two of the ghosts in there and this kind of like, we don't really know what he is yet, Sylvus, he is like his guardian. And so this whole collection is just him, the boy going through like loads of different mini adventures essentially and going places he shouldn't and doing things he shouldn't and learning from that. I really enjoyed like the facial expressions and the style of art in this. For me actually the thing that maybe brought me out of it is that each of the little chapters is illustrated by different illustrators and although that's really cool because this is an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel so I understand why I've done that to like showcase all Stephen authors but it did kind of bring me out of it. I would just get used to the writing style, to the drawing style. I would feel like, oh no, I'm not used to what I liked about the facial expressions or like the way characters are drawn because sometimes that can be your favorite thing and then like it's completely different than the next one. So there was certain artistic styles I preferred. I'm going to give this 4.5 stars. This was a home run from Steve. That's a surprise present, thanks Steve. Thanks dad. I think it's really funny. I think it's really, oh god, I love some of the ghosts in this. They have such cool characters because you can kind of camp up the Victorian guy or like whatever, do you know what I mean? Maybe not. Imagine how tired we are. Imagine how tired we are. So it is now the last day of April, it's April 30th and I don't know if I'm going to finish today. If I give myself an extra day tomorrow, like no one shoot me. Like I have had, have had. I've read loads of other books that aren't my Al's books so like just give me an extra day. Like we don't have to acknowledge it. I'm going to pretend. It's just a movie, it's pretend. You're an adult, you should know that. All I already know about this is that it is a queen of hearts retelling. I don't know much about the plot. Is it an origin story? Oh my god, okay, hang on. It's about baking as well. Oh my god, I mean, it's such a baking me. I've owned this for far too long without reading it and it's time. It's really time. I've been paying this book dust. 23. There's something about Marissa Mayer's writing that is just so easy to read, so enjoyable to read and it just feels like a warm hug. So I was right that this is a queen of hearts origin story. We're following Kath who just wants to bake. She loves baking, but the king is into her. The way I'm imagining him is Ed from Nine to Day Fiance. I don't like like her. You wouldn't want to be married to him. You would not want to be married to him. So Kath understandably is like, I want to get out of this. She wants to own her own bakery, which is like unheard of. She should not be doing that, but that's what she wants to do. And there's also a court joker who she's like falling in love with and he's taking her out to tea parties in the middle of the night. It's all very scandalous. It now is the 1st of May. So I am cheating on my owls. If I finish this today, I'm counting it as a win and we're not talking about it anymore. Your girl has had enough on her plate. We're in a pandemic. If it takes me one extra day to finish a book, so be it. I am loving reading this. It reminds me very much of Luna Chronicles. The fact that baking has such a big part and it just makes me so happy. Like I want to read more about baking. I want to read more about people who bake. It's such a nice book to read. I think Marissa Mayer's writing is when you just need a bit of an easy read. You read maybe some more difficult stuff. You just fly through this. I love all the Alice in Wonderland like references and characters. That was beautiful. You did such a good job of expressing yourself. I finished Heartless and that means I finished my owls. I'm going to give it four stars. I really, really enjoyed this. The plot was really interesting. I like how she had taken all the liberties with Alice in Wonderland characters. Fate was a very interesting kind of plot point in this and time and trying to escape what is already kind of written in the cards for you. You know going into it is an origin story and so you're trying to figure out whether she is going to become the Queen of Hearts that we know or whether there's going to be a twist and she's somehow going to escape that fate and you're hoping either way. Some of us will be, I'm trying not to give away which one I was hoping for but you're only going to hope she's going to turn like Evil Queen, angry and like full of rage and she's going to just like fuck these bitches up. You know what I mean? Or she's going to, there's going to be a way that she's going to end up with the guy that she loves and she's somehow going to like trick fate, right? And so you're hoping for one of those but the ending didn't go the way I hoped but that's not a bad thing. Like it wasn't like I was thinking, oh if the ending goes the other way, it's going to be a bad book. It's just like you're going to be in one of the two parties rooting for it to go either way and it didn't go the way I was rooting for but like there's nothing wrong with that. You know what I mean? Like there'll be plenty of people who are really happy with the way that ending happened and that was what they were hoping for but Marissa May is writing, brilliant again. I love the twist. I love the baking. It made me want to bake. I think I might bake more brownies soon. I'm thinking about nudes because I'm going to have to read a lot of books if I participate in that. Would you guys be okay if I just did weekly reading vlogs for the nudes when that rolls around? I kind of want to do that but I kind of don't feel like I have much choice. Maybe I'll have like a few other vlogs that I pre-film because by that time I'll have been out of school for ages so I'll have more time to read but would you guys be interested in weekly reading vlogs? I don't know. I feel like I always do themed vlogs. Maybe we could find a way to do themed vlogs within the nudes, which I guess is a possibility. I guess we'll just have to tackle that bridge when we come to it, I guess. Thank you very much for watching to the end. I hope you did well on your owls. Comment down below what your career is and how you did when you completed all the books where you gave yourself an extra day like me because there's nothing to be ashamed of and yeah, thank you very much for watching and I'll see you very, very soon. Bye.