 besties it's time for another episode of wrapped 2021 i've unwrapped i've wrapped what did i say i've wrapped all of my 2021 releases and i unwrapped one and then some not a reading slump in terms of like pure numbers right and in terms of how i feel about my reading i feel like i'm not where i want to be in terms of my like attitude and excitement towards reading so we're gonna try and rectify that well i mean we have no choice but like well we'll attempt it i am tempted because of that i think we are yeah i think we're gonna unwrap two in this video unless the first one is one that i'm like desperate to read we're gonna unwrap two and pick one of them which is something i used to do like last year at this point in the series i feel like giving myself the choice especially when i'm like not reading much at the moment is the correct and moral thing to do so where should we begin um okay i am drawn to this one for some reason let's see what this is okay i always get so nervous oh okay so this is Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead which is this the book to get me out of my slump don't think so don't ever call me again you are a low-budget bitch don't think i see it i still really want to read it it's not that long it's only just 300 pages but i've never read any Colson Whitehead and i just view his books as kind of intimidating and stuff to read when i'm really on my shit and am i really on my shit right now definitely not absolutely not so let's unwrap another one and if i don't want to read the other one we will read this because it's something that i feel like i should read and i will enjoy um this one juby oh this is horrible yeah we're gonna try for this one i don't know what this is it's a paperback oh my god i feel sick fantasy that i have been really excited to read but i don't i don't know if all of these are like the thing to get me out of my slump i mean i don't know what i was hoping for with what is left here what to go for you guys let's go with the gilded ones i think i'm feeling this more it's a beautiful spread in addition it's ya so it's gonna be easier to read yeah i've been really excited to read this so let's get into this let's read the gilded ones is this a series or is this a sandalone i don't know we'll find out in the next clip we'll read this okay oh my god i feel sick okay everyone let's chat i come to you as a woman with something to confess i filmed that unwrapping clip in march in march right yeah yeah yeah it was supposed to be for march's episode of wrapped up which you may have noticed never never came or you may not have noticed i was fine i was fine just because of the videos i was doing i didn't end up getting round to doing a wrapped up in march and so it's obviously april now and i'm supposed to read this and pardon me pardon me pardon me it was like no one has to know i don't really feel it let's just film something let's film it again film me unwrapping something else and we'll pretend this never happened but i did tell a bit of a lie there but i it's getting a bit dark in here hang on it's making me look even iller than i am i'm a bit ill i'm sick i almost just pretended that i didn't need to read this but then i remembered i didn't do it out of you know goodness of my heart and my truthful honestness i did it because i'd put it on a on a tbl clado tbl and i want to finish all of those off so we are reading it we're reading it i am on page 92 i wanted to get to page 100 but i feel really sick i feel like i need to like go sleep or something i feel ill so i was like let me check in right now that's something i can do i so i just finished the raven boys right which was like no um okay no no i really didn't love them yeah the raven boys was a bit of a disappointment for me and like it's not getting much better i'm not loving it so basically our main character we're following in the town that she lives is like a test for purity and then these monsters arrive on the day of the test of purity and she gets them to like stand down and turn around this special being with like gold running through her veins that they fear and like say the demon and they tried to like cast the demon out of her and kill her essentially and then she's recruited this is all in the snops it's on goodread so i think it's all okay to say she's recruited to be like a soldier like this the nation is recruiting all the girls like this to be soldiers because they're very because they're very difficult to kill and that's why i've read so far and i'm just going to be honest the writing we've gone from writing that was giving too much at times in meggy steve water she was giving you know it was a lot her writing that isn't giving enough just feels like really simple ya and so i was kind of thinking to myself okay so maybe it's just you know it's just meant to be for younger audiences but this book is quite gory like when it goes there in terms of death or whatever like it goes there and so i it sits in a strange place in the YA market and i'm not saying younger readers like when i was like 13 14 i probably would have read something like this but like being able to read something and it being targeted towards those people is two different things so i'm like who is this targeted towards i'm not sure it reminds me a lot of when i read cinderella is dead and i didn't really like the writing in that because it felt so simple and it felt like very heavy on YA tropes we've seen a billion times before but also there is like there is a discussion that needs to be had around how i'm i'm not stating that as a criticism necessarily i'm saying it as a fact not a criticism because that shouldn't be a criticism we levy at authors of color writing YA because for so long they couldn't access being published on on a wide scale let's be honest and it was white