reading EVERY BOOK on my TBR 📚 🏁 TBR200 ep1

hello my name's Megan and I have too many books somehow I have ended up with exactly 317 books what the heck somehow over the years I have just accumulated and accumulated books i checked and when I started book 5 years ago I had 37 and I thought that was a lot now behind me are 317 books and you know what i've had enough i've had enough i actually don't think having a TBR this big is good for me how do you know what's good for me that's my opinion i don't think it's good for mentally emotionally spiritually it's not good for me so together we're going to go on a mission to try and get this TBR down to about 200 books and we're calling it TBR 200 this is going to be a read it or unhaul it series like many people on book have been doing i believe Becca and the books was the first or if not the one of the first people to do this series but this is my version tbr 200 oh my god how am I going to do this my goal at the start of this year one of my big goals I think my big big goal actually was to get it under 240 this year i think it's gone up from what it was at the start of the year i think my TBR has grown so we're going to do the series until my TBR gets sub 200 for me below 200 probably around 150 if we're honest but I don't know if we're ever going to get to that is like my ideal number if I can get this under 200 I will be so proud of myself and when I look at it there's a lot of books on here that have been on here for years have been on my TBR for like 3 four years and it's time to read it or unhaul it so join me as we try and free up some emotional physical mental space and get through these books and get my TBR below 200 are we ready are we ready for this i hope we are so let's go hello we're down here with my books it's time to start reading for this vlog all the other vlogs in this series are going to have a theme but I thought for this first vlog with me just introducing the concept we're just going to mood read for like a week and see how many books we read i don't know i don't know mood reading petrifies me as you guys know I am not a mood reader it petrifies me i'm probably going to start trying to think of a TBR in my head like I'm probably okay I'll read that then I'll read that it's just the way I work okay I need to know what I'm reading next it fills me with dread but we're going to try mood read today's Wednesday so we'll do this vlog until like next Tuesday or Wednesday and we're going to try and read books off my TBR this TBR needs to get down it's out of control it is It's out of control so this is my TBR cart and then that you can't see very well but this shelf and this shelf here are three columns of books double stacked and then I have about four next room is a mess i have about four stacks of books next next door that are all on my TBR um so it's Yeah it's not good anyway so I'm in control but I'm out of control and I'm also um controlled so in a way I'm everything but we're going to read we're going to read books off my TBR and we're going to get it under 200 we are are we apparently am I actually going to be able to do this i think I think I should at least try you know let's at least try so what am I going to be reading i've been thinking about it whilst I get ready i think what I'm feeling is I need I'm not feeling very well today so I want something light i want something you know not too heavy quite easy to get through and it's finally spring you know spring has sprung in the UK i feel like the weather is really nice and I feel like it's time to read Hang on i've got to get it from back here i feel like I'm ready to read Just for Summer by Abby Jimenez i think this is what I'm going to start with i just love Abby Jimenez i love her and so many people said they love this i remember I read the first chapter for my um try a chapter video i do the start of the year and I almost picked this as my first book of the year so I think it's time i think the weather's perfect i think now's the right moment so I'm going to start this i'll let you know my thoughts i'm a little bit the ways through but I'm very excited this I'm very excited and I feel like maybe this week we're just going to read loads of books that I'm like super excited for i mean I should be excited for all my books there's there's a lot of book I look at these and I'm like "Holy shit." I just think I'd feel so much better if my TBR was less guys there's too many too many books okay I'm going to go read this and I'll check with you probably tomorrow i don't think I'm going to read a lot today i've got quite a lot to do this evening but I will check in with you probably tomorrow morning with some thoughts and hopefully they're going to be great thoughts i don't know how many books we're going to read in this video depends how quickly I read the books I'm reading you fell my head is filling bottles that keep falling off the shelves well every word like a prison out of color was wasted i could see through every layer this was heaven i could taste it on the counter floor and blended through the door my skin was wide awake guys it's spring i'm so happy i'm so happy i'm so happy and not to get too deep I haven't spoken about I wasn't speaking about this and now suddenly I spoke about on Instagram i speak about it everywhere but like the past real talk the past six months have