READING BOOKTUBE HYPED SERIES✨ (no spoilers) making progress on my must read series! (reading vlog)

There's no chemistry there. How are you gonna, like, be thrust into a situation where you're kind of semi-separated, it's a bit awkward, and, like, not want to go, you know, find a closet? So I didn't finish the book. I gave up at, like, half eight. And I really scratched my head, and I wonder, where's God when you need him? I'm so angry. I've only read 30 pages, but I'm fuming. I'm fuming. Hello, everyone! How are we? I'm still ill. If you watched my previous vlog, which was me reading Kendall and Kylie Jenner's book, Jesus, I still ain't healed. I ain't healed. Recently, my last video I posted would have been the book series that I need to finish this year. It's not the last video, but go off, sis. For the most part, series that I have loved and want to finish this year, I get such a feeling of satisfaction from finishing series. Honestly, it's addictive. Like, when you... It's addictive enough finishing a book, but when you finish a series, you really think you are that bitch. Like, you think, wow, I have just gone through all those books. What I thought I would do this week is make progress in a few of those series, the ones I'm most excited for, and take you along the ride. So these are all quite popular series here on BookTube. I'm going to show you the books now, and then it's going to be a reading vlog of me reading them. So I've picked three books from different series. They're all actually the second book in three part series. So I'm really not going to finish any series in this video, but I'm going to be making progress in them. So the first one, the one I'm going to read first, is Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Niang. If you recall, Girls of Paper and Fire was one of my favourite books of last year. I adored it, and so I can't wait to get into this one. A few people have not enjoyed this one who did enjoy Girls of Paper and Fire though. They say it definitely suffers from medial book syndrome. I've heard that Natasha wanted to make it a duology, and she was convinced by the publishers to make it a three part series, and that you can definitely tell that from reading this. But to me, there's rarely a book that I can say this feels like home, and Girls of Paper and Fire just feels like home to me. I think it deals brilliantly with the topics it covers, and also it was a big part of me getting into reading this in 2019. I read it in Florida. I bought it and read it in Florida on holiday, and so it just, it has such happy feelings to me, you know, when I think about reading it. And so I can't wait to read this. I'm going to start it today. And I feel good about this. I feel like there's something about Natasha's writing and these characters that is just like at the core of me. But we shall see. I could also not like it. And next we got Gemina by Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. This is of course the second in the Illuminae Files. Illuminae was the first book I read this year in 2020, and I gave it five stars. I've actually struggled with five stars this year. I think I've only given out two or three so far, and I'm about a week into February at the moment. So I haven't given out loads. I've read about 14 or 15 books. So yeah, I'm definitely reading less five stars than I would usually. So I'm really hoping, like all of these books I'm excited for, I'm really hoping that this will prove through and be another five stars. If it's on par with Illuminae, and a lot of people say it's even better, then I can't see how I won't give this five stars. I'm also going to be buddy reading this with Nicole from Nicole and Her Books. As always, I'm always telling you to go and subscribe to her because she is just like the love of my life. I adore her. So definitely go subscribe to her. And she also purchased this for me. She also gave it to me for my birthday. God, the way this is told, this is told in a multimedia format. I adore. I think it's such a welcome break. The same way something like graphic novels is where you switch up your format. This, I find you read so quickly because of the, all the different like types of stuff that you've got going on in this book. So again, I can't wait to get to this. I cannot wait. And then the last one, I'm not even in frame. Get a grip of yourself, Megan. The last one I'm a bit scared for is probably from the most hyped up series, like out of all of these on booktube. And I'm gonna be reading Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. Now this is of course the second one in the Shadow and Bone trilogy. And I'm nervous. I gave Shadow and Bone three stars. I didn't love it. The reason I want to get through this series quickly is so that I can read Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, which I think are going to be five stars for me. But I think this series are kind of going to be three and four stars for me. I'm actually not expecting a five star from this. We can hope. But I don't think we're going to get it. We follow Alina and like her special powers. And there's Mal, who's a tracker. They've been friends