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Transcript

Bonus: January 2026 Reading Wrap Up · Rachel Oates

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Hey everyone and welcome back to my second channel.
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I thought I'd just do a little casual video.
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This is unscripted, but I thought I'd just talk about some
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of the books that I've been reading in January 2026 because
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it's been a while since I did a video like this.
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And it's good to good to have a little chat about these things.
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And so I figured I would get up my little Goodreads account and
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double check what books I have been reading, because I've
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actually gone through a lot this month.
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I've read 10 books this month, including three graphic novels.
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The three graphic novels were volumes 1011 and 12 of The Boys.
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I've read them once before, but with the latest series of The
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Boys coming out, I want to reread all the comics and just
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kind of like, I know, revisit them, see what I think.
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The comics aren't as good as the TV series.
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The comics have a lot of problems.
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There's a hell of a lot of misogyny in them.
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There's a whole whole bunch of problems with them.
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But they're still quite entertaining.
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They're still quite fun. I'm glad they've gone a
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different route with Blackmore in the TV series to the comics.
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I have to say that I just enjoy reading the comics.
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I think they're good. They're fast-paced.
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They're silly. As in like if you, if you just
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don't take them too seriously, they're fine.
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I still get disappointed by the end of the Boys comics though.
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Because spoilers, by the way, spoilers for everything I'm
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going to talk about. I still find it sad that Butcher
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went and killed everyone except Huey and Starlight.
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That makes me sad. I do think the TV series has
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like way more potential and I'm kind of looking forward to the
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last season, The Boys even more now because I think they're
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going to do it differently to the comics.
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I feel. I feel like that's one of the
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good things about the TV series, which again, is not flawless,
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but they've taken some of the main issues with the comics and
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done them better. Basically, the TV series is like
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just taking the premise and making it better in every way.
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I way prefer the character development of Homelander in the
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TV series to the comics. That's one of the things about
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the comics that kind of got me is that like, we didn't really
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see enough of Homelander. We didn't really, like get any
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real character development from him.
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Yeah, I would have liked more of a focus on him.
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And we've got that in the TV series, and I like that.
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But yeah, rereading the series, I'm glad I did it.
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I will probably end up kind of like forgetting some of my
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criticisms of it again in the future and rereading it again in
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the future, but I don't know. I don't know.
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It's not my favourite comic series.
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I still love Fables. I still love Why the Last Man.
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I still love Lumberjanes. That's adorable.
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It's kind of more for kids, but that's it's just so, so
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wholesome. I love Lumberjanes and yeah,
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there's a lot of comic series that I prefer to it, but I'm
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still glad I read it. So there's that.
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On to talk about the actual books that I read though, I read
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Mission Pregnancy, Dad's Survival Guide to Nine Months,
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which is obviously terrible. I've got a full video about it
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over on Oh, I can finally review it again.
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Sorry. I've got a whole video about it
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over on my main channel. It's insane.
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But for a long time it was getting so many one star
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reviews, they stopped people reviewing it on Goodreads.
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So I can finally give it my one star now.
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It currently has 53 ratings with a 1.75 average.
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Interesting. And I think from what I
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remember, the five star ones seem like they're written by the
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misogynist sub bots. OK, let's let's get on to the
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interesting stuff now because this is what you want to hear
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about. Let's start with the worst book
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I've read this month and this is Holly Bourne.
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So thrilled for you. I've read stuff by Holly Bourne
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before and I like her writing style.
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I think she's a good author. She's very good at writing these
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like complex female characters, like they feel like real women.
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They aren't all good or bad. They have their flaws, they have
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their strengths. She's very good at that stuff.
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She's really good at writing female friendships.
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However, this book just didn't really do anything for me so.
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So let me read you the description and I'll tell you my
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thoughts on it. A terrible heat wave.
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A very tense baby shower. It will all end in tears.
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Nikki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since
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university. Now in their 30s, life is
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pulling them in different directions.
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But when Charlotte organises a baby shower of hell for pregnant
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Nicky, the girls are reunited. Under the sweltering hot summer
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day, tensions rise and by the end of the evening, nothing will
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ever be the same. Someone started a fire at the
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house and everyone's a suspect. Is it Steffy, happily child free
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but feeling judged by her friends?