been um rough really rough for me a a few things I think I've since I was like 13 12 I don't know suffered with seasonal effective disorder and like not going to lie since starting book what like 5 years ago it had really been negligible like it's you no like honestly guys book gives me purpose book makes me so happy you guys don't understand how much making these stupid ass videos contributes to my mental health however this past six months were rough and I think I was just in denial i was like I'm I'm cured i don't have seasonal faction disorder anymore you spend all that time thinking you've won turns out you got nothing and so I just like was like a little hermit and I like just like withdrew from life a bit and was going through the motions and like really disassociated from everything and suddenly the weather's good and I'm like "Wow this is who I am this is the real me this is the real me." And also I don't think I'm ready to speak about this on on Maine i speak about it a lot with my like top tier patrons in my life update but like I um I I've all my life have struggled with issues around food oscillating between like one extreme to the other if you like view eating disorders as like a spectrum I was kind of like oscillating from one to the other and the past year I But the past six months has been really bad i've been struggling with that really badly and it like it consumes my brain it consumes my brain i could be so much more i could think of so much more i could think about videos more if I wasn't thinking about this all the time and I'm like really at the moment with this new weather and feeling a bit happier really trying to back myself to like get out of it you know to be a healed woman to really work on it and like to believe i haven't had belief in a long time that I can like conquer it but I'm trying to now anyways it's Saturday and um I didn't So this vlog is definitely going to go to like Wednesday Thursday next week cuz I filmed the thing on Wednesday like picking the book didn't read at all on Wednesday barely read on Thursday yesterday I got halfway through this book last night i think it takes me when I haven't got a video plan like a book book plan what I'm going to read when I'm mood reading it takes me especially the book is like you know this is momentous but wow what a moment I will never forget it takes me like 48 hours to come to terms with that I'm reading this which need to say has meant that I've basically already planned out in my head the other books we're going to be reading in this vlog i never said this was a mood reading vlog um I never said that but I thought for this first vlog of me just introducing the concept we're just going to mood read i really never said that i never said that uh it doesn't need to be it's not a mood reading challenge i gave myself permission to mood read and I decided to not take that permission so anyways I am halfway through just for the summer and basically what I'm going to be doing for the next like 5 days of this vlog and really giving myself permission to read and read a lot hopefully i had to get some other like big work stuff done but then I can kind of like block out the next 5 days to just like reading and doing a few patron bits anyways I'm procrastinating i've been speaking for quite a while let's talk about this book shall we the synopsis is basically all you need to know they both have this curse where whoever they date goes on to find the love of their life so they connect on this like Reddit thread and they decide to date each other to cancel it out the only other thing I would say is like important to know going into it is they both have very interesting family dynamics particularly with their mothers like these familial dynamics that are causing I wouldn't necessarily say friction but are definitely like factors in how they're negotiating their relationship it's not even really a relationship yet they're like fake dating but they're you know starting to fall for one another i'm loving it oh I'm loving it oh I'm loving it with it with it being hot and warm I'm just like you know what I mean i'm eating it up i'm Guys oh it's so good to love reading isn't it it's so good to love reading i cannot put it down i forced myself last night to stop reading at the halfway mark because I knew I didn't want to film i was like tired and a bit of a mess and I didn't want to film but I knew if I kept reading I was I would finish this book without having to spoken to you about it i love these characters i find them so interesting and I find the the familial stuff going on in their lives is really I don't want to say it because I don't think it's said in the synopsis anywhere but it's really interesting and this is something Abby Himenez does so well there's always a really compelling romance but there's always like a little bit of like heavier stuff and the way sometimes I feel like Emily Henry's books are like if there's heavy stuff it's overpoweringly heavy abby Jimenez oscillates between light and dark so well there'll be a funny scenes silly goofy funny scenes that I love in romance but then it will be serious and she like oscillates between them without it being jarring so I'm finding the you know heavier stuff very very compelling to read i'm loving the relationship i'm loving the characters i I am obsessed simply obsessed i'm