since birth. The Darkling, who's like, he's a bad guy. But like, you know. Yeah, I'm gonna go start Girls of Storm and Shadow again. I'm so nervous because it's like, it's just, it's just so good. Anyway, I don't want it. I don't want it to taint Girls of Paper and Fire for me if it's bad. Like if it's not what, if what people have said is true. I don't want it to taint it. Like I want to hold Girls of Paper and Fire pure in my memory. So I'm basically reading this in this video to make myself read it and get to it. We'll go see. And I will check back in once I have some thoughts on this book. If you haven't seen, my last reading vlog was me reading Kendall and Kylie Jenner's book. And reading that has definitely put me in a little bit of a slump. It took me a few days to kind of get back into reading again. I'm now about halfway through Girls of Storm and Shadow. I was actually quite nervous going into this, just because a lot of people who really enjoyed the first one didn't like this one. I know that Kayla from Books and Lala gave it like one or two stars. And I picked this series up on her recommendation. You know, like Girls of Paper and Fire was one of her favourite books of last year. So when I saw she gave it a bad rating, I was like, okay. And so I wanted to take a little bit of time to collect my thoughts before like telling you what I think. And I really like it so far. I think it's definitely slower. I think the beginning is slow. I think it's kind of a mix of that and the last book I read that meant that I read the beginning quite slowly. We are in a different location in this book to than we are in the majority of the last book. And I think it struggles to kind of cement itself a little bit. But we're travelling around a lot in this one. We're going to a lot of different locations, which I actually think works well for it because no setting is going to have a basis in the story like the one in the first book did. Do you know what I mean? Be like so core to the story. And so going to all these other little places enables us to explore a lot of different parts of the world, a lot of different cultures within the world. I was worried we would never kind of revisit a lot of the characters we visited and we spent time with in the first book from that location, but we actually do. And I really, I've enjoyed. There's only been like one section, one chapter with that so far for me, but I really like that as well because that was something when I was coming into it, I was saying, you know, I really want to spend time with those characters and catch up with them and see what kind of place they're in after what happened at the end of the last book. So I'm really glad that she's found a way to mix that together and have what happens in those chapters affect the rest of the story as well. So I think that's gone really well. There's something about Natasha Nguyen's writing that I've always said it kind of feels safe, not in like a, it's not adventurous way, but if you feel safe while reading it, you know, it feels very homely, which I think is really important when we're dealing with the subject matters that we are. If you don't know, the first book, Girls on Paper and Fire, and in this one, I guess the whole series, there's heavy trigger warnings for rape and sexual assault. So the king has a group of paper girls who are forced to sleep with him and our main character, Leigh, is one of those paper girls. So I think her writing feel, I have never really felt that with an author before, but it feels to me very comforting, assuring what it's doing, but very like soft. This is so weird. I've never like spoken about writing, but I think to have something to counteract the kind of heaviness and the darkness of those topics is really helpful. And in this one, we're dealing a lot with trauma, how people feed their trauma and try to mask it. In this one as well, another topic that we're covering, which I think is quite interesting and which I didn't expect, was to kind of look at just how power corrupts universally. I guess in the first book, we follow the demon king and he's just kind of like outright evil, right? There's a lot of discussion on how when men are given power, they can think they're well-meaning, but it's always going to end up hurting people and the sacrifice is always going to be made. And maybe the people who are making them aren't the right people. Do you know what I mean? For now, at least, I'm not disappointed by it. I don't think it's going to be five stars, like Girls of Paper and Fire was to me, but I'm often greater betrayed for sequels than this. You know, sometimes I'll give the first in the series a five star and the second a two star. And so going from a five to a four, which is what this is sitting at roughly for me now, isn't as painful. And I still feel fairly like, okay, it's fine. You know, the second book or the second album or whatever, it's always difficult. So it's much later in the evening and I've just finished Girls in Swim and Shadow. Ignore my yoga mat, by the way. We'll just get away with that. Usually I come to like these check-ins with a bit of an idea of what I'm