UNWRAPPING BOOKS PICKS WHAT I READ! 🎁wrapped up revamped - episode 8! july reading vlog

Welcome to this month's edition of Wrapped Up. Many of you will know this is a series where last Christmas I wrapped up all of the 2022, no 2021 releases that I hadn't read yet and every month I unwrap and read one of them in these vlogs. So I am going on holiday in five days. When you're seeing this I'll just be back from holiday. So I am filming a lot of videos and editing a lot of videos in these five days so I don't want a difficult book. I want a book that's very easy to get through. I've got a few points where I am going to read, like in the evenings. I've got some reading sprints for my patrons. It's not like I'm going to be doing no reading but I don't want long books. Does that sound like something you want? It is. Well let me tell you, you'll never get it. So I think we're going to do the thing again where we unwrap two and I pick one of them to read unless I really want to read the first one. I don't know what one to open. Okay, okay, we're gonna go for this one. Let's go for this first. Looks like a fairly short, hardback. Oh my god. Okay, that's The Perishing by Natasha Dion. I'm actually not going to count this as one of the two because I'm reading this next month and I forgot to unwrap it. So we're not even going to count this. I should have unwrapped this before from this video because I'm reading this for a different video. So we're not even, we're not counting that as one of the two. Let's go again. The rules don't apply. I'm gonna go for this one. This is the one I initially thought about. Okay, this one is Everything We Don't Say which is a thriller I got from Book of the Month. Our main character's neighbours were brutally murdered right outside her barn and her younger brother became the prime suspect. It's got a true crime podcaster. It sounds interesting but I think I'm gonna unwrap one more just to see if I would rather read the other book. Let's do a paperback, I guess. Let's go for this, whatever this is, and we will pick one of them. Oh, okay. I think I'm gonna read this. So this is Love and Other Natural Disasters by Misa Suguria. This is a, like, contemporary romance book that I have wanted to read for ages. It was obviously an ARC I got sent. It's been on, like, lists that I've reacted to. It's like, oh my god, I'm so excited to read this. I have the audiobook for it on Scribd. I think I have the audiobook for this as well, though, to be fair. But I think this will be an easier book to get through and when I'm, like, stressed this week and I have a lot of work to do, I think this will be a better pick because it'll just be super easy and light to pick up. I really liked This Time Will Be Different by Misa Suguria. So yeah, we're gonna read this. I feel like this is exactly the vibe for this week. Right. I am a hundred pages into Love and Other Natural Disasters. I firstly want to say... actually, no, should I give you... Okay, I'm feeling weird right now. I'm feeling, like, so weird. Let me give you the plot first. We're following Nozomi as she goes to San Francisco for the summer to stay with her gay uncles and do an internship there and she's, like, a hopeless romantic. She's a very interesting main character and, like, narrative voice. I don't want to say socially awkward, but she's, like, you know, when she likes a girl she'll be very, like, awkward around her and not knowing what to say and overthinking everything and getting nervous. I think that's a really, like, human reaction and it's, like, funny. I guess some people could find this narrator annoying. I feel like it hasn't had the best reviews. I've actually had a look on Goodreads, but I really like her because I feel like she's real and she's so real. She's so real! She's a different main character than what I've read in a lot of, like, YA contemporary romance. I feel like a lot of main characters think they're awkward, but they're not, whereas she is. Anyway, she falls for this girl in San Francisco and they start fake dating to make... because the girl has just broken up with her girlfriend, so they start fake dating to make her jealous and Nozomi's just like, oh my god, I love her so much, I'll do anything for her kind of thing. And, firstly, I want to say this is the perfect thing for me to be reading right now. This is exactly what I need to read. I have to finish six videos in the next five days, you know, six videos need to edit. I've done one, so I'm not gonna have a lot of time for reading, and I have the audiobook for this and it's just a very enjoyable read that I don't need to think too much about, that is very easy to pick up and pick down. I have no doubt I'm gonna finish reading this in time and just for it to be really enjoyable. I don't think it's gonna be a five star, this time will be different. I think I gave four stars and it feels, again, like a nice palate cleanser, a nice book to kind of get me back into reading without thinking about it too much. So I'm really, really enjoying it for that purpose. I think it's the perfect book for me to read this week and, like, that hasn't been happening to me a lot lately. I feel like I've been reading books and not quite the right time, you know what I mean? Like, a book I'd really enjoy, but I just felt like, I mean, I'm not a mood reader, so this hasn't happened to me a lot in the past, and I don't want to see any comments saying, man, go be a mood reader, mood read for a week. I know they're all, like, the best, best of meanings and hearts, and I know you're all trying to be lovely. Mood reading, that's a living nightmare for me. I just can't do it, right? But there's been a few times where I've thought, ah, this just isn't quite the right time to read this book, but I have to read it for a video. This feels like, literally, I could not have read this at a more perfect time. It's exactly what I need right now. Like I said, I really like the main character. Oh, it says in the back, delightfully disastrous. That is what I would call her. Like, she's, like, a bit of a walking mess, but it's fun. I like the romance so far, the kind of fake dating. I've always had a bit of an issue, not an issue, like, not like a moral issue, but, like, I haven't loved many fake dates in the past, but I just think it's kind of sweet in this one, how she, like, just wants to be loved and wants to have that relationship. So yeah, there's some interesting family dynamics in it as well. It's just like a rom-com, a queer rom-com, summer setting, like, oh, the summer of love, like, I mean, come on, it's the vibe. So I am doing reading sprints again. I think in my last vlog I was, like, here doing reading sprints. I'm doing them with Riley and her patrons and my patrons today. So I'm just gonna get back to the live and carry on reading is essentially the plan. If I wrote you a song, if I got every word, perfectly weighted on a thin piece of paper, would it make any difference? I