simply obsessed i'm loving it i'm basically just going to read this today my family going to do some gardening i may help i'm not I usually I just sit there and watch them so we'll see and I'm just going to chill out today and read this and I'll let you know my thoughts when I finish but like it's just so good it's so good i love you Abby Jimenez i think this is going to be my favorite Abby Jimenez I've read so far but they've all been great this is technically the third in the Part of Your World series i have finally added it to my spreadsheet i admitted defeat beforehand i was like "No." But now I'm okay i'm like "Okay it's a spread let's add it to the spreadsheet let's add it to the series." Cuz I'm like caught up it doesn't matter and the idea of it is so interesting that they both got this curse and it's not really like a speculative element it's just kind of like seen as like you know that it's just stated as a fact that this happens but it's there's nothing really speculative about this book I wouldn't say which I think maybe some people expected going into it i mean who knows if it will end up being that but um I I I am loving it i am having such a fun time i'm so glad I'm finally reading this back maybe it'll teach me to not take this long to read books that's the whole point really of me doing this experiment is that I want to like read books when they come out but I feel like I can't because I have such a big TBR and the TBR is just stressing me out it's too much if I could get this sub 200 oh my god I would feel such joy and mental freedom and like give myself permission to read books and also I think there's just a lot of books on here that like have been on here too long and need to get read or go you know so that's what we're really going to do really going to try this year and however long this takes to read down my TBR but anyways I'm going to go continue reading this today wish me luck i'm going to have a great time and um I'll see you later once I finished it but I am obsessed i'm loving it listen for me when life is turning listen for me when the world is burning babe would you listen for me listen for me in a crowded street listen for me in a winning streak listen for me when you're at your peak baby would you listen for me listen for me in a child's power listen for me in a golden hour listen for me when you're on your own listen for me when you're far from home listen for me when you can't go on babe would you listen for me okay five stars oh my goodness guys five stars five stars i adored this this really solidified Abby Jimenez as a favorite romance author for me well she I can't class as a favorite author cuz I haven't given her three five stars in fact I think this is my first full five stars for her which is crazy she's always felt like a higher rated author for me in my brain than like I guess the ratings I've given historically but anyways oh my god my heart hurts this book this book is so good this book is so good i don't want to give anything away obviously it's a romance sometimes I find romance is a little bit difficult to review because it's like you kind of know like I feel more more than any other genre you know the kind of plot beats that this book is going to take but you know the hook is what really got me so excited for this book you know they have this curse whenever they date someone that person goes on to find the love of their life but like that hook does not really play a role in this book the magic of this book is these characters and their relationship with each other but also their relationships with other people all of the outside relationships in this book good or bad felt very realistic without having to be necessarily too fleshed out like Emma the the girly and her best girl best friend you know Maddie like their relationship wasn't necessarily like fleshed out like gone into depth cuz there's only so much page space but like every moment was written with such intention that everything made sense you know i loved it oh I loved it oh I loved it was exactly what I needed it was therapy it was therapy it was a form of therapy that is equally as important and let me tell you I'm not going to spoil anything for you but Abby Jimenez really cements the Abby Jimenez cinematic universe with this book it is a cinematic universe i'm not going to say anything but there is a twist in this that like made it a five star without a doubt i think part of me was like "Oh is it a it's like a 4.75 like is it this twist happened?" Oh my god oh my god yeah that's cinema this is cinema guys this is cinema film and movies here's the thing with like books that are in a series like this or like um the three I've forgotten their last name the Tally Hibbit sisters series is it the Brown Sisters trilogy or I'm trying to think of what other ones other romance series that I read or Ali Hazelwood is writing the bride series you know in a series that you're going to get characters from other books you know you know it's going to happen like there's appearances from characters from other books but like the twist guys the twist yeah she's that girl she's that girl you know what I mean she goes Pilates she gets her smoothies from Air1 she's that [ __ ] oh my god i'm a little bit in shock i loved this one of my favorite books I've read so far this year my top three are probably this