going to say. Am I in focus even? I don't know what I'm doing anymore. It's a mess. I think I'm going to give it four stars. I really enjoyed it. It was kind of the same amount of enjoyment for me throughout it. There were some twists and some of those I saw coming and some I didn't. I enjoyed the aspect because the ones I didn't felt very like realistic and once I knew about them, I understood where they happened. I was like, yeah, okay. Do you know what I mean? I mean, it makes no sense. Does this book feel a bit empty? Maybe. I had heard that it was supposed to be... Onutatu Nyang wanted it to be a two book series and she got convinced to make it three books. I think she's fleshed it out very well and there's not a lot of scenes that don't feel like they have a place there but it doesn't necessarily feel as high stakes as you would want it to. She's intertwined the story very well that for us we can't necessarily cut out parts of the story that you would want to because it's connected to what happens in other parts which obviously wasn't her plan. She's interconnected it later when she realised she was going to make it a three book series so that things were all connected. So I can't say, oh, I think this bit should have been cut because it has a knock-on effect to something else but I think way, way, way back in the drawing process I think maybe this series would have been more comfortable with the duology. She's one of the most vivid writers I've ever come across. Have you noticed how whenever I start thinking of that book, the book that shall not be named, I start coughing. I'm not kidding when I said it made me ill. Like it's bad vibes, bad energy. Just all around, just like not conducive for success. In comparison to The Rebel City of Indra by Kendall and Kylie Jenner, I said in that video how I could never envision where I was. Like I could never, I didn't know what any of the settings looked like. I didn't even know where we were half the time, like what kind of setting we were in. Whereas polar opposite of this, and maybe part of the reason I enjoyed reading it so much was that Natasha Nguyen makes sure like her settings are some of the most vivid I've ever read. I can picture everything in such great detail without necessarily other reference points. Like she creates such original landscapes and settings, I think. I love being with Leigh. Leigh to me is a great character but she's in a relationship in this book which isn't entirely healthy and I think because we feel for both people in the relationship, for both her and her girlfriend. I don't want to like name names, I don't want to spoil anything but I think it is commonly known that she falls in love with a girl in this book, right, in the series. So it's not entirely healthy and I don't know if it's discussed enough. Her partner's actions when they're bad or portrayed as bad but I'm not sure the dynamics of their relationship, particularly towards the end, are reflected by outside individuals enough. Their relationship is very insular. It only occurs between them two and so you've never got anyone else saying to her, no that's not the way this should be happening. I'm not like crying by the way, it's my cough. I felt like I sound so sad like, no one ever tells her what is just my voice. Yeah, no one's ever telling her that's wrong and so I think at some point it almost bleeds into like that whole am I crazy thing. I mean the girl she's in a relationship with is not a bad character by any means, not a bad person but she's flawed and yeah I'm just not sure the dynamics are fully gone into enough particularly with a series that deals with, you know, sexual assault and I think obviously sexual assault is very separate to relationships but her perception, both of their perceptions of relationships are going to have been affected by what they went through and so I think the pair are linked in some way in this book. So yeah, I just would have liked to see, and maybe we'll get that in the third book but a bit more of a look at the dynamics between them. So, but I really loved all the new characters in this. To me it didn't feel like we were with new characters, it didn't feel jarring, it felt like these were people that we knew all along and I just, there were a few easter eggs in there for fans and I just really enjoyed it and it makes me feel kind of like, what are my taste levels? Because people who I often have very similar tastes with didn't like this but everyone's gonna like different books and I'm here to tell you that Girls of Storm and Shadow isn't as good as Girls of Paper and Fire. I don't think anyone is out here saying that but I still think it's very good and I think if you love her writing, if you love the core of the story, I think she's actually travelled it through very well considering we are in completely different settings this time, completely different situations. I think the core of the story is still very much there. So yeah, I'm gonna give it four stars. So now I'm gonna start Gemina. I'm budging reading this one of Nicole from Nicole and Her Books and this is quite long, it's 659 pages but they're usually quite a fast read. So