**A Bookish Experiment: Exploring Instagram Book Recommendations**

I embarked on a unique book recommendation adventure, utilizing Instagram as my primary source for discovering new titles. With a keen eye and an open mind, I delved into the world of bookstagram, where authors, readers, and publishers share their passion for literature through captivating visuals and engaging captions. As I navigated this uncharted territory, I encountered a range of books that piqued my interest, each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

**A Romance with a Twist**

One of the books that caught my attention was "Grand", a romance novel that promised to deliver on its mental health representation. The story centers around a heroine who has made moves on her hero, only to be met with reciprocation. However, I couldn't help but feel that the romantic relationship lacked depth and development. Despite this, the author's portrayal of mental health was impressive, tackling taboo topics with sensitivity and nuance. The heroine's struggles with anxiety and depression resonated deeply with me, making it difficult not to invest in her journey.

**A Standout in Mental Health Representation**

While "Grand" didn't entirely resonate with me on a romantic level, its mental health representation earned it a special place in my heart. As someone who has struggled with mental illness, I appreciate when authors and publishers tackle these complex issues with care and accuracy. The author's willingness to push boundaries and challenge societal norms made this book stand out from the crowd. I was impressed by the heroine's agency and determination to seek help, even if it meant facing uncomfortable truths about her relationship with her hero.

**A Complicated Romance**

The romance itself, while not my favorite aspect of the book, was undeniably complex and nuanced. The author's use of language was evocative, capturing the tension and uncertainty that often accompanies new relationships. However, I found some aspects of the dynamic between the hero and heroine to be uncomfortable, particularly given their doctor-patient relationship. While I understand that exceptions can be made in certain circumstances, this particular setup felt a bit off-putting.

**The Power of Bookstagram**

Despite my reservations about "Grand", I was struck by the power of bookstagram as a platform for discovery and recommendation. The author's use of Instagram to promote their work was clever and effective, using captions and graphics to convey the essence of their story. While some posts were more effective than others in terms of conveying the book's themes and tropes, I appreciated the effort that went into creating engaging content.

**A Newfound Appreciation for Bookstagram**

As I concluded my experiment with Instagram book recommendations, I emerged with a newfound appreciation for this platform. While it may not be perfect, with some tweaks to their approach, bookstagram has the potential to become an invaluable resource for readers seeking new titles and authors to explore. By showcasing books in a more nuanced and detailed manner, bookstagrammers can help readers make informed decisions about which stories to invest time and effort into.