in no particular order this the final act of Judy Willoughby and Disney High i loved it abby Jimenez can write like a [ __ ] just she can i would also say I don't think there's there's not a lot of sex in this book it's not very spicy i think there's maybe one sex scene and even then it's not super explicit just the emotional journeys that these characters go on again in this relationship together and apart and the way they negotiate that and the way she writes that with such deafness oh my god oh my god guys i'm in shock i've had such a lovely day today reading this i just sat there and read it tomorrow I think we're going to go for a walk maybe go out out and about a bit more but I'm loving reading isn't it so fun to love reading oh I'm gonna cry it's so good i don't think I'm explain i'm a little bit shocked it's just a wonderful romance if you need a romance pick this bad boy up but but I do really think that like the payoff of this book comes from having read the previous two romances i I yours truly blew up but I feel like more people have read that now than Part of Your World phone read Part of Your World then read this then read this because like this is this is a cinematic universe more than any any you know you I think for the full benefit in multiple story lines you need to have met these characters before for this to really pay off in the way it does okay anyway next book like I said to you I' I've already decided what I'm reading um so I was thinking about reading this book next because in my brain I need a TBR but I was like "Ah do I want to read that do I want to read that?" And then in this month's TB Kudo I got the role a standalone mystery and thus I am going to be reading The Examiner by Janna Tal as soon as I got that roll I was like "Okay it's time for The Examiner." It it it seems a bit scary cuz it's quite big but I feel like you know it's going to read so quick cuz it's all text messages etc etc i'm so excited so I'm going to start this tomorrow i've got a movie night with my patrons now watching Emma the 2020 film i've never seen it and Emma was a five star when I read it one of my favorite books of that would have been 2023 so I'm very excited to watch that with them but like I feel like already this vlog could be a huge thing a huge thing one book off our TBR none added yet in this vlog but we will see if some do get added in this vlog and um yes I'm just going to get into another book that I am so hyped for hello Ramona i can't shake the simplest feeling beyond the Hello hello it's Monday i feel like we need to start reading quicker maybe i don't know i feel like I'm really enjoying my reading though isn't that what matters yes apart from the fact that I need to you know get through my TBR that's the whole point anyways I am just under halfway through The Examiner by Jennis Hallet this one's an interesting one so the synopsis all I'm going to tell you is that it's basically what I've told you already it's like this master's course for fine art and the examiner is reading through all of the documents to do with this course and thinks someone has died on this course and they're all covering it up basically and it's a collection of about I think six students and their teacher and we're mainly reading from their group chat that they've got from people's coursework from people's diaries that they're meant to keep as like a log of the work they're doing on this portal um like the tutor's reviews of the work stuff like this is basically what we're reading i I don't know how I'm feeling about this yet i don't know how I'm feeling about this yet i'm enjoying it but I think my opinion could go either way depending on the second half of this book i think Janice Howlet's books often depend on how it all comes together because they're mixed media there's like a lot of stuff we don't know there's a lot of stuff that's being hidden from us and you know that like you can sense like there's character that's referring to oh something that happened yesterday something that happened the day before when that happened you know because they're all meeting up in person but we're only reading from the text messages that they're sending to one another so there's a lot that's missing and I think it really is determined by how it's all brought together and how we find out about what that stuff that we were referring to was at the end janice had it the Twifford Code oh my god that book wasn't that notable I feel like for most of the book but the twist the twist of that book is one of the greatest twists I've ever read and it made it the mysterious case Angels I feel like was a bit more like the whole book i don't know if I'm loving this as much as that but I'm enjoying it here's the thing i'm really enjoying this i'm reading it very fast i don't want to put it down i'm having a great time piecing everything together i can also understand why someone would find this boring though it's like a lot of like reading about their coursework and they're doing some kind of like radio installation it's just a bit boring oh look you know what i don't I We didn't say that uh no but it it looks an awful lot like that doesn't it it i can understand why someone would not enjoy this but I think I am enjoying it just because also like I'm a lover of the genre and so it's just so interesting to see something done in