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Is it Charlotte, desperate to conceive and jealous of those
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who have? Is it Lauren, who's finding
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motherhood far, far worse than she imagined?
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Or is it Nicky herself, who never wanted a baby shower
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anyway? In the aftermath, the police
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will put together the facts, but the truth will shock everyone,
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even you. So I thought this would be more
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of a thriller than it is. It's not.
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It's more of like a character study about these four women who
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have this incredibly toxic friendship but were meant to
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think it's just like the book has a happy ending for everyone
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and they stay friends even though they shouldn't be.
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They absolutely shouldn't. My review of this on Goodreads
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said may this kind of friendship never find me.
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Pretty much every character was absolutely awful except Steffi
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and Charlotte, and those and those two were treated so
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terribly by the other characters.
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Some people are complaining that the ending was too happy, but a
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happy ending would have actually been Steffi and Charlotte
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getting away from everyone and finally finding some decent
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friends. On the bright side, excellent
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birth control. If I wasn't certain about not
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wanting kids before, I am now. The chapters about what's the
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face, Lauren? Is it Lauren the mum one?
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The one who's already a mum? Yeah, Lauren.
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The chapters about Lauren suffering with Clearly she's
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going through some sort of like maybe post Natal depression kind
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of thing, Postpartum depression. Either way, she's finding
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motherhood really hard. She doesn't have a proper
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support network. Everything is difficult for her.
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She's so depressed and upset and anxious and everything's a mess.
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Like they were genuinely difficult to read.
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And I feel like it's a very accurate portrayal of how I
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would find motherhood if I was ever a mother.
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I feel like I would be in the same place as her.
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So to me, reading this was like, oh, thank God I'm never having
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kids, you know? But it's interesting because
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because that was so horrific and probably because I'm a child
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free woman myself. Then when you had Charlotte's
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chapters of her like crying and crying because she wanted to
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have a kid so badly and she couldn't conceive and then she
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did conceive. She thought she was leaving the
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baby. I was a bit like, yeah, and I
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feel for you, but also, it sounds so terrible.
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Maybe you'd be better off not having a kid.
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Do you know what I mean? And that's not what I think the
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author wanted us to take away from that.
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But it's what I did take away from that.
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And then you had Nicki being pregnant.
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It was her baby shower. But she's also struggling with
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her sexuality and has an affair with a woman from work behind
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her husband's back. It's the whole thing.
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Again, I would feel more invested in that story if Nicki
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wasn't such a terrible person. And I'm like, she gives up this
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woman that she apparently loves because she's like, well,
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actually I'd rather be stuck in this like, marriage that doesn't
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work for me just so I can have a biological kid with him.
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I'll give up a real proper love and deny who I am because I want
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a baby. And that's somehow portrayed as
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like the right thing to do. And again, it confuses me.
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Don't get it. Steffi is the character
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obviously like I related to the most and she's successful at
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work. She's child free by choice.
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Love that for her. I felt like I was kind of
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worried the whole time because I kept thinking like, is all this
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success that she had she's having?
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Is it going to backfire? Is it going to turn out to be
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like a prank by like Nikki Osman because Nikki hates her and it's
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like a whole thing. But no, no, she was really that
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successful. I'm glad she got the happy
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ending because she deserved it. She worked damn hard and
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everyone judged her for it, and I thought that was completely
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unfair. I think I also found Nicki
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especially horrible because she's the kind of woman who
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like, has hurt me repeatedly throughout my life.
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So basically what happened is Steffi was at uni and she had
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this massive crush on this guy and she thought he was so
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absolutely wonderful. And then they get together one
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night and they have this amazing night together and she's like,
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Oh my God, this is it. This is my person.
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This is wonderful. And then he goes down to make
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her breakfast and meets her friend Nicky.
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And he decides it's love at first sight with Nicky.
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And Nicky decides it's love at first sight with him.
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And so he's immediately like, wait, Steffi who?
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And he starts seeing her best friend, best friend.
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And then they get married and then they have this baby.
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And then, like, Nicky cheats on him anyway with this woman, but
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then she's still angry at Steffi because she's like, super
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jealous, even though she's the one who stole, stole him from
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Steffi. And there's all this stuff.