authors writing those you know YA tropes black authors or authors of color should not be criticized for doing that when it's now their time to write you get me so that's not criticism but it's just something i'm noticing for me the problem is more the writing i i mean we talk about this we talked about it last week in fact i'm a writing girl first then a plot girl then a character girl and like other shit you know i mean the writing i like i just i have to vibe with the writing me and the writing have to get along it's not the vibe my god simple writing isn't bad like i would say my favorite book of last year the thursday murder club had pretty simple to map to the fact to the fact no to the point to the point writing but something about this is just rubbing me up the wrong way i just think i need to be a lot more selective and i feel like i am being more selective now with the books i'm buying with the YA fantasy that i that i read i feel like me and YA fantasy are not besties right now we're not besties i haven't been loving a lot of YA fantasy that i've been reading so i think i need to be more selective and i think i prefer older YA fantasy so if there's any like older YA fantasy do you recommend i'm thinking like the gilded wolves the gilded ones the gilded wolves the gilded wolves is that older like i feel like that's something i can enjoy but yeah a lot of YA fantasy i've been reading lately i haven't been into so anyway i'm gonna go read a bit more hopefully i will feel a bit better i'm like oh look a bit better not giving corpse energy excuse me i'll check in with you not giving come on come on there we go well done son i'll chat with you when i'm a bit further through three pages in so i've read that much got that much left to read i'm still not feeling it i'm not feeling it i'm so sorry i want to cry because i actually want to love a book is that too much to ask is that too much to ask right now like i want to love a book does that sound like something you want it is well let me tell you you'll never get it yeah it's been like a two star at the moment now let's start with a positive right let's start with probably the main positive for me is that namina fauna is absolutely incredible at describing scenes in ways that you can really visualize them a problem i often have with like fantasy that i rate low pretty much all the time is that i can't picture it like the world the atmosphere the settings are where and i'm like what the fuck is going on or just like action scenes i can't picture it at all usually that's like the number one thing that i struggle with when i'm not liking a book or the writing it's not really vibing but i think you can really really visualize everything and i looked at the back and the main of what is actually a screenwriter the book is actually written as if it's a movie you can imagine in your head do you know what i mean like you can really picture the settings it's a very cinematic settings it's very like grand you know real aesthetic themed settings and so i feel like that you can really see that you can really see that playing off well now that's my that's my plus guys if you don't want to hear any bad news walk on out right now get on it no it's get on up when you're down baby take a good look around and no okay cool i am very uncomfortable with the energy that we've created in the studio today other than just like i don't like the writing and that's a personal thing right so like when i say i don't like the writing that should be your sign that if i don't like that book and i don't have many other big problems with it that this is a personal thing other people could love this but i feel like a lot of the character development is very shoehorned like characters will come to like grand realizations will be like i've changed so much oh my god i've changed oh i've changed and it's like but what like i haven't seen you for like 80 pages like how is this where is this realization come from like it doesn't really they were like oh i'm a different person i'm like but what has caused you to become a different person we haven't seen that journey characters like flip a switch and they're like it doesn't feel realistic it doesn't feel realistic in any way shape or form and there is far too many side characters on this far too many side characters like there's so many other girls and boys at this kind of like training school that they're at to fight these like demon death shriekers there's so many of them and we often won't see one of them for like 80 pages like a hundred pages and then they just like say a random line and i'm like i have no idea who any of you are like even the ones that we've had a bit of an introduction to and like had some backstory on i get them all mixed up with one another so i'm like what like there's far too many characters we've got our main character we've got her busy mate we've got the love interest beyond that i don't need many people you can introduce me to them once but then like continuing on in the story i'm just getting confused as to who these people are like i just i don't remember any of them so they're my biggest negatives and i yeah just the writing i'm just not vibing with it like i said it is quite gory like there's a lot of death and a lot of war in this but it reads as if it's for younger audiences so i'm just struggling to figure out who this book is for and what its intention is which i'm really sad about i wanted to love this i have a great addition i thought i would really love it i will hopefully check in with you later this afternoon or this evening having finished this because i'm just gonna go finish it now please don't look at me i hated it i i feel so bad i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i hated it i hated it so much the most hideous experience for me to go i hated