this way in such an interesting unique way and how it's all being kind of like pieced and crafted but like I can understand if you don't really care about that you might find this boring and something that's bothering me is like this is supposedly there's some I mean there's something going on this isn't not as all as what it seems you know but this is supposedly a mast's program and just the way that they write during their coursework is pissing me off i if you don't know at school was very academic she's incredibly intelligent people it would scare them if they knew how smart she is i was very like I did very well at school and one thing about me was like I knew what I had to do to get the best grade like how I had to write stuff how I had to frame stuff like I knew I knew how to mold what I was doing into what was wanted from those like murking stuff and these people are just chatting [ __ ] like my dad is dropping me off every day like in their coursework what planet are you on it's pissing me off i know i understand why they're writing and like they're giving their life backtories no one gives a [ __ ] they're giving their life backtories and I understand why they're doing that it's to like flesh out the characters it's to give some character backstory so we actually know who this person is cuz if you read some of my course work you' be like "Who the hell is she i know nothing about her." You wouldn't because I'm talking about like I don't know the Brexit referendum in politics like you know nothing about me i understand why they're doing it but it's just like a level of like suspending your belief suspending your disbelief suspending your disbelief that I'm not willing to do that is that's the one thing that's annoying me i'm like that that wouldn't happen that would not happen so yeah that's where we're at that's where we're at with this book i'm enjoying it i'm racing through it but I I'm I think it's all going to be how it comes together in the end i am now going to color it i'm going to watch some of Books Unbound i love the podcast where are the pens and then in like 2 hours I've got reading sprints on my patrons so I'm going to try and get through as much as we can yeah I'm enjoying it tentatively sun cuts through the corner of my window playing cash i wonder do they get good company purring on my lap not a single worry to be had sunny side of the only thing that's feeling my brain for now sunny side up the reason that I get out of bed is to lay down again oh I be with you in a sec i just need a day off nothing in my plans i just need a day off i'll get back i'll do my best but better call somebody else i simply got too much on my hand nothing in my plans i just need a day off feet on the table if I were just moving okay um I don't know where to start first of all the thing I'm about to hold up is the most diabolical thing you'll ever see so if you recall my copy of The Examiner was all white because it was an ARC IO was sent that you're supposed to color okay um yeah it's bad i'm not it's awful mary and Joseph guys okay i love the idea whoever Viper PR team I love the idea the pens are tiny and it started running out and I didn't even do the back it's They're tiny i can't color well on a huge thing with this there's no way to do it okay moving on um also I don't really want to talk to you about my thoughts on this book it took me a while to read it it's Wednesday and I'm gonna show you in a second we're gonna have to read a lot more books in this vlog um I didn't love this i'm giving this three stars i think that might be my lowest ever Janice Hel it makes me want to cry no it makes me want to cry like cuz it scares the [ __ ] out of me okay here's the thing i just didn't really connect to the premise of the story and where this was going i didn't really care i didn't really care about the plot i didn't really care about the characters i have a lot of thoughts a lot of brief thoughts uh it dragged it dragged it doesn't need to be this long like I feel like mixed media is your perfect opportunity to make a book quick and snappy and this dragged it's 450 pages and the parts where like you're reading long essays from people where they're like writing about their essays I did not give a [ __ ] i didn't give a single [ __ ] i didn't I I I didn't give a [ __ ] i didn't give a [ __ ] didn't give a [ __ ] no [ __ ] given and I don't feel like there's a lot of twists in this i think you know from fairly early on not exactly what's happening not exactly the explanation for things but you know vaguely what's going on i think I sused out a lot of what was going on there is one big twist to do with like a character's identity that I think some people have had issues with i personally didn't have an issue with how it was done but I just didn't really feel like it was like a major I think I was already a bit checked out the book i was just like "Okay okay." But I can understand why people would have an issue with that i I kind of knew about the twist as well and I couldn't see it coming i'd been spoiled for the twist and I kept trying to figure out who it was in relation to like I knew the the premise of the twist and I couldn't figure it out which I feel like is almost not a good sign like I feel like there should have been hints towards that but there wasn't really anyways i I don't really want to talk