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And basically this guy's like, well, of course I'm in love with
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her. And she's this perfect woman
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because, like, you know, I can't ever be serious about you,
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Steffi. You don't want kids.
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You don't want this. Me, me, me.
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You're just not the kind of person people get serious about.
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And I was like, oh, God, I'm Steffi.
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I'm Steffi. And I yeah, So I I felt for
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Steffi. I hated Nikki even more.
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I kind of didn't care that her house got set on fire.
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It was a whole thing. Yeah.
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And I wish, I wish there'd been a little bit more of, like,
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thriller crime element. I wish it had turned out that,
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like, one of them had set fire to the house.
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I wish there was a bit more of that crime aspect.
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Again, massive spoiler. Turns out it was just exhausted.
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Lauren took her away off her baby and then her baby.
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Like, there was a heat wave, so her baby wandered off.
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And then he found this like firework thing and then he set
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the garden on fire. Then slowly the house went, the
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baby did it, the baby set the fire.
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And I thought that was just a bit of a cop out.
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I feel like if this had been marketed as more of like a
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character e-book and a French friendship book, then it
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wouldn't have disappointed me as much because I was expecting
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more of a thriller and it wasn't a thriller.
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But also, if it had been marketed more as like a, hey,
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this is what motherhood's like for more people, then I also
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probably wouldn't have picked it up and then I wouldn't have
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wasted my time. I don't know it, I think there's
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an audience for this book. I think there's a lot of people
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who will like it. It just wasn't for me.
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I gave it two stars because I still think Holly's writing is
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good. It's not terribly written, It's
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not terribly offensive. It's not the worst thing I've
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ever written. It just wasn't for me.
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So it still gets the two stars, but it just, it just wasn't for
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me, That's all. It wasn't for me.
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After this, I read a book called The Birthday Party by Shalini
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Boland. This was a thriller.
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It's about this woman who has a birthday party for her daughter,
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and at the birthday party her niece goes missing.
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So like, she's kidnapped and taken away.
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And then there's all these twists and blah, blah, blah, and
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it flips between what happened back then and what's happening
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now 10 years later, and how they cope.
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And then they find the daughter by the end of the book and
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there's like a whole thing. It was fine.
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I gave it three stars. I don't even really want to talk
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about it that much because it was a little bit of a nothing
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book. It was fine.
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It was a typical thriller. It was a little, not
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necessarily, not necessarily like predictable, but it was
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just kind of boring. Like I feel like I've read it
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before and it didn't really do anything special.
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It didn't really stand out. I gave it three stars because
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again, it's not a bad book. It's not an offensive book.
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There's nothing wrong with it. There just wasn't really much
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right with it either. I wasn't like, oh, this is
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really good. You should read it to anyone in
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my life. I was just like, huh, OK, it's
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there. You know, it's like, it's like
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plain pasta. You know, if it's cooked well,
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it fills the needs, but it's nothing to get excited about.
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You wouldn't cook it for your guests, You know, It's the plain
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pastor of books. After this, I read the Full Moon
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Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki. I gave this four stars because
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it was cute, very easy to read, very quick to get through, super
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cosy vibes. My Goodreads, Goodreads review
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said love the cosy vibes, love the cats, Could have done with a
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little less astrology and a few more cats, but overall very
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cute. And it's about these
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interconnecting stories between a bunch of people who went to
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school together and one of their like teachers.
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And they all have a different experience at the full moon
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coffee shop, which is like this magical coffee shop that appears
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when you need it. And it's run by cats who tell
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your future based on astrology and your star charts and stuff
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like that. I'm not an astrology girl.
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You know, I think it's all nonsense full of Barnum
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statements. In the real world.
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I don't think it actually effects anything or means
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anything. And if people try and like, you
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know, if people try and charge you for things like star chart
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readings, tarot readings, tea leaf readings, telling, if you
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like, no, they're scammers and they're taking advantage of
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vulnerable people. And I have no respect to them.
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But in the context of this book, if you take it as a fantasy
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book, it was really, really cute.
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The coffee shop is run by cats. And the cats are like the stars
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and the planets and stuff like that.
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Like you have cats who are like Saturn and Venus.
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And it is really, really damn cute.