**A Final Thought**

As I reflect on my experience with Instagram book recommendations, I'm reminded of the importance of nuance and depth in storytelling. While "Grand" didn't entirely resonate with me, its mental health representation and nuanced portrayal of relationships made it a standout in this regard. As readers, we deserve books that challenge us, inspire us, and make us think – even if they don't always meet our romantic expectations.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my channel in today's video I'm going to be letting Instagram choose my TBR I know this is not exactly a revolutionary idea I know other people have done videos like this before but I have not only never let Instagram pick my TBR for a video I've just never gotten book recommendations from Instagram before at least to my knowledge which is a damn shame because I follow so many people on bookstagram who have these beautiful curated posts that follow a certain Trope or it's just a really beautiful picture of a book that I'm like tempted to read just because the picture is really pretty and yet I never actually follow through and read the books that I see so I'm gonna remedy that in today's video I'm gonna hop on Instagram I'm going to just let it guide my reading I will let future me run you through the details and the rules but I'm hoping to just hop on Instagram in the first five books that I see that I haven't read that are Romance I'm gonna be reading them I'm gonna have some fun this week all right before we get screen recording I have three rules number one only romances are what I'm gonna be selecting from the books that I see on Instagram I only want to read romance most of the time I'm not gonna like pick up 30 book in a series you know fantasy or something like that not happening rule number two is if it's a book that I have read already I'm not going to reread it and rule number three if there is a book that I really don't want to read I have one Skip and one skip only so I need to use that skip very wisely as we work our way through Instagram all right let's go ahead and get screen recording fingers crossed I find some really juicy good stuff to read that I wouldn't have picked up otherwise there's going to be a lot of stuff to scroll through that just is not books all right first up we have Find You Again by Ava Hunter which is a rockstar romance forced proximity Second Chance book two it sounds really good just from the the brief like synopsis and or this graphic I'm gonna add this one to the list this is going to be I'm not using a skip closed door romance graphic this is really cute I don't know why it like shows you the second one first uh let's keep going how about the spice meter I love there's options on this graphic should we do the therapy one probably because I think I've read almost all of these other ones a little spice yeah let's go full therapy I have read there are no Saints I haven't had much luck with Rina Kent so I'm looking at the ritual and brutal Obsession let's go with brutal Obsession that'll be book number two I could pick more from this graphic but like I I feel like we need some variety here okay so book number two brutal Obsession by S Mastery thank you Grace this one interesting Medicine Man by saffron Aiken This is a book that I have considered reading in the past and just haven't picked up I've read one other saffron akent book before I think it's called unrequited or something like that it's a it's a student teacher thing giving a major Lana Del Rey Vibes I liked it so I think medicine man is going to be book number three for us alone with you in The Ether no when someone says they don't like surprise pregnancy you know I wasn't gonna go off of a real but I think I mean it is a book that I'm seeing and it is it is romance I don't know I can't tell what these are because it's mirrored I can have to do some like research on on this book yeah uh whatever this Fiona Cole book is the surprise pregnancy one I guess is the one that I'm gonna read so that's book Number Four whoo surprise pregnancy wasn't expecting that oh okay and then the last one is going to be fractured Sky by Katherine Cowell's small town romance emotional age Gap rooting hero I hate everyone but you recluse suspense Romance I'm liking these selections I'm very much liking these selections also I really love Graphics like this so shout out to Ava for this graphic a bunch of romances that I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own so I am looking forward to seeing how this experiment goes I don't know what I'm gonna pick up first I'm excited to to go along on this journey with all of you let's get into it therapy is right I decided to pick up brutal Obsession first I don't know what compelled me to pick up the 600 page book first but I was just feeling like I needed something different and this book is certainly that it is quite different so this book wow where to even begin don't pick it up if you have triggers perhaps or maybe look up the triggers I I I am at a loss for words kind of about the themes in this book I don't have any particular triggers I kind of go off of like a case-by-case basis when I pick up a book as to what I'm comfortable or not comfortable with in a given moment or just like I don't know how things are presented and in this book it is unhinged as but I am somehow not hating the way that it's being presented to me so okay this book's better two main characters Violet and Grayson at the beginning of the book Grayson is driving a sports car way too fast with another person in the passenger seat it's a woman he is expecting her to perform you know a sex act on him at some point the way that he speaks and the way that he delivers his I don't want to say lines but just the narration is it's giving sociopath frankly it is scary to listen to this man speak he rounds a corner and I guess doesn't see oncoming vehicle and ends up crashing into this vehicle but since he doesn't want to ruin his own life he decides to move his passenger into the driver's seat and flee the scene even though he knows that the other vehicle and the passenger is in distress and injured he just leaves he gets his comeuppance when the police show up his door like I don't know 20 minutes later because they're like yo yeah he definitely did this and through a series of events he ends up in a situation where he is kicked out of school I think his dad's a senator and like is facing some consequences based on Grayson's actions now he's at a new school and playing hockey so like did he really get punished very hard no he did not who should be in attendance at that University but the woman that he crashed into who is now unable to dance because she