about it i'm giving it a three i think what it really boils down to is just like I wasn't gripped i wasn't invested with a mystery you have to really be invested in the mystery and I just wasn't i don't think this is Janice Howlet's best and listen that's fine she's churning books out she's I don't even know how many books she's published like five in three years or something now she's doing two more this year i just want to kind of see this as like the dud maybe i don't think this is where you should start with Janice Hallet if you're like tentative about picking up I wouldn't necessarily recommend it oh my god I hate the coloring don't look at it all the characters I just didn't I didn't care about any of them i didn't care about any of them i wasn't connected to any of them and yeah like I said none of apart from that big like identity twist none of the twists gagged me i was like "Okay yeah we kind of knew that the whole time." None like I felt like the book was a straight line i never felt like we veered off on things i never felt like we went any any unexpected routes you know like everything was like an explanation for things that we'd kind of already figured out ourselves if that makes sense so that's where I am also I agree with Mara i watched Mara's review for this i think she gave it a bit of a higher rating but for like an art course it would have been interesting to have some pictures in this some imagery some photographs something i understand based on what they were kind of they build like this big sculpture that would be hard but I think that really would have enhanced it because it's like all this talk about art and imagery and it's just not it's just words on a page you know what I mean so I think that would have been a benefit to it i'm sad but I'm getting over it because I'm like "Oh god look at my fingers guys." cuz I've just finished coloring i'd colored most of it i don't want to touch anything now i'm going to get over it because I'm really excited for her books coming out this year and I'm just choosing to believe this was a dud but yeah that's kind of sad it took me a while to read i didn't read I was supposed to read loads of it last night so I'm getting my makeup wipes to clean my fingers i was supposed to read last night and I didn't want to i just watched Celebrity Big Brother instead um I now have to come clean about something let's Let's talk about it guys i have some books we're about to add to the TBR you might know this is three parcels here we'll talk about at the end first book I think I know what this is because this series always comes in this parcel with this isn't this sad that I know this it always comes in this parcel and it never has a note the notes always missing for some reason in the Amazon warehouse that they ship these out of don't print the notes so there's not I really don't think there's going to be a note it's going to be a Lady Hard Castle B and I don't think there's going to be a note they always come in this packaging different to other Amazon packaging let's see there we go i always knew I felt it it is an assassination on the agenda and there is no note so if you sent this to me please let me know because I am so grateful i'm almost caught up with the Lady Hard Castle series and I just love these bad boys so much i love Lady Hard Castle thank you so much whoever sent this my way please let me know if it was you let's see what we have next i have no idea what this could be that one as soon as I saw the packaging I knew it was Lady Hard Castle it's from Estie oh okay it says two out of two so the other book was from Estie it's from Estie okay that's fine i love Estie estie says "I know you're trying to read down your TBR sie you're sabotaging me but I just read this and had such a good time i hope you do too oh I haven't heard of this pomona Afton can so solve a murder i love the cover what's it about a murdered matriarch a frozen trust fund and a sneaky little crush all day's work for the spoiled upper east side in Bellamy Rose's debut romcom meets murder mystery interesting thank you so much Estie and then this book I know what it is hang on one of my patreons Cade helps me get my hands on books from the US where I hate the uh UK cover or much prefer the US cover and this book the cover I don't think the UK cover of this book is awful but the US cover just has a certain Janesse Qua about it are you ready we have just witnessed history we are all a part of history that will be forever remembered in hundreds of years to come i'm so excited it's The Favorites by Lane Fargo probably my most anticipated release this year i'll just say it now and I feel like everyone who's been reading it has been loving it it's very It feels very Taylor Jenkins read it's a story of these ice skaters who on the 10 year anniversary of their final skate there's a documentary being made but we're also reading in real time from her the girly's perspective i'm so excited i've been hearing such good things and I just love the US cover the US cover just has something about it you know oh my god Kade thank you so much for helping me get my hands on this and it's a Wthering Heights retelling which I don't know the story of Wthering Heights but I'm just so excited i'm so excited i'm so excited okay you will notice this adds three books to my TBR and we've read two so we are