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And the cats have like, human forms, but also cat forms.
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And like, some of the other people who go to the coffee shop
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are like literal animals. Like, she gets there and there's
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this man, and then he wanders off and he turns into a rabbit
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because he's actually a rabbit. And the rabbit had like a whole
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like life and his own problems. And the coffee shop helped the
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rabbit. It was just so damn cute.
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It was wholesome, it was lovely. It was like, well, when I read
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the delicate dream department store mouthful, but I loved that
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it was so cosy. It was so wholesome.
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More happened in this book than happened in in the dream
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department store, but like, I just, I just like the cosiness
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of the mall. I like, I don't know.
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It's just, it's just a really nice, like break from the world
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where like everyone gets a happy ending.
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Everything is good, everything is relaxed.
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You can go and have this magical food, a Cafe run by cats.
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It was really damn sweet. I just liked it.
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OK. Like, I really, really found it
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comforting. After this, I read strange
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pictures by Ukatsu. I read what was the other one
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his first book, Strange Houses. I read Strange Houses last year
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in November last year and I really loved it.
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I found it so damn creepy at times and like weirdly
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unsettling and I really really enjoyed it.
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I felt like the conclusion and ending maybe was a little bit of
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a let down but I I still enjoyed it.
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I still thought it was good. I thought it was good
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storytelling and it had that nice little thriller element.
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Strange Pictures to me, I didn't enjoy the first half of it.
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The last half was better. I liked how it all came together
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and made sense and these seemingly interconnected stories
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linked together. I'm not going to say much about
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this because I think this, you just need to kind of like read
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an experience. But I did like it.
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I did find, like the last chapter or so was sort of
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unnecessary because it was just explaining everything we just
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read. And it's like, well, yeah, we've
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figured all this out. We've read the story, and now
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you're just kind of retelling it and explaining it.
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And it was a bit much for me at the end.
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I felt it didn't need that or didn't need some of that, but
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overall it was good. Strange Pictures isn't as good
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as Strange Houses, but it was still quite enjoyable and I gave
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it three stars. This probably isn't one I'd
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recommend to people, but Strange Houses I would.
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He's got a third one coming out which I think is called Strange
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Buildings and I'm very keen to read that one so I will still be
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reading more by him. I do think it's good.
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After this I read Oh I haven't enjoyed a book as much as this
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in a long time and I really did not expect this.
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This is Long live Evil by Sarah Reese Brennan, and I loved this.
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I like properly got lost in the world.
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I got so invested in the characters and it's such a long
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time since that's happened to me.
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And I just thought this was going to be like some well, it
15:21
is a silly camp fantasy novel. It's nothing serious.
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It's not deep, it's not life changing, but it's just really,
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really enjoyable in the same way that I find EastEnders
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enjoyable, you know? So let me read you the synopsis
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of this book. When her whole life collapsed,
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Ray still had books. Dying she sees as a second
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chance at living a magical bargain that lets her enter the
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world of her favourite fantasy series.
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That fantasy series is called Time of Iron, and that's also
15:48
the name of this series. She wakes in a castle at the
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edge of a hellish chasm in a Kingdom on the brink of war,
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home to a dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers, and her
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favourite fictional character, the Once and Forever Emperor.
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He's impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be.
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In this fantasy world, she discovers she's not the heroine,
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but the villainess in the Emperor's tale.
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So be it. The wicked are better dressed
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with better one liners, even if they're doomed to bad ends.
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She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story
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under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate.
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But as the body count rises and the Emperor's fury increases, it
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seems Ray and her allies may not survive to see the final page.
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So let me read you what I wrote on Goodreads as like my review,
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and then we'll talk about it a bit more.
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I said I wasn't sure what to think about this at 1st and felt
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I was either going to love it or hate it.
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It started a little clunky and it threw a lot of information at
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you at first, but after the first quarter I start to find it
16:41
really entertaining. It's silly, it's camp, it's fun
16:44
but also intriguing and I kind of love the whole meta aspect of
16:47
it and how little things can change stories.
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I'm just going to jump in here to say that.
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So basically what happens is as Ray is dying of cancer, I'm
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going to give you some spoilers, but I'm not going to spoil the
16:58
ending because this is one that I would recommend you go and
16:59
read for yourself because I really enjoyed it.
