READING VLOG: READING THE SPOOKIEST BOOKS I OWN 👻riley sager, libba bray and neil gaiman!

I'm gonna give it like a 3.5 star, maybe leaning more towards a 3. No, that sounds bad guys and forgive me for saying it, but that's how I feel. Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel, I hope you are well. We're starting this vlog at night time because I feel like it's kind of suiting and also because I just want to film this so I can start reading. This week, because Halloween is coming up, we're in the spooky season, I've decided to read the spookiest books on my TBR. I hate her, I tell you now. Now, we're all gonna be so happy to see this first book I'm gonna be reading, you're all gonna be so happy for me, I finally managed to fit it into a video and it is Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray. Are we relieved? Yes! I have been trying to fit this into a reading vlog for like 10 years and haven't been able to read it because I haven't been able to, but this is spooky! So this is the third in the Diviner series, don't worry I will keep it spoiler free for the whole series. This is about people in 1920s New York with like supernatural powers. Evie, our protagonist, can pick up an object and kind of see the history or what has just happened with that object. The second one like blew the world open so much. I was listening to a writing podcast today and I found out that Libba Bray had written like 18 outlines to book two, because she was in a writing slump or something, but book two was so good, like the way it dealt with dreams and introducing new evils was really cool. So this is obviously called Before the Devil Breaks You, so I'm very intrigued as to where it's gonna go. The cover is very spooky with this gal levitating, possessed! I'm just so excited to dive into this world again, it's such a fantastic environment that Libba Bray has built up. I'm then gonna be reading The Graveyard Book Volume 2 by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell. So this is a graphic novel book about a boy who... Oh my card's about to be full! Hang on, nothing's scarier than a full SD card, right? Okay I'm back, hi. So yeah this is about a boy whose parents are murdered and he stumbles into this graveyard and he ends up being raised by the ghosts and the supernatural beings there. It is also a fiction book but I am reading the graphic novels and it just follows him. I think he's a lot older in this one, like he's kind of like pre-teen to teen and it just follows him going through supernatural hijink. So yeah, really excited to get to that. And then the last book I'm so excited to read. Oh calm down, calm down! I'm gonna be able to read this if it arrives in time. It's on its way and that is Home Before Dark by Rayleigh Sagar. This came out a couple months ago now and it is a thriller. I really enjoyed his last one, Lock Every Door. I gave it four stars. A big reason that it was four stars and not anything higher was because I predicted like a like a vital element of it literally from like the first 10 pages which was really annoying but I loved his writing style and his pacing and his characters and his concepts. So I believe this is about a house that is kind of haunted. I'm gonna go start with a little break shoot. I am so excited to read this. So we're out on a walk for Tom's birthday. Say hi Tom. I'd rather not. Say hi. Uh can we cut this out? They want to say happy birthday to you. Everyone say happy birthday to Tom. No but let's redo it then. Three, two, one. So we've just been out on a walk and we have stumbled across this spooky statue of carved things and we don't know what the hell is going on and we're very scared. Isn't that really creepy? What is this? It's quite creepy. It's in the middle of nowhere. Yeah like we are literally in the middle of nowhere. Like there's a sheeple around us and then this. Okay full disclosure it's been like a week. I wouldn't call what I've been in a reading slump. Like I really wouldn't call it that. I found that comment to be very suspect. I just decided I didn't really want to read but I decided I want to watch some tv. Like I never watch tv. I want to play some pokemon with my boyfriend. Like I just want to do some other things and so I just decided to give myself the freedom to do that and I don't regret it. It was therapeutic for me. I don't regret it. So I wouldn't call it a slump but I am gonna have read much less books this month. Like probably maybe about seven or eight rather than like 14, 13, 12. But I'm honestly okay with it. I'm shaking my head as I'm saying that which a body analyst, a body language analyst would say I'm lying but I promise you I'm not. I am only 120 pages into Before the Devil Breaks You. This is about our kind of scooby gang of friends who a lot of them are diviners, not all of them but diviners are people who have this like special ability. This is set in the 1920s in New York and from what I can gather this isn't a spoiler for the other two because it's kind of like a monster of the week in each book and I from what I can gather the monster of the week in this one is going to be something to do with ghosts. I like it but a lot of this first section was just setting the scene and predominantly reminding us what's happened in these previous two books and like I almost couldn't remember a lot of it. I was like that happened? And I only read the second book in like April or May so it wasn't like it's been yonks. It hasn't been ages and a lot of the actions that we were being reminded of happened in the second book so I was kind of freaked. I was like I liked that book but apparently I don't remember a lot of it. I love the