currently in this video dedicated to reading down my TBR we're plus one yeah yep we are going to pretend we didn't hear that so I was going to end this vlog today or tomorrow but I think we're still going to end it tomorrow actually what I have been fancying um picking up is a graphic novel and that works well cuz we can read it quickly i feel like I don't read graphic novels enough and I absolutely love them so let's go head over to my bookshelf and see what graphic novels we have i don't know which one I want to read let's go have a little peruse so I've gathered up some of the graphic novels on my TBR that I want to most read there's more but these are the four probably I'm most excited for we've got Law Olympus volume 1 which I'm very intrigued about that is also my 25 and 2025 i think this one's Summer we've got Crumbs and we've got Moon Cakes i think I'm most intrigued right now in one of these two cuz they're kind of like cute romancy i think I'm going to go with Moon Cakes and it's not just cuz it's the shortest one i think just the illustration style i'm just in the mood for this one so yeah let's go read this and then we'll pick probably one more book so that we are minus one in this oh my god minus one we're going to be minus one to my TBR in this video we'll read one more book after this oh my god okay right let's go read Moon Cakes i'm very excited okie dokie i have read Moon Cakes and I'm giving this a 3.5 that cursed cursed evil evil number evil evil [ __ ] I'm sick a 3.5 rating sick to death of them sick to death of them anyways the plot of this is we've got a witch and a werewolf and they were friends in childhood and they were split up from each other and they reunite and there's a wolf demon in the woods that they want to try and figure out wires out there together and trying to fix a situation together and this is really cute but it's short and I feel like it suffers i mean listen it's 240 pages but that's of a graphic novel and so I just don't really feel like there's much story there i feel like it suffers from being the length that it is i think it's a really cute queer YA romance i think the family representation in this is very in some ways very cute the relationship that the witch has with her grandmothers but also very varied in some you know more difficult family dynamics are explored in this as well but I just kind of left it feeling like okay okay that was cute but it was just cute it's a cute dress thanks no problem whereas other graphic novels that I love like I think a very good comparison to this is the Tearagon Society not there's no romance necessarily in that you have romantic relationships but it's not a romance in the way that I would say this is a fantasy romance but they're very short they're very very short they're probably less pages in this even though they're very like big hard book pages very cute lots of little magical creatures but those managed to have such depth to them and such nuance and such poignance to them whereas I really don't feel like this for me is going to be that memorable it was cute i had a nice time reading it but I'm it's not going to stick with me and I don't really have much to say i enjoyed the representation it's got deaf representation in it as well and I feel like that was really good it definitely took a lot of care with all the representation that it had like as a polar opposite to The Examiner which I can understand i've been I've been stewing on that because the representation in that is to do with identity i don't want to say what it is cuz it's a spoiler but I can understand people having issue with that however I would say like I think there's a bit of um not wiggle room i don't want to excuse anything but like when you go into a thriller or mystery you know that like stuff can be used in twists that like isn't perhaps handled with the most amount of care and I'm not excusing that but I think it is a little bit of like a common occurrence in the genre um but I don't think it was handled necessarily I can understand people having issue with it i personally don't feel like it was handled badly but I'd be open to hearing someone out explain to me why they feel like it was handled badly you know but like in a YA fantasy romance you know that those elements are going to be handled with care and I did appreciate that it was funny it had moments of funny i really enjoyed like the warm color palettes and the uh illustration style but yeah I just didn't feel like there was much substance to this it was cute i enjoyed reading it this afternoon but I'm not going to remember it for a final book that will take us finally a negative one I think if my math works out it'll be to 316 books on my TBR instead of 317 i have two books that have been on TBR Claudio so far this year that I have not yet read and don't have plans to read i think there's like maybe two or three others but they're in plans for videos these two I don't have plans to read and they are The Watchmaker Filigree Street and How to Sell a Haunted House so I've been debating which of these I'm most in the mood for i want to get the audio for whichever one cuz I haven't listened to an audio at all in this video yet i've done all physical reading and I just feel like an audio might be the vibe and I think I'm going to go with The Watch Maker of Filigree Street this one just