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As she's dying of cancer, she's basically offered this bargain
17:05
where, yeah, she can go into her favourite fantasy book series as
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world and she will be put in the body of a character who no
17:14
longer needs it. That's that's basically what the
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bargain is. So she takes it and what she has
17:21
to do is she has to find the flower of life and death that
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blooms once a year, and she has to get that in time, otherwise
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she's going to be stuck in this fantasy world forever.
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But if she gets the flower, she can come back to our world and
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be healed basically. So she takes it and she wakes up
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as one of the main villainesses in the story, and it's the night
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before she's due to be executed. So she's like, crap now I need
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to find a way out of this execution.
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I need to find a way to save myself.
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So she claims to like, be able to see the future because she
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knows what happens in the books. And she's like, oh, I'm a new
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Oracle. I can make prophecies like I've
17:55
seen in the future. And this basically saves her
17:59
life. And then she's like, crap now
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the whole story is going to change and there's all this
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stuff happening and this and this and it's really damn good.
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And I'm I'll read you the rest of what I said.
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I also found this whole concept of what makes someone a hero or
18:12
a villain really fun to think about.
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I've never been one to root for villains, but I quite liked how
18:16
this book showed in some fantasy books the idea of hero slash
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villain is a bit too simplistic and how there are far more
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nuances to it than that. Also so much of it in terms of
18:26
like what makes someone a villain and what gets in the
18:29
label of being a villain stems from misogyny.
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Well I kind of told about like 2 narratives at once if that makes
18:35
sense. Ray recounts the story that as
18:37
she knows it and remembers it and she's foggy on some of the
18:40
earlier details because I mean she has cancer and she kind of
18:42
had a lot of brain fog and was not really paying attention much
18:46
during the first book. Then she got really into the
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later series and she knows a lot more of those details.
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The first one she's a bit foggy on and she's like living in the
18:53
first one. So we're given like what she
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remembers about the series and what she thinks is going to
18:59
happen and what she knows about the characters.
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And then we also get the version that she's currently living,
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which is obviously different from those books because now
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she's alive and she's making changes and she's influencing
19:08
the story herself. So, yeah, we get like, the
19:12
original story and then like Ray's version of it, if that
19:15
makes sense, which is which is really cool.
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And of course, you have unreliable narrators and all
19:19
this stuff happening. It's it's really interesting.
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And so, yeah, so much of what makes 1A villain stems from
19:25
misogyny. In the original story, Leah is
19:27
said to be the heroine because she's pure and appears weak and
19:30
vulnerable and needs saving, whereas any women who are seen
19:33
as villains are thought to be evil because they're sexually
19:35
experienced or think for themselves.
19:37
However, when Ray enters the narrative, we begin to see her
19:40
challenge all this, even if society as a whole doesn't.
19:43
So yeah, I think that's a really, like, interesting aspect
19:45
of this book. Like in the original story, the
19:48
king is thought to be a villain. Sorry.
19:49
The king is thought to be this hero because, you know, he's the
19:52
king. The King's always the hero and
19:54
he's got this love triangle going on and he's trying to win
19:56
the heart of Leah, this pure woman and blah, blah, blah.
19:59
But like, actually he's like sleeping around with the
20:03
villain. He's a bit of a douchebag, he's
20:07
a bit of a misogynist, He's not very nice.
20:10
He's a bit of a bully. He's just, he's horrible and I'm
20:12
like, OK, but he's still seen as the hero.
20:15
Whereas the villain that Ray embodies.
20:19
Has done way less bad stuff than him, But because she was
20:23
sleeping with the king, everyone's like, oh, she's evil,
20:25
she's horrible, She's a villain. So then she kind of takes on the
20:28
role of the villain because she's like, well, if everyone
20:29
expects that of me, I guess I'll do that.
20:31
And yeah, it's a whole thing. And interesting.
20:34
I did. I did like that aspect.
20:35
It did make me think a lot about the misogyny behind heroes and
20:39
villains in fantasy. Interesting.
20:42
In my good review I went on to say I saw one criticism of this
20:45
book say that the twists were predictable but I have to
20:47
disagree. I didn't really see those plot
20:50
points as shocking twists but as well earned character
20:53
development. I saw them coming because the
20:55
work had been put in to develop the characters in that way and
20:57
show us that they and show us what they were really like.