am 200 pages, no, 220 pages. I've read that much, got that much left of the book, and I'm just enjoying it. Like, what do you want me to say? It's such just, like, a fun YA read. I am so busy this week, I could not have handled anything more than this. Like, this is the limit. So this is basically a love quadrangle. I think it's the first time I've ever read a love quadrangle. I don't think I've ever read that before. So Nozomi is fake dating a girl called Willow, who has just broke up with her girlfriend Andan, who is dating Dayla. So, yeah. Nozomi is hoping that by fake dating Willow, Willow will actually fall in love with her. Now, I've just figured out where this is going. I actually, I figured it out maybe, like, 30-40 pages ago, but now it was just confirmed for me where it's going. And you know what? I don't mind it. I don't mind it. Being a bit sneaky, Miss Misa Suguriya, she says, let me just sneak something by you. I just think it's an enjoyable YA romance. There's a lot of discussions in this about queerness and acceptance, and particularly the intersection of race and queerness. All of the four girls are people of colour, and Nozomi's grandmother is quite homophobic. Nozomi's uncle is gay, he's married to another man, and her grandmother kind of doesn't recognise that. And so Nozomi's really worried about coming out to her grandmother and what her grandmother will think of her, but her grandmother is struggling with dementia. And that is a really big part of the book, that's kind of like the second storyline to the romance, and kind of her thinking about how it's fair to view her grandmother, and how she should have a relationship with her going forward when she still loves aspects of her, but she finds her homophobia really, really difficult to deal with. And I don't know, I've just, I found that section, again it's not something I've really read before, and I just really appreciate it, I think it's great to have in a YA book. I've read a few reviews, a lot of people find Nozomi annoying, but I don't! She's just a lot, like she's full-on, right? She's like a very dramatic character, she has big feelings is how I'd describe it, she feels everything very strongly. She feels like when she's upset about something, for example her parents divorce, it's something that she can get stuck on when she wants to be in love so badly, like she feels that so strongly and will do anything for that to happen. So, you know, just because a character isn't neat and tidy for you, you know, just because the main character isn't simple, you know, in her actions, doesn't mean it's bad. I think she's refreshing. I do think, however, if I were to just read this physically, she could get on my nerves. I think the audiobook narrator does a really good job of bringing her to life, and kind of bringing her feelings to life, so I think if I were to recommend this, I would recommend the audiobook, that's primarily how I'm reading it. I could see how she'd be annoying if I just read it physically, but yeah, I'm really, really enjoying it still. I think it's really, really fun. I'm excited, I'm gonna start packing for my holiday tonight, so I'm just gonna listen to the audiobook whilst I pack, so I hopefully should finish it tonight just through that. But yeah, I'm really, really enjoying it so far. My whole life is packed up, so I don't think you can see anything. You can see some random... this is my packing list. I loved this, but I didn't love it. That's an exaggeration. It was four stars, but I did tell a bit of a lie there. Like I said, it was perfect for the moment. If you're craving just like a light YA rom-com, I would recommend this. I really, really enjoyed it. Listen, YA rom-coms, I don't know if I'm ever gonna be out here giving that, like, five stars. The only one I've ever given five stars was Fat Chance, Charlie Vega. I did enjoy that one. This was just fine. Like, it was good. There was nothing wrong with it. I really, really enjoyed the reading experience of it. If I'm distracted, I am so stressed about the fact that I forgot I have to take the thumbnail for this, and like, I can't take it where I usually take it because of all the mess that's in my room. I don't know what I'm gonna do. And the thing is, this video... we'll talk about the book in a sec. This video is going up the day after I get back from the cruise, so I'll get back like Saturday afternoon. But on the Sunday this is going up, I'm going to YALC for one day, which is YA Literature Convention here in the UK. And part of me's like, should I leave it to Saturday afternoon? When I know I shouldn't, I'm just gonna take a different kind of thumbnail. Something nice and quick. Nice and quick for the girlies. But yeah, I think this book has really good... I mean, The Love Quadrangle works really, really well. It's very believable. I really liked Nozomi as a main character. I know she's like Marmite, but I really, really liked her. I also think there's a good slow build in this book. I mean, Nozomi falls hard and falls fast. She's actually like, oh! But I think in terms of the other characters around her in this quadrangle, there's a good build-up of like, relationships and slow burns of romances and stuff. Nozomi's like, instant. She's like, oh yeah, I love this person now. Yeah, we're in love. Whereas the other ones, it's much slower, I think, to kind of counteract her. You know, it has good discussions, like I said, good family dynamics. Like her grandmother, who's trying to come to terms with all the queer members of her family. She's like, oh my god, there's so many of them. But you know, her coming to terms with that, Nozomi coming to terms with what that means in their relationship. Her parents also had a divorce and she's very mad at her mother for that. And so it's her trying to come to terms with that and trying to forgive her mother. I think this has so much good queer rep, but particularly queer rep for people of colour, for young girls of colour, for young lesbians. I think it's such good rep. And yeah, this is two rom-coms now that I've given four stars by this author. So I feel like she's a safe bet for me to read all her new releases, just as kind of like, palette cleansers, you know? I really enjoyed how it subverted tropes, like how it subverted fake dating or like, all these different tropes that you get in like, movies or whatever. Like, old school movies. I really like how it kind of twisted them and turned them on its head. So it was the perfect thing for me to read this week whilst I tried not to go crazy. And now I have to take the freaking thumbnail. I don't know how I'm going to do it. But thank you for watching the vlog. I hope you enjoyed it. If you got into the end of the video, comment just a heart emoji because it's about love. Oh my god, we're so in love. Yeah, comment a heart emoji down below if you got into the end. Thank you, thank you so much for watching and I will see you very soon in another video. Bye!