I'm hoping I'm gonna get through this quite quickly because today is Wednesday night so I've got Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then I upload this vlog on Sunday night but usually I spend like the whole of Sunday editing. It's so embarrassing how long editing takes me. Like everyone else is like, oh, I edited a video today and it took me three hours and I'm like, I wish any video only took me three hours. Yes, I'm in my pyjamas. I don't want to hear anything about it. So I didn't read anything yesterday. I literally read one page. That ain't good. I have got 36 hours to read about a thousand pages. Which I mean like it's not that bad. I've seen people read more in that time but like for me, I don't do that on the reg. I am like 25 pages into Gemina. I'm loving it straight away. I mean, it's just incredible. I mean, I don't think it can do any wrong. I think I'm gonna love it. Again, we've got a lot of different mixed medias and just the characters. We're following different characters from what I can tell predominantly but I'm still like obsessed with all of them and they're such individual and unique characters so different to what we've seen already. My aim today is to get about halfway through this and then tomorrow there is the... What is it actually called? Hang on. I'm really bad at read-a-thon names. Okay, it's the basically read-a-thon run by Brit and it's a 24-hour read-a-thon and I think I'm gonna like semi take part in that. All my plans are tomorrow is to read. So my lunch is already made. Dinner will be made. I'm not gonna do any cooking tomorrow which always takes up so much time. I'm just, my plans are go to the gym tomorrow as well and read. So the plan is to still finish this in time to edit this on Sunday. If you're seeing this on Sunday, you'll know if I've done relatively okay but like I'm scared because this ain't me. This ain't me. I don't read that much that fast. Oh my god, ignore how bad that spot is. Okay, I'm gonna go read for the next hour until I need to go out. Then I'm gonna go out, then I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna read more and I'll just keep updating you. Morning. I literally, I've just woken up. I haven't done anything yet this morning. I haven't brushed my teeth. Ew! I haven't had anything to drink. I just came and picked up the camera and I thought, right, there's a vlog straight away. So I did try to set an alarm this morning and I didn't get up with it. I was just really tired. I was reminded of something. But so it's like, what is it? Like quarter past nine right now. And last night I managed to get to about page like 285 of this. So I was aiming for like 300 and I did pretty well. Considering when I was at like 150, I thought, oh, there's no chance. I'll probably only get to 200. But then I split, um, oh my god, it's too early. I sped through, um, like page 200 to 280. So yeah, I think, I think I'm going to be getting through a lot quicker now. The pace of the book picks up and because of the way it's written, when the kind of pace of what everything's going at picks up, you're reading it quicker because, um, there's some pages that are like really short, um, really short things to, I guess, like keep the pace going for you. So, um, yeah, it's so good. These books are incredible. Like I really haven't been out here reading anything like this at all. Like they're just, in my opinion, in a league of their own. They're incredible. They are, I just, I can't stop going on about them. The stakes in this one didn't feel very high for the first 100 pages. You were kind of like, okay, what's happening? But then the stakes rose very, very suddenly. Very suddenly. Like it was crazy. So, um, yeah, I can't wait to read the rest of this. I'm going gym at about, um, I've got to leave at about half 11. And so I've got like two and a bit hours now. Um, obviously I'm going to be having breakfast and sort myself out a bit first. But I reckon I can get a really good chunk of this done. I'm going to aim to get to at least page 400 of this before I go gym. And then when I come back, it's just getting through it, you know, getting through as much of much of the books as I can. I need to check in on Twitter and see what everyone's reading for the readathon and see how it's going for everyone. So yeah, I'm going to go get some breakfast and I'll check in with you in a bit. I'm so angry. I'm so angry at this character. I'm so angry. I'm so, I'm so, I'm, I'm so angry. I've only read 30 pages. I'm fuming. Yo, what this series is so good at doing is pulling. Oh my God, I've gone really red. It's like pulling twists out the bag that you could never have seen coming. You're just like, and you're like, hey, how did I not predict that? Because then you feel dumb. But then you're like, oh my God, why, why do I hate everyone? God, I, I was ready to throw my book across the room. I was ready to throw my book across the room. I was so angry. Okay, I want to get back to reading. Yo, I, okay, I just got back from the gym and had lunch. I'm not even going to try to look good for you right now because it's impossible after that gym class. Oh my God, I