has a leg injury like any sane individual Grayson is just so sad about what happened and so remorseful that he decides he's going to become friends with Violet just kidding of course he's not guess he's mad for some reason at violent for the things that have transpired he's I guess mostly upset because I think his dad like faced some career consequences we're not sure what those are yet because of the car accident and so he's angry and he's gonna take it out on Violet and he already has multiple times in this first 20 and it is brutal he does have a brutal obsession with her the title is very apt for this book he is a nut job he says multiple times that he just can't stay away from her he's he says I'm not attracted to her and I don't have feelings for her but I want to destroy her and I it's a lot to handle is it compelling certainly is it a book that I'm going to continue reading yes is it a book that I'll probably finish also yes and I don't know what that says about me the writing of this book I think is pretty good I think I would like to see a little bit more from both characters in terms of like their motivations and what they want out of life I mean I guess I understand Violet not really knowing what she wants given that like her life dream of being like a professional ballerina and Dancer has just been taken from her I want a little bit more there besides just the relationship between Grayson and violet I just feel like I'm sensitive to that because I recently just dnf'd a book for that particular reason for you know it not having characters with like real life issues and motivations and it's okay me wrong I mean there's real life issues here but um the motivations are just really not adding up to me and maybe they don't have to maybe he is just psychotic and I mean this this could not have been I think more solidly pitched so Grace your graphic really worked um maybe I do need therapy all right so I finished brutal Obsession last night and it was really something in terms of like Instagram recommendations and what this book was like advertised as I think Grace did a really good job at representing the kind of person that should read this book or like might enjoy this book and um you know I already go to therapy but I do think that if you sincerely like this book and it is romantic you might need therapy I don't know not to psychologize here but this book I don't even know where to begin and it's like I don't want to necessarily spoil it because I enjoyed it enough don't worry I think if you are a certain kind of reader who doesn't really have triggers like maybe you might enjoy this it certainly kept me entertained and I don't want to say it was a palette cleanser but I think this could be a slump breaker despite the length of it just because of how different it is I feel like I have not read a dark romance in a while and I don't think I've ever really read a dark Sports romance so basically this story just kind of continues with our KIRO Grayson shall we say pursuing our heroine ruthlessly like he is very into her and he pursues her despite his ideas that like maybe she's not right for him or that like I don't know she's like trying to ruin his life I don't know that's basically how the book carries on and there is like a switch I would say at like the 75 Mark where the hero it turns from like Obsession and trying to like ruin her life to actually like wanting her just for himself now I'm not saying it's like a true really romantic story and he's like making amends and is like apologizing for the things that he's done to her it's more like our heroine also has some perhaps psychotic Tendencies shows him that and he's like wow okay we really should be together forever she's like you know what I think you're right so like I guess they come to that agreement and he does definitely do less unhinged stuff as the book goes on he like protects the heroine which I kind of liked the romance grew in that way and also that like wasn't a dramatic he changed overnight sort of thing it was like it's slowly over time he sort of like got there the reason this book is never going to like get five stars is because it is so unhinged right like I don't think I could in good conscience say that this book is like so romantic and like something that everybody would love I don't think it has like the Nuance of something like a Pam Godwin dark romance where she really like dives into the morality and like makes you think like this definitely like the characters are just up right and like there isn't a ton of depth there there's enough depth to keep me interested but no beyond that the reason I couldn't give this book like higher than I would say like I don't know what I'm gonna read this book I don't know if I will read this book there are too many conflicts in this book there are I believe four conflicts we've got the conflict between our hero and heroine we have of our heroine and her ex-boyfriend we have our heroine and a stalker who she has not identified and then we also have our heroine in conflict with the hero's father actually there's a fifth one and it's also the conflict between the heroine and her mom like there's just too much going on for this to be a cohesive storyline and I think part of the problem is it is 500 pages I think had this a bit narrowed down to maybe two or three conflicts it would have been fine and here's the thing like books need subplots we do need like layers but I feel like these were all pretty much third act conflicts and it got a little too confusing and or like or really that many people obsessed with this woman like I just don't really get it I don't know y'all this was like a really tough one for me because I I frankly had a really good time with this book I think it's because I knew what to expect going in because of how this would advertised so Grace congrats on on a good good selection maybe I don't even know if I'd call it a good selection but you advertise this book well I think you know if people are looking for a certain kind of book they can find it in your post so awesome graphic so I've been cleaning up my house about to throw my sheets in the wash because you know breakfast in bed can get messy I did um unfortunately spill tea all over myself today so I'm 50 in to fractured sky and tell me why I was trying to think of the character names for these characters and my first my first thought was like Romulus and salami it's Shiloh and Ramsey okay this book starts out and we find out that Shiloh is kidnapped by a guy who has some mental issues I think is what we find out like kidnapped her and he tortured her for a little bit I don't know how long she was kidnapped but one of his children ended up getting