atmosphere of these. I love the setting in the 1920s. The way that she manages to bring this to life and I've often said Libra Bray does a really good job of focusing in on a topic something completely like almost unrelated to what's going on like giving you a flavor what's happening in the rest of New York beyond our kind of scooby gang of characters and like zooming out and you almost get like a bird's eye shot of New York. Like she does this thing at the end of chapters where it goes and like expands on the world if that makes sense. Um that doesn't make no sense. It's been longer than I wanted it to be. I haven't been doing the best job of like reading how much I'm set out to read. I'm now on page 320 so I've got this much left to read. I am enjoying it but it is slow. It is slow and I'm not enjoying it as much as I enjoyed Lair of Dreams. For me it's feeling about level with The Diviners which is the first one in the series. I think something that this is struggling with is the fact that in like The Diviners and Lair of Dreams you had the monster of the week alongside this kind of dark allusion to the king of crows who you kind of figure out is going to be like the main villain throughout the whole of the series and what this book is trying to do is trying to have a monster of the week while still preparing you for like what I'm assuming is the kind of end villain of the king of crows in the last book and I think it's struggling with that a bit. Like it's kind of having to do half and half and it means that the monster of the week, these ghosts, isn't that engaging and I think another problem as well is that this book isn't really focusing on any of our characters like the previous two have done. I would say the first one was very focused on Evie and then book two was more focused on Henry and Ling. This one doesn't really have that. At first I thought it was going to be Mabel now it's kind of Jericho then it's Betta. All of The Diviners fighting to be the star of the show in this book. Rue, Rue, Rue, me, pick me, pick me, look, pick me, look, pick me, look, pick me. And none of them are fully getting that that shine and we're having a lot of scenes with all of The Diviners together and I just kind of think they almost don't work as well when it's just this big group of people like cutting in because obviously now you're supposed to know their personalities but like I'm kind of bored. It's the truth. I love what this book is saying about like the American dream and the kind of false promises that were given to people in America in this time period but it's not as good as Layer of Dreams for me. Here's the thing, like when I'm going into a book expecting something and then I don't I guess I focus more on the negatives when I'm speaking to you about it. Like I still love the characters, I love their dynamic, I think this is really well written, I think the kind of atmosphere and the imagery it creates is wonderful but that's not as interesting as like bitching about the parts I don't like. Things keep happening, like things keep being discovered like 30 pages before they then come to kind of this revelation and it's so obvious, like things are really convenient like a character will just appear at this most convenient time I'm like when did you turn up? Like since when are you here? Or like someone will stumble across something and then like 30 pages later I'll be like well that was obviously that. Everything is so convenient. I like it in books when you kind of get led down a lot of different paths and some are dead ends, like we're kind of going down one path. Do you know what I mean? I feel like that's what Layer of Dreams did really well is having these different paths that like either go unanswered to go answered later or just like false leads whereas it just feels like we're steaming straight ahead in this. Where's the flavour? Where's the flavour in this? I wish we could spend more time with someone like Theta or Jericho like getting to know them more, I thought that's what Layer of Dreams did so well how we got to really know Henry and Ling and like obviously Ling was a new character in that and Henry had been very much a background character in book one. It's worked so well like really getting us to know them. I do want to try and finish it tonight. I don't have too much to do, I need to just I need to go do some stuff for the Thousand Dolls Readathon. I need to put my paths on the end screens. Thousand Dolls Readathon will have started by the time this video comes up so you can go check out my first prompt and come and join us if you want. So I need to go sort out all my pathways so that everything's right. When you click through all your different choices I think it's gonna be good to take a bit of a break and then I'm gonna come back and hopefully finish it tonight. I'm gonna try. I'm really gonna try really hard. That's not happening. So I didn't love it. I think I'm gonna give it like a 3.5 star maybe leaning more towards a three. No that sounds bad guys and forgive me for saying it but that's how I felt. Shit! Oh okay! It aims to do so much, right? You've got so many characters by this point in like the Scooby gang. You've got like 10 of them or something. Maybe 9? I just don't think it managed to keep up with them all enough in the way that it wanted to. No one was given enough attention to be the star of the show. Characters that we had become so attached to in the last book like Henry and Ling were just like almost completely forgotten about and it kind of wanted to focus on Theta it kind of wanted to focus on Mabel it kind of wanted to focus on Jericho but I just didn't feel like any of those storylines