21:01
Ray was obviously shocked within the story because she thought
21:04
she had knowledge of what would happen but as outside observers
21:07
we could see it happening anyway even when she couldn't and and
21:10
it just made sense. Overall, just a really fun
21:13
reading experience and I'm really keen to read the second
21:15
book. And like I say, I won't spoil
21:17
the ending in the things that happened, but one of the things
21:19
that I really enjoyed about it is that it turns out that Ray's
21:21
not the only one who's been put in this situation.
21:23
There's another character in there who was also offered the
21:27
same choice. He got hit by a car saving a
21:29
kids life and he was transported into the world.
21:33
And except he came into this world as just like this random
21:35
little like beggar on the street.
21:37
And he was like, oh God, well, I need to do something about this.
21:40
And, and it turns out that the version of the book that Ray
21:43
knew in her world was very different from the one that he
21:46
knew because he is now in the story and he's changed so much.
21:51
So I found that aspect really interesting, this idea of like,
21:54
oh, well, as Ray is doing this, I wonder if the story is
21:56
changing in her world and how that would like, affect the
21:59
world if she does wake up and get back to it and all this sort
22:01
of thing. I just thought it was fantastic.
22:03
I really, really liked all that. It is like I enjoy it in the
22:07
same way that I enjoy EastEnders.
22:08
You know, you don't take it too seriously, but at the same time
22:11
it does give you things to think about.
22:13
It's really damn entertaining, really fun.
22:16
I just, yeah, I found myself very invested in it all and I
22:19
wanted to know what happened to these characters.
22:20
And the second book is coming out in May this year and I
22:22
absolutely can't wait. Like, I want to know what
22:24
happens next. I want to know where these
22:26
characters go. I want to find out what happens
22:28
to that story. I thought the character
22:29
development of them all was really good.
22:31
I liked understanding their motivations.
22:33
That was all like very well thought out and a lot of work
22:35
had been put into that. And I just, I just really
22:37
enjoyed it. I did.
22:38
I do find it's a little difficult to get into because
22:41
the writing in the first quarter of the book isn't as good as the
22:44
rest of the book. And yes, there's some cringey
22:46
lines in it. Yeah, the humour's a bit stupid
22:48
and it's not really my kind of humour, but I don't know.
22:51
It was still entertaining. It was still fun.
22:53
It was still silly enough for the top in places, which I
22:56
loved. Yeah, it was just very camp,
23:00
very fun. No, I was entertained and
23:02
that's, that's what I wanted. That's what I've needed this
23:05
week, this month, this year. I just needed some mindless,
23:09
silly entertainment. And so because of that, really
23:12
loved it. And the last book I'm going to
23:14
talk about is one that I finished just today, and This is
23:17
Half His Age by Janet McCurdy. I love Janet Mccurdy's memoir.
23:21
Absolutely did. This is her first attempt at a
23:23
novel, and I am really, really disappointed to say that I found
23:28
this book disappointing, which is a shame.
23:30
Her memoir is so damn good. And then I felt this just was a
23:34
bit of a let down again. I'll read you the synopsis and
23:37
I'll tell you my thoughts. Waldo is ravenous, horny, blunt,
23:42
naive, wise, impulsive, lonely, angry, forceful, hurting,
23:46
perceptive, endlessly wanting, and the thing she wants most of
23:50
all? Mr Corgi, her creative writing
23:52
teacher. With the wife and the kid and
23:54
the mortgage and the bills. With the dead dreams and the
23:57
atrophied looks and the growing paunch, she doesn't know why she
24:00
wants him. Is it his passion, his life
24:02
experience, the fact he knows books and films and the things
24:05
she doesn't? Or is it purer than that, rooted
24:08
in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the
24:11
similar philtre with which they each take in the world around
24:13
them? Or perhaps it's just enough that
24:16
he sees her when no one else does.
24:18
It's like trying to be my dark Vanessa, but it doesn't do any
24:22
of it as well. And I really think Janet Mccuddy
24:25
is a good writer. I think she has a lot of
24:27
potential, but this book is just not it.