it i hated it i really need to like figure out what YA fantasy i actually want to read i feel like i do don't have that much left on my on my tbr but like uh-uh this wasn't it i should have read cups and white it just the writing was so over dramatic like so unnecessarily over dramatic like i hate like writing that is just so like characters reacting and such like everyone's like do you know what i mean that's what every moment is and it's just like oh my god and it's like one note we have no real light and shade everyone's just like um yeah i hated it the magic system was so confusing so confusing like i didn't really understand the world or the magic system the big twist at the end oh my god saw it a mile off excuse me it is so obvious like what the twist is and what the whole reveal of the book is it was so obvious everything just like my number one bug there with books is like a convenience see like everything was so convenient like everyone's plans were carried out as exactly as they were planning and everything happened in exactly the right way and i'm just infuriated i can't even talk about it we can't even talk about it get the camera out my face get turn get the cameras off it's like having a job 24 seven for two days on the tarot i went through a lot of accents there don't know what was happening it's late get that fire rickshaw door i'm off this book i need i wanted to live my life today do you know what i mean i didn't even fill out the money b-roll between this clip in the last one even though i just like sat there reading all the time because i was fuming i was fuming do you know what i mean like i just want my life back i just want my life i hate it and i think i would have dnf this if this was in a vlog with other books i would have just dnf'd it i disliked it that much like a 1.5 is the lowest rating i've given out is that harsh i don't think it's harsh let me go with my feelings let me go my god it's the lowest rating i've given out this year apart from zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance which i dnf'd at like 120 pages so this is like the lowest rate because i've read this year which you know it feels right i think i just liked it even more than say cinderella is dead which was another low two star for me and like i think back to we had an episode of this where we read survive the night by riley saker which i gave two stars but at least i gave us something like gave us something like fun to hate it was a fun reexperience this was just annoying i really hope none of these authors ever i live in fear i live in fear that one day i actually write a novel which doesn't i mean i won't materialize i write a novel and authors see my videos and they fucking hate me and i'm like please like don't get mad at me for what i say i'm so sorry because this is someone's this is someone's life right let's never forget that one we're reviewing books like this is someone's like livelihood they've poured their life into it and a lot of people love this book so me disliking it isn't the be all end all right but like i'm a book reviewer like it's my job to like be honest with you and so i never want to like temper what i'm saying for fear of like upsetting authors i would still if you're interested in this book go fucking read it sometimes a lot of the time when i watch someone hate a book it can make me more interested in the book so like let's remember all of those factors whenever i'm like hating a book i will say i liked the message of the books like it reminded me a lot of girls of paper and fire but this one in particular talking about like in it obviously they go from being girls who are very controlled having to be very meek subservient to girls being made into warriors but in both of those equations even though the expectations of them are like drastically different and opposites they're still people trying to mold them into what they want to be rather than the girls choosing what they want to be but i feel like we could have gone a bit of a step further like the girls like really figuring out what they want not what people are telling them they should want i would have liked and my number like my last not my number one my last complaint is there is a character in this book that i'm in character kind of like looks up to a lot right and she'll ask her questions and she'll be like i'll tell you that later i'll tell you that later don't concern yourself with that right now you're not ready for that you'll find that out when the time is ready like bitch like to give me a few like little snippets like she kid they happened so many times like i'll tell you i'll tell you about that when the time is right prepare yourself like girl does any of it end up being a big tell all of everything at the end like i'm angry what did she say she's just talking shit also this is very i mean this is i was just annoyed at this point but her she let out a breath she didn't even know was holding in whooshed out of her and then like a paragraph later oh sound whooshed by me why have we got too whooshed in that close proximity okay i'm getting petty now but i don't care whooshed too whooshed too whooshed in close because i didn't love it and i think for how gory it is the writing needed to be older i don't think it shadows that line it's written for younger readers but i think the gore will prevent it getting into the hands or some of those younger readers so one and a half stars let's all go cry because i'm very upset anyway i hope you enjoyed it um let me know what you thought of this if you have read it i feel like i've just been a debbie downer lately and i don't like it so yeah if you've gone to the end comment the green or yellow heart emoji i love you very much thank you for sitting through my suffering with me and i'll see you soon in another video bye