were handled adequately. It feels like this is gonna sound really harsh. I'm gonna sound so mean but it feels like a filler book. Like it feels like all its purposes is to set you up for the last book in the series. Get that fire exit door. I'm off. It kind of feels like she had an idea of how the series would end and because she had so many ideas she split it into two books. It feels like half a book. Like it's probably really harsh. And yes I did shed a tear at the end but like I cry everything we know that. So like it's not that big a deal. Everything that I've said that I love about this still applies. I love the found family. I love all the characters. I think all the characters are really vivid. I just feel like none of them were paid adequate attention or care in this book. I'm happy I've made progress with this series. I do want to get King of Crows. I don't have it currently but I do want to get it and just read it pretty soon just to be like done with the series so that I finished it. Not because like I'm not excited for the final book. I think the final book could do what I want it to do. Keep saying it. Just keep saying it. Keep saying it out loud and maybe you will convince hope because you won't be convincing anybody else so dream on. Lair of Dreams was so good. It was so good and this was just not it. Not it. I enjoyed seeing our characters like kind of grow up a bit in this. I thought that was done well. I like when a YA series grows with its readers. There are trigger warnings for sexual assault in this though. I'm sad about it. Spookiness rating. I think I'd give it like a 5 out of 10. It wasn't spooky. Didn't give me the spooky vibes I've been hoping for. So now I'm gonna cozy up quickly and read The Graveyard Book Volume 2 by Neil Gaiman. In this, Bod. That's his name. Bod. Or nobody. We're gonna go through more of his life in the graveyard where he's raised by the ghosts. I think he's a lot older in this. Like I think he's kind of like pre-teens to teens which will be cool because he was kind of like a toddler to a child in the first volume. I'm excited to read it. I feel like a graphic novel will be good for me right now. I have had like... this light isn't helping. I have had like the worst eye strain all day. Like every time I look you can't see where I am but my desk is over there and the sofa is here and if Tom was sitting on the sofa if I wanted to like speak to him I couldn't whip my head around. I'm having to do this with my eyes closed. I had to like slowly turn in my chair like looking straight ahead and it's such a weird way. I don't know if it's to do with how small the font was in Before They Were Break Shoes. I was reading a lot of it last night. My eyes just hurt. Or maybe it's looking at my laptop screen. But if anyone has any tips for eye strain like it hurts so bad. Let's go read this. I just finished Volume 2 of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and I really enjoyed it. I'm gonna give it four stars. I think I gave Volume 1 the 4.5. I didn't enjoy it quite as much. I think there was something a little bit more charming about reading about Bod when he was like a younger kid. It was still interesting to see him growing up into like a young man. I really love this kind of ghostly story. I love how we have ghosts from all these different time periods and the way they will interact with Bod is really really fun. Silas is a great character, his guardian. He's like a really cold, aloof and mysterious character who we never truly get to know. I love him. I think he's a great character. It's a really funny graphic novel. Like you probably saw me laughing loads in the clip. Like it's so funny. Neil Gaiman's humour is so good. It still has that spooky element. You are in this graveyard with all these ghosts. Like it still feels very spooky but it feels light and fun. I would say like the the drawing style isn't my favourite but it's definitely for its fan group I would say. Like I think fans of Neil Gaiman would like this more comic book strip style. I like more like cutesy Heartstopper style drawings but you're not gonna see that here. Heartstopper talking to all the comic strip style graphic novels. I want to know, what does it feel like to be so goddamn ugly? Can you imagine if like all the ghosts were like... I really enjoyed it. I'd give it a 7 spooky rating. Because like the ghosts are everywhere. The ghosts are all over the place, you know. So it's spooky in that sense but it's not scary. Yeah, I would definitely recommend these two graphic novels. They're really fun, really easy and I really enjoyed them. I'm glad that I have finished this now. So now I am going to go start Home Before Dark by Rayleigh Sagar. Did I show you this had arrived in this vlog? I don't think I even did that. It arrived. It's pathetic. You are pathetic. I don't think I realised beforehand what a big chunk of this I think the story within a story is going to be. The book that her father wrote about the scary experiences they had like back in the day that meant they had to flee the house. It seems like it's quite a big chunk of the book, kind of the old story which I think is going to be an interesting reading experience. But let me tell you, I am so excited to read this. I feel in the mood. I just want to read a thriller. Like I just want to read an adult thriller that is page turning, that keeps me on the edge of my seat, that is a bit scary and spooky. So I'm going to go read it now. I'm very excited. I think I'm going to love it. I really think I'm going to give it five stars. Okay, this is Megan from the future popping back in quickly to give you a synopsis of this book. Because I've