help for Philo which is really awesome and um you know flash forward to the future and her family is just like they're not shitty people but they definitely don't treat her like the adult that she is and she she feels very stifled right she doesn't like to be touched but also she just feels very like overwhelmed by the amount of pressure that's on her to like be a certain way she's not having it right and she has been escaping basically the family ranch or Farm or whatever to go and hang out next door at this guy's like horse rehab Ranch eventually she decides she's gonna like go live with him I mean she like talks to him about it and like they Strike Up kind of a tentative friendship and she's gonna go work for him and live at his like horse rehab Ranch things get complicated though when we find out that someone is still after Shiloh even though I mean they kidnapped her initially is recently deceased he was in prison and now he's deceased someone is sending her like threatening messages and she is scared also she's like been assaulted uh recently like she got punched in public and then I guess like not kidnapped but like we're trying to find out what's happening to her and who could be after her which apparently is a running theme in a lot of Catherine Cowell's books which I'm coming to find I actually read um her most recent novel what is it Whispers of you I tried to read that I got 50 in and dnf'd it because I just was not viping with the lack of characterization and character motivations I think that's something that I'm finding in her books not as much in this one but just in general that she doesn't tend to write around her characters very much this book at least I'm getting more setting right like at least I'm kind of understanding you know the people around our characters and kind of what they're going through but I just feel like I personally like my characters to have more than just one dimension to them like I want them to not just have one struggle in their life but I want to know about their desires and what they're doing like what's their career what it what are their hopes and dreams Etc I want this to feel like a real person rather than just someone who's in a distressing situation that's why these books are a little bit challenging for me this one however I will say does feel a little bit better than Whispers of you like I dnf that one because I just like I just didn't care this one I think because it's not a second chance romance we are at least getting like on page character development and relationship development between salami and Romulus I literally can never remember their names Shiloh and Ramsey which is nice I don't know it's definitely a romantic suspense kind of Novel so if that's something you're looking for and or you like small town romances that have like a little bit more to them I guess plot wise like maybe this would be something that you'd really be into I honestly like prefer a quieter Romance I'm not saying that the plot of this book is bad but I would prefer it to be quieter and have more in the way of like character development relationship development swooniness I mean I am excited for these two to get together I'm not like it was is gross but I'm just not like 100 sold though I will say Ava's post and like advertising of this book or like pitch I guess to um other bookstagrammers or people like looking for books was definitely good like she said this is like a recluse small town romance and I mean she was totally right so I I don't think this is like bad by any means but I just don't know that like this author is totally for me and like I said I just dnf'd Whispers of you like a couple of days ago so I'm getting like a crash course in her in her rating so it is what it is I am gonna finish this book because again it's like good enough for me to finish and been an enjoyable listening experience while I clean my house I'm gonna go ahead and finish it up and I will let you know what my official rating is I am gonna read these books um that last one though no words this is shaping of to be one of the most interesting Vlogs I have ever filmed also can you see Pepper's little head right here um okay I am a complex individual with complex thoughts and feelings how do I even describe how I felt about fractured sky without sounding insane for enjoying the last book more Okay the reason this book was is a Miss for me personally is because of how trauma is handled right here's the deal I don't need every book to be sunshine and Roses or anything like that I'm not even saying that I don't want trauma in my books because that's not necessarily true however find it sort of hard to sympathize with a book when we have a character who comes in traumatized right our heroine was kidnapped at the beginning of the book and she thinks she is safe because you know the guy is in prison and the guy is deceased right she is being followed and stalked and we're wondering if she's going to be you know kidnapped again or if something bad is going to happen to her and that alone should have like been a red flag for me but as the book continues things grow more and more unhinged and apparently that's par for the course of this author like that is just kind of how she does things she really likes a damsel and distress sort of situation and she likes I guess uh kidnapping plot lines and romantic suspense plot lines and I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily but I don't see how it really benefits our character's growth to re-traumatize her to me it just seems needlessly cruel to put your character to through that and also it's completely unbelievable like that this sort of situation would happen I mean I say that like I'm sure things like this have happened in real life but it's just not something I want to read about in a romantic context and maybe that's just me and maybe I just am not cut out for romantic suspense novels again it's like how how can I say that and yet also enjoyed brutal Obsession I think the thing there was that heroine was very much in control of her own destiny in that story in some ways like maybe not at the beginning of the story but as the story carried on she was in control and she had a say in her Destiny right there was sort of a damsel in distress situation in that one too but I don't know that one was supposed to be maybe a little silly this one I think they did have so much going for it because we do have in my opinion a fairly well developed romance I liked seeing Ramsay and Shiloh get together I liked their vulnerabilities with each other like that was all working but I just feel like the ending really made this book not one that I personally enjoy I just yeah I think I really