24:30
Again, I'll read you what I wrote on Goodreads and now I'll
24:33
talk a bit around it. So I said I loved her memoir,
24:35
but this novel just didn't work for me.
24:37
I didn't like any of the characters.
24:39
I didn't even like to hate them, they just annoyed me.
24:42
I understand the need to be disgusting and vulgar in the
24:44
descriptions, but it just didn't work for me.
24:47
It still felt a little bit too much like gross smut rather than
24:50
an actual depiction of abuse. I didn't need to read graphic
24:54
descriptions of child sexual assault.
24:56
I'd have much rather the focus had been on the emotional impact
24:58
of it all. Show us how grooming happens and
25:00
more of the consequences. The choice to make the teenager
25:04
ignore the adult's consent in their first sexual interaction
25:07
and have her literally do her. His words say nobody's body says
25:10
yes. Thing was super uncomfortable to
25:11
read. It was never addressed by the
25:13
characters or author, which is a problem in itself.
25:16
I understand wanting to have nuanced depictions around
25:18
consent and power imbalances, but I just didn't think this was
25:21
handled well. This felt less like a book about
25:24
grooming and abuse and more like a book simply about a
25:26
traumatised teenager in a toxic relationship.
25:29
The themes which could have and should have been addressed were
25:31
not. So instead it just read a
25:33
sexually explicit misery porn. If you want a book on this
25:36
topic, there are far better options out there.
25:38
Like My Dark Vanessa, like the memoir being a Lolita, they're
25:41
far better. I went in wanting to really like
25:43
it with high hopes for how this author would handle the
25:45
sensitive topic, but was let down throughout the book.
25:48
When you're writing a book with a relationship between a teacher
25:52
and a student, a man in his 40s and a 17 year old girl, there
25:57
are things that should be addressed and need to be
25:59
addressed. The grooming, the power
26:02
imbalance, potential manipulation on his part.
26:07
And none of that was addressed. None of that was even touched
26:10
on. We didn't see any of it.
26:11
Instead, you just had this young girl who had a bad relationship
26:14
with her mother and had never seen a good relationship.
26:17
And so she's like, oh, I'm going to go after this older man.
26:19
He's going to say no and I'm going to ignore him and just do
26:22
it anyway because I'm a kid and consent doesn't matter,
26:24
remember? And then she basically sexually
26:26
assaults him because he's saying no and she does it anyway.
26:30
And then all of a sudden they're having a full on sexual
26:32
relationship and his lack of consent is never addressed once.
26:37
It's always about her pursuing him rather than the other way
26:40
around. I feel like if you told me this
26:42
was just a toxic relationship between two teenagers, it would
26:45
have the exact same impact. His age and the fact he's
26:49
married and the fact he's a teacher don't actually come into
26:52
it. They don't really add anything
26:53
to the story. Those elements aren't explored
26:55
as they should be or need to be or as just I want them to be,
27:00
you know? It's just a book about a toxic
27:02
relationship. We didn't need to make him older
27:04
because those aspects aren't explored.
27:07
There are some very, very sexually explicit sex scenes
27:11
which are very, they're disgusting.
27:15
They are like, like, I know I don't say that as like being
27:17
prudish. I mean, like they're purposely
27:19
meant to be disgusting and they're meant to revolt you.
27:22
But I feel like surely, I don't know how much I want to say like
27:26
it's not very pleasant. There's a scene where they have
27:29
sex while she's on her period and she basically gets blood all
27:34
over him and then asks him to slap her around the face with
27:38
his blood covered penis. And then they get interrupted by
27:41
his wife coming home so she has to hide in the closet and catch
27:45
her period blood in her hand. We didn't need any of that.
27:49
We didn't need it. It's disgusting for the sake of
27:53
being shocking. It doesn't add anything to the
27:55
story. It doesn't.
27:57
It doesn't do anything. It's just there to be gross.
28:00
It should already be gross enough that this is a 40 year
28:03
old man with a 17 year old. What should be gross and
28:06
disgusting is the power imbalance.
28:08
It should be the grooming. It should be his manipulation of
28:12
her. The fact that this is the rape
28:14
of a child should disgust us enough.
28:16
We didn't need these like graphically disturbing scenes
28:21
spell out to us that no, no, I'm not.