given the synopsis in so many videos, I think I just assumed I'd done it in this one, but I hadn't. So essentially our protagonist, her family lived at this house for 20 days before they fled in the night. And her father went on to write a ghost story book about the events that happened. They claimed they left because it was haunted and she's basically been followed by this book throughout the rest of her life. And now her father has died and she finds out that the house is actually still in his possession and so she needs to now sell it. And so the story cuts back and forth between the book that he wrote and the present day of her trying to figure out what the truth is, why her family had never been truly honest with her. Bye. Back to the past Megan now. Morning. I didn't actually read any last night because, hang on, am I even focused? Oh yeah, I kind of was. My eyes just got like too bad, like they hurt so bad. And then I was hoping I'd wake up this morning and it would be better, but they're not. I have read up to page 96. I've read kind of like the first quarter. The book's just under 400 pages and I'm really enjoying it. It is a good amount of scepticism, like going into it, like our protagonist doesn't believe in ghosts, she doesn't believe any of these things happened, she cannot remember a single thing, which I think there's something up with that, like that's my theory. Because like I can remember things from when I was four or five, like not a lot, but like snippets, screenshots almost. But she says she can't remember living in that house at all. And I'm just saying if you spent 20 days living in this like weird gothic house, you'd remember something of it. I'm calling bullshit there. I think something's going on with that. Wait a minute. I'm figuring this out. I'm like Scooby and Shaggy, I'm solving a mystery. But things are just starting to get spooky, like the kind of like tide is just starting to turn. And I'm actually really, really enjoying the combination of the present day and the sections of her dad's book. I think it creates this really cool vibe to it. It makes it even more spooky. And I thought I wouldn't enjoy it. I thought I would feel disconnected to one or the other. But I'm looking forward to both parts equally and for different reasons. So I think that's actually going to work really well, touch wood. It does remind me of Haunting of Hill House though, so much. Like to the point I'm imagining it as Hill House. And I'm guessing I think like the story is now going to diverge and it's not going to be similar, but it is so similar. Like I'm kind of imagining the dad as the dad. I'm like, Riley Sager, you did not have enough time, surely? I suppose it's been two years. He could have got the idea from Hill House. Maybe, maybe he did. Maybe the Hill House sparked his imagination. You're so creative. Where do you get your inspiration? God in the gates. I'm really intrigued to see where this is going to go. I really like Riley Sager's writing. Reading this like straight away, I'm just like, okay, now I've got to read his backlist. Like I'm going to go, I'm going to go put his books on my wishlist. Like I want to read his backlist. I do want it. I really want it. I really want it to be ghostly. Like I really want it to be supernatural. I don't know if it will be because I don't think he's done anything supernatural before. But I want it to be supernatural so bad. Like I think because I'm in that spooky mood, I just, I just want it to be ghosts. Like I want there to be murderous ghosts. Please. I think it has to be. It feels a lot more spooky than other, I can't say what other books, but like other thrillers I've read before that have that supernatural element to it where you're thinking, oh, is it a ghost or is it a person? Those other books had things that could more easily be explained away. Whereas already I think we're seeing things that can't be as easily explained away. So I'm very excited to hopefully read the rest of this today. I read that first chunk really quickly this morning. I'm now going to go and do some uni work because I actually have to do that. Electric Monkey Books very kindly sent me Shine by Jessica Jung. She is a former K-pop star and this is like a K-pop YA contemporary of someone trying to join like a K-pop band and like going through the training for that. They very kindly sent me this and it also came with face masks. I've already used one of them last night and I'm really excited to get to this. This is another thing I'm thinking, maybe I'll pick up in the read-along. You know, a contemporary, only over 300 pages read-along read-a-thon. Thousand Dolls read-a-thon. I'm really thankful that you sent it to me. I'm really excited to get to it. I've actually seen a lot of people say really good things about it already. And then a subscriber, Catherine, very kindly reached out to me and asked if I wanted to be sent some of her bookmarks that she makes. She's just kind of started in quarantine her art store. So she does art prints, she does pet portraits, she does bookmarks. And as soon as she reached out to me, when I looked at her art, I was like, oh my god, I love it. So yeah, as soon as she asked me if I wanted to receive anything, I was like, yes, please. I will leave her Instagram and all her links down below. If you like the look of this art and want to check it out. But yeah, I was so shook when she asked me if I wanted to receive some stuff. Oh my god, look at that little thing. Oh my god, she sent me way more stuff. Oh my god, Tom, come look. Look at all the stuff she sent me. It's so nice. First, I got this pack of stickers. I'll do some close-ups of all of these