feel like death. I feel like, I feel so tired. It was so hard. But yeah, back home, the book just keeps getting better and better. Like I might even prefer it to Illuminae and considering Illuminae is my favourite book I've read so far this year. Like we're gagged, we're gagged. Everyone say hi to the panda, by the way. It's good luck to give him tummy rubs. Okay, I'm exposing how weird we are. I, I don't know how they do it. And I think it's really clever that they've switched characters, but they're all still connected. And the story, oh my God, it's just so good. It's just so good. And I don't know how they managed to create all these amazing characters that I like, I'm obsessed with, that I love. So yeah, I'm going to go carry on reading. My arm hurts. I need to start putting this on the tripod when I check in because my arm gets so tired. Okay, bye, wish me luck. I've had enough, I've had enough. I'm checking out. I finished Gemina. It's gonna, it's gonna be five stars. It's gonna, I mean, I, I, the thing is with this series of books, they are so full of tension. Like you're reading it and you're like, like skipping the pages. And some, a new development is constantly happening. Something is constantly going wrong that they've got to deal with in both the books. And so you're just full of tension. Like I feel so wired of tension right now. Um, have I said I'm giving it five stars? I'm giving it five stars. It's five stars. It's incredible. I don't know if it's better than Illuminae or not. To me, it is similar. Did I say all this before? I think it's going to be very similar, the series, or it is, to the Bear the Nightingale series, or the Winter Night trilogy, in the sense that that series was all five stars. And like, I can't differentiate between them in terms of how good they are. They are just all that good. They're all on the same level. And they kind of all blend into one story where, like, you can't separate it. It's just one big story. It's not separate books. It's like a whole arc. Do you know what I mean? I don't know if I'm explaining that very well. But that's what it feels like to me. It takes you through every emotion. I was screaming. I wish I was filming myself because I was angry. I was so angry and upset. And then, like, it turns it around on you. It's full of twists. Oh, y'all wanted a twist, eh? Come on. Illuminae. Let's get sick. And you just... God, I'm just... If you haven't picked up this series yet, please get to it right now. I'm trying to stare into your soul. Please go. Go read it right now. I don't care about whatever else you've got on your TBR. I really don't care. Unless it's something like Very Nice and Girl, in which case maybe pick that up first. But no, I don't mean that. I mean I've been speaking about that longer in case you listen to me. Which I'm pretty sure no one does. Anyway, go read it. Go read it. And the thing is, you'll see it and you'll be like, 659 pages? But you read it so fast. I really don't feel like it took me that long to read it. Because, you know, some pages are... Let me find something that doesn't spoil it. Some pages are like that, right? Or like this. Like that. But you also have pages like this. Where it's like surveillance... Transcript of a surveillance camera, right? So it doesn't actually take that long to read. And it's just... It was just incredible. Like, I want to go and reread it. And I just need to... I just need to... I don't know. I need to read everything that Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff have written. Both together and apart. Because it's just incredible. Just incredible. So I did actually finish that roughly on time. I finished it like five or ten minutes after four. I think it's probably like half four now. Because I had to set the camera up and everything. But we're gonna start Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. And I've got to finish this tonight, really. Yeah. I mean, there's no excuses. I've got to finish it tonight. I don't think this is going to be as good a read as Gemina. I'm ready for more of The Darkling. Listen. I've just... I think I've said this before. Listen, I don't know why I've said it to you before. I was just going to say it. I'm so happy I'm reading these in the era after Ben Barnes has been announced as The Darkling. Because it means I imagine him as a Darkling. And I think it just improves the reading. So I didn't finish the book. I gave up at like half eight. And I really scratched my head and I wondered, where's God when you need him? I gave up. But I got... How far did I get? Like 80 pages in. And I'm actually enjoying it a lot more than Shadow and Bone. Yeah, we might have a four star on our hands. I mean, it's early days. But I feel actually like this book is better. Like I'm enjoying it a lot more. A lot has happened in a very short amount of time. Which I think with this series benefits it. Because, you know, the writing... You know, Leigh Bardugo has come a long way in my opinion. I think you need that quick pace to keep me interested at least. So yeah, I think it's... And I think it's better written than Shadow and Bone as well. I think it's way better