28:25
I'm not going to repeat some of the others because they were
28:27
really disgusting. You can read some of them in the
28:29
reviews on Goodreads. Some of the scenes and quotes,
28:32
because they're, they're just, they're meant to be disgusting,
28:35
but it's like for shock value and for the sake of it.
28:37
It doesn't add anything to the story or the narrative or the
28:40
character development. It doesn't do anything to tell
28:42
us that, you know, grooming is wrong and a teacher sleeping
28:46
with a student is wrong. It's just, it's just gross for
28:48
the sake of it. I'm just not a fan.
28:51
So I'm really sad. I was disappointed by this
28:53
because like I say, I had really high hopes and really high
28:55
expectations and I thought if anyone can handle this subject
28:58
sensitively, it's Janet McCurdy. And she didn't.
29:02
And I find that really, really disappointing.
29:06
Yeah. I still gave it two stars
29:07
because, again, I think Jeanette is a good writer.
29:11
And it's not that poorly written that it's a one star book.
29:14
It's stillwell written. It's still easy to read.
29:17
It's engaging in some parts, I guess.
29:20
But also, like, I didn't necessarily feel like I wanted
29:22
to keep reading. I didn't feel like I cared what
29:26
happened to these characters. I didn't feel like, oh, we need
29:28
to get to the end, You know, it wasn't like when I was reading
29:31
Long live Evil. I was like, oh God, I can't wait
29:33
to go to bed tonight and like have my like hour reading before
29:36
I go to sleep. I can't wait for that.
29:37
You know, it was none of that. And it was just like, oh God, I
29:41
gotta go finish that book, don't I?
29:42
And the only reason I kept reading is because I knew it was
29:45
something I'd want to talk about in a video here on my second
29:47
channel. Like that's the only reason I
29:48
kept reading because I wasn't enjoying it.
29:50
I wasn't entertained by it. But it is still fairly well
29:53
written, hence the two stars rather than one.
29:56
But there you go anyway, that's been done for today.
30:00
Thank you so much for letting me rant.
30:02
If you haven't seen over on my first like on my main channel,
30:05
Kyrie is not here at the minute. She's having a sleepover at my
30:07
friends house because with her being I'll I've not been
30:10
sleeping properly and I just. I need a full night's sleep.
30:13
I haven't had more than about 2 1/2 hours of uninterrupted sleep
30:16
in such a long time. And I I really need it.
30:20
And so he's letting me have some time off to just catch up on
30:23
sleep and catch up on my filming and do some work, which is
30:27
wonderful. He's, he's such a good friend.
30:28
He's such a good uncle to Kyra, and I'm very lucky to have him
30:31
in my life. But yeah, that's why Cooper's
30:33
not around. That's why you can't hear us
30:35
snoring today. But she's OK.
30:38
She's, she's suffering a little bit with side effects from her
30:40
medication and some other bits, but she's, she's doing all
30:43
right. She's pop ring on.
30:44
She's still beautiful as ever. We had a lovely game of bubbles
30:47
earlier, so I'll put some of those photos up on the screen
30:49
now because she's absolutely gorgeous.
30:51
But yeah, I just want to let you know where she is and tell you
30:54
that, like, you don't need to worry.
30:55
She's OK She's safe. She's just having a sleepover at
30:58
her uncle's house. So that's lovely.
31:01
But yeah, thank you so much for listening today.
31:03
Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for being
31:05
here. And if you have read any of
31:07
these books, please let me know in the comments what you please
31:10
let me know down in the comments what you thought of them.
31:12
If you're new here, be wonderful if you want to subscribe.
31:14
And if you like this video, you will probably prefer my content
31:17
over on my main channel because it's much better than this.
31:19
Usually here, I just kind of post clips on my main videos and
31:22
I ramble and I talk about, you know, the certain usually more
31:26
happy stuff. Yeah, I don't know, right?
31:30
My words are not wording today. I'm so damn exhausted, right?
31:34
I'm going to go have a night off now and just probably go play
31:37
some PlayStation and then have a really good long sleep.
31:40
It's going to be wonderful. OK, I'll see you all again soon.
31:44
Thank you for watching and I hope you have a wonderful rest
31:46
of your day. Bye.