calls to me more right in this moment i don't really know what it's about i know it's like historical speculative historical maybe so we'll see what we think i'll check in when I'm about halfway i don't know if I'll get there tonight or tomorrow but I'm planning to finish this the next two days anyway so yeah i'll let you know what I think from a little bit the way through but I'm intrigued because this was one I was recommended when I went to Mr be's where I did that whole video of the reading spa so I'm slowly reading through those and seeing what I think and this is the probably the one from that video that I'd like heard the most about beforehand or seen around the most beforehand so yes I'll let you know my thoughts from a bit of the ways through okay I'm gonna be dnfing The Watch Maker for Lig Street and I am going to be unhauling it off of my TBR yeah okay i only made it about 100 pages into this full disclosure I feel like I have to be truthful about this cuz I don't know what I'm going to say i actually DNFed this about a week ago and then since then I've been like reading other books and working on the videos and I forgot to film this cuz it was just so blah to me that just like I had nothing to say i was just so bored throughout this book so bored i don't know if I've ever been that bored bored [ __ ] yes and I also don't know if I've ever had less to say about a book i There are not many thoughts in my brain it's about this guy who finds a gold watch on his pillow and he goes and tries to track down the watch maker but then we're also following like other story lines we're following a a girl at Oxford and then I think we're also following the past of the Japanese watch maker who the first guy tracks down so we're kind of following these three characters i did not care the writing dull dull dull gray boring i don't I was so bored throughout the entirety of this book the characters acted in a way where it made me completely unable to care about anything in their lives like I I didn't really understand characters motivations or characters reasonings for doing anything here's the thing this is a great recommendation i got this from Mr bees when I did that video there was a recommendation there now I think this he hadn't read this so this wasn't a book he was recommending to me personally i don't think he really said anything about this book but he I think I put what he did say in TBR Cludo in February cuz that's when this came up in TBR Cloudo he hadn't read it but on paper it should be for me it's like a historical myster Victorian i love Victorian settings historical mystery with maybe a little bit of like a fantastical element with these different characters performing their story lines like I should love this but I didn't and you know what the whole purpose of the series I think we are going to have to get more comfortable with dnfing and unhauling it that's what other people do in these series and I think I got to come to terms with it if you are new here I hate dnfing i hate dnfing books i'm so bad at it this is one rare instance where I feel no guilt or shame or bad feelings about dnfing this and unhauling it i don't feel anything i do not care there's there's some books that I should DNF that I feel guilt around it but I'm going to try not to do that i think in order to get this TBR down I'm going to have to DNF some and I think like 100 pages in like if I was bored then I'm going to be bored throughout the whole book and that's a waste of my time and energy and I need to be okay with dnfing i'm trying to come to terms with it that we will dnf a lot in this series so yeah i mean it's a book off my TBR um I'm sure someone I can pass this along to someone who will love this more than I did but I I have no words for you other than boring i It was so dull i was like barely engaging with this book at all but anyways let's see what that means for how this first episode of TBR 200 has gone and after all of that we have only taken my TBR down to 316 books we're minus one isn't that great let's remove one it's not the book but you know just demonstrating one less than what we started with for each episode of this I'm going to be strict with unhauling books we're going to be doing some themes where like I feel like it will push me to unhaul some of the older books on my TBR if you have any ideas for episodes because every episode after this is going to have a theme let me know but I have lots of ideas for some and yeah we're going to get this bad boy below 200 that's I actually don't know if I can do that i don't know i wonder if I don't know how I track it i don't track it like this but I'd love to know the last time my TBR was below 200 books it's been a while you know like I've been saying I want to read more new releases but I find myself holding off because I have so many books for my TBR and last year in particular doing Year of Rex was a great experience but it meant I was reading a lot of books every month that weren't from my TBR so we're really going to try and get this bad boy down we're going to try and get it down so join me on this journey i'm very excited to do this with you and um yeah let's read some [ __ ] books you know anyways thank you so much for watching this first vlog in the series i hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you very soon in another one bye