written. I think there's been parts I've read I'm like, oh, that's nice, you know. But yeah, sorry that I gave up. What can I say? So... So after I gave up trying to finish this on Saturday night. At like 70 pages, 80 pages. I then didn't read any more until really this morning. That is Wednesday. So I went three days without picking this up. Now, it wasn't like I didn't read. I just read other books. The problem with this is I don't think it's a bad book. It's not a bad book at all. Like I'm enjoying it. But like there's nothing that makes you want to pick it up. Like in those days where I didn't read it, there was nothing that made me want to pick it up. And I don't think it's necessarily worse than Shadow and Bone. But I don't think it's an improvement. I've been reading this all day. And at first, you know, I was like, I'll check in at 150 pages. And I was like, okay, 200. And then we made it 250 because I've been waiting for something to actually say to you. I've been waiting to have an actual opinion. Apologies if my hair is like crazy, by the way. I've been waiting to have an actual opinion because thus far, nada. I just haven't cared. Like I haven't... I've just been like, oh, okay, fine. I haven't had anything that I loved to talk to you about or anything I was outraged about, you know? Like it was just chill. It was just whatever. I didn't care. I'm not gagging. I think the problem is you could say that Girls of Storm and Shadow was very similar to this in the sense that like it's a kind of, you know, we travel somewhere book and not loads happens. I mean, something... And we still have 120 pages. Something's happened. But like in that series, I'm very attached to the characters. I think the characters are very well-rounded, very developed. And I don't think these characters are... I don't care about any of them. Any of them. Not even any of the like side characters. I just don't care. I really have nothing to say to you. Like I'm reading this whole ass book and I have nothing to say to you about it. Like I just don't care. I just don't care. I just want to finish it. It's not a bad book. Like I'm enjoying it. But there's nothing to talk about. Like it's bland. Like it's like the equivalent of Quaker's Oats, like maple porridge, right? Like you bite the sachet and you put it in the milk and it's the maple flavoured one, right? It's nice. You eat it and you go like, yum, nice, right? But after a few spoonfuls, like this is samey. And it's nothing to write home about. No one's gonna be saying that's their favourite breakfast. No one's gonna be saying that's, oh that's the best breakfast I've ever had. Like it does the job. You go, oh yeah, nice. But there's nothing to say about it. It's just bland porridge. I don't hate Mal yet. I don't hate him. I think like he's not really annoying me at all. But everyone says he does something. And I'm trying to predict what he's gonna do. Oh, another thing. The romance in this book. Oh, come on. Could you- and I sounded really posh. I'm not posh. I was like, oh, come on. Could you get any more boring? Like they're not even- there's no chemistry there. How are you gonna like be thrust into a situation where you're kind of semi-separated? It's a bit awkward. And like not want to go, you know, find a closet or something. Do you know what I mean? Like not even speaking to each other. There's a complete lack of communication. That's what bothers me. I can't stand like communication when there's no good reason. If there's a good reason, I don't care. That can be kind of like- But this is no good reason for them not communicating how they're feeling. Or I just- that's irritating me. That's the main thing that's irritating me. I'm like, guys, why can't we just sit down and have a chat? So, final thoughts. I have none. Sheeky bitch. Honestly, what a carry on. This book was just so- I don't even- I don't even have any- I don't have any positive feelings towards it, but I don't have any negative feelings towards it. Like, I'm just completely unbothered about it. And I- I- I read it yesterday and I feel like nothing happened. I- okay, question also. Am I supposed to hate Mel now? Because everyone says he does something in this book, or is it the next book that makes you hate him? He's done some stuff in this that make me think, oh, he's just an idiot. But I don't hate him. Like, I don't think he's a bad person. I understand where he's coming from. Am I the only one who understands where he's coming from? So, I gave it three stars. It's probably more like a 2.75, but, like, I usually give, oh, I don't know, three. It was fine. There we go. I've made progress in some of the book series that I really wanted to get to this year. I feel really happy, actually, that I've made progress in all of these, because then I've only got one book left in each of these series, and it's the final book, which is quite exciting. So, yeah, I'm really happy that I made progress. I'm sad this video took longer than the film that I wanted it to, but you live and you learn. And, yeah, I hope you enjoyed the video, and I will see you very, very soon with another one. Thank you for watching. Bye.