as well. I've got this print of an owl, which is just beautiful. And a print of a raven. Oh my god, these are so cute. And this is a heron, right? You said? And then, oh, look at the bookmarks. Tied up in this nice little string. So we've got one bookmark that says, this book is raven mad. Next one is foxing hell. This book is good. Look at the fox. And then we've got, this book is rawesome with a tiger on it. Wow, this is so cool. Thank you so much, Catherine. She has sent me a card that says, below is your personal discount code. I didn't know she was going to be doing this. Which you and your followers can use on shop items on my website Etsy store. So the code is megwbooks20. So I'll put it up on the screen as well. And I'll put it down in the description below. All her links. The quality of the bookmarks is so nice. They're so beautiful. I would really recommend you go and check this all out. Wow, oh, I feel so lucky. This is so lovely of her. So make sure you go check it out and use the code to get a discount. And yeah, I'm going to go now and do some uni work. And then I'll come back at you with some more thoughts on Home Before Dark a bit later. I didn't actually read as much of Home Before Dark yesterday as I wanted to. My eyes just got so bad. I had to like, turn all the lights off, pull the blinds and just like, lie in bed. But I am now on page 280. I'm really enjoying it still. This book has made me go like, like audibly gasp. Yup, yup, yup, yup, yup. So much. And like, books rarely do that. Thrillers rarely do that. But I've like, literally been shook so many times. So that's obviously a good sign about it. I am really enjoying it. I'm really loving this dual story element that we've got from the past and the present day. I knew some people didn't like it, but I love it. Like, I think it's done really, really well. I would say the present day definitely feels like the main plot, but they're both kind of afforded almost equal time. Maybe the present day is afforded a little bit more. It's done really cleverly that like, everything in the past serves a realisation that then happens in the future. I will say, I'm still really hoping this is supernatural. And I know that, because I keep saying that, I know I've got to try and hide at the end whether I'm disappointed or not, because then you'll know. And I don't want you to know that, because obviously I still have no idea. Only 120 pages from the end. I'm gonna like, have to really try and hide that. Obviously, the protagonist believes her father's lying. She's like, Your Honour, he's terrible. He's terrible, Your Honour. Yeah, he's terrible, Your Honour. He's really terrible. No, she loves her dad. But she's like, he was a lying asshole. This is, none of this is true. Like, this is fake. He did this to make money. But then as time goes on, she's like... But then when you're reading the ghost story that her dad wrote, you're like, well, how much is true? Because she's learning little things were true. Like, certain events in the book were true. And she's like, was everything true? So that kind of like, unreliability with the original book is just done so well. I'm really enjoying it. So I'm currently editing this video because the $1000 readathon starts tomorrow on the Sunday. And usually I edit on the Sunday. So I'm trying to get it done early. But obviously, I've still got to read the last 120 pages. So I'm going to edit a bit, read a bit, edit a bit, read a bit and finish this tonight. And I'm so excited. I finished it last night and I really enjoyed it. The end was very satisfying. I think I'm going to give it like a 4.25, 4.5. It's not quite a five star, but it's definitely up there. I don't have anything to complain about. It just didn't get that like five star feeling. I have not been this tense reading an ending in a long time. You know, like when you reach the end of a thriller and you're barely even reading it. You're just like, like eyes are just going back and forth on the page. I just devoured the ending. It was like pitch black in here. It was like one in the morning and I just had to find out what happened. And I just had to finish it. I definitely prefer to lock every door. I think the vibes of it are immaculate. I love the haunted house setting. And I really, really loved the cutting back and forth between her dad's book and the present day. I don't think it would have worked as well if it didn't have that. I think it meshed the two together so well and they played off each other so well. I loved it. I would give it an, oh, I'd give it a nine. Spooky racing. And airing me is going to hate me because I actually now do nine ghosts on the screen. But like. Now, you know what? You were the one person I didn't want to see today because I really want to slap you now. I really enjoyed this. I would definitely recommend getting your hands on it if you can. The way that the twists were revealed and a twist is revealed and then another twist like counteracts it. Sorry. It was masterful. It was really, really good. It was haunting. It was so atmospheric and it really made you believe so many different things. Towards the end, you could see so many different paths that the book could go down. So I loved it. I would definitely recommend picking it up. I think, I was going to say it's Riley Sager's best yet, but like I've only read one of his other books. So there we have it. I hope you enjoyed me reading all the spookiest books on my TBR. I certainly did. I thought it was really fun towards the end of the month reading all like ghostly books. So I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much for watching and I will see you very, very soon. Bye.