just don't like romantic suspense very much so that's definitely a me thing and as I was reading this book I was definitely thinking to myself totally see how people like this it's a small town Romance it's got Vibes where you can tell I mean this is like the fifth book final book in a series that no you were you're growing to love the characters and you know the family members as the series goes on and stuff like I totally understand why people like this book but um it's just not for me I really I'm very particular about how women are treated in books and it doesn't always make sense right like some of y'all are going to read brutal Obsession or um I mean even for my description of it are probably like dude what the um how can you like that and not like this book but I'm weird I don't know I don't know what to say I it just is what it is that being said I give it three stars like this is not a terrible book by any means by any stretch of the imagination I just like couldn't rate it higher because my actual enjoyment of this book was very three star like there was so much good but there's also so much I didn't like and so I'm just gonna leave it at three star and if I'm thinking about my rating of the first book I think like on an objective level on like a would I recommend this to people and do I think this is like a Quality quality book no like it's a two star but when it comes to like my enjoyment of it and how much of a page Turner it was it was a four star you know what I mean like my actual enjoyment of the story was like a four star if I'm looking at it objectively but it's merits like maybe two so I don't know reading books is weird deciding how you feel about books is weird and I'm not gonna apologize for it right like we're all weird people and we all have contradictions in our lives right and maybe that's just what I'm dealing with today so in terms of like Instagram and the recommendation I think that Ava again like she advertised this so well I think that by looking at kind of like how this book was pitched I feel like it definitely delivered on those things and I'm not mad at it like I I didn't know that I didn't necessarily like romantic suspense until I read this one and you know maybe maybe maybe there's like more nuanced there maybe I do like some romantic suspense and and not others but you know I found something new out about myself today and I'm like actually not mad about it all right besties um actually I'm gonna dnf a book okay first of all I'm tired so that that could definitely be influencing my need to dnf this book but I think really for me I'm not feeling drunk these characters and dual POV third person is a choice for a romance novel and it's not a choice that I necessarily love because it does not allow you to get as close to the characters as you need to be let me see if I can like find a little tidbit from this book that would like kind of get you to understand or like feel what I'm feeling when I'm reading this book okay let me pull her open I got 26 in before I decided not to not finish this after a careful glance at Alabama who sits with sagged shoulders Griff exits the room to fill a glass of water in the small bathroom Alabama he thinks it's the closest to Heaven he's gonna get his lips on hers that's not to say she ain't played the devil with that hot as hell body of hers but he returns to the bedroom he swears it kind it feels almost like I'm reading the script for a TV show or a movie and at first I was like kind of fine with that I was like okay it's reminding me of the show Nashville like I'm I'm intrigued I'm interested but the farther I was getting the more I was like we're not getting any deeper here and I think it's because of the way the book's told so this book's about Griff and Alabama Alabama got in trouble I guess probably in the last book because it's the second book in the series she got in trouble for kissing a guy who's married and she was doing it to like blackmail the married guy for her business manager or something she ends up getting caught and getting over and so now she's like back in her hometown and is no longer like a star on the rise she's like the number one hit single in Nashville right now but like everybody hates her so she's back in her small town of like is it Clover Texas or something like that I don't know and Griff used to be her high school sweetheart until they got a car accident together in high school and she was left alone like he is there for her recovery and then immediately leaves or something like that kind of reminded me of Whispers of you which I read recently anyway they have to team up because Griff's tour is kind of going poorly because he has been getting into like brawls and drinking too much and so they think that Alabama will be a mess to distract from his mess so she's gonna be the opener for his tour and it's gonna be a dive bar tour and yeah they're on a tour of us together it's sort of like a forced proximity situation and I will say to Tori's credit like I think that she advertised this book as exactly what it is let me pull up the graphic yeah it's just it says Force proximity Second Chance Rockstar romance and I mean that's exactly what this is like it's definitely not advertised incorrectly but I feel like I I needed like maybe a little bit more in terms of context to like pick this book up and feel confident about it I really just think it's the POV issue I think have this been told differently dual POV first person I would have enjoyed it and I also think some of the language usage could have been cooled down a little bit both of these characters are from small town in Texas outside of Austin I'm from Texas this I am from a big city I guess you could say I'm from Houston and I do know people with Southern Accents but they don't speak in the way that the characters in this book speak I also have family from East Texas with a really thick country accents and they don't speak like this so I I'm a little bit like I don't it's taking me out of the story too like having to kind of puzzle through some of like the language and dialect choices given that like I'm from Texas I don't know I don't know I'm just like I'm kind of whatever about this book I wanted to like it but it seems like very surface level so I'm just gonna go ahead and dnf it I feel fine about that I think maybe pick this up if you want something easy breezy it's a short book it's like under 300 pages and I think if you're just looking for a quick easy rock star romance this could do it for you but I think there's a lot of other like really good rock star romances out there Kristin Callahan's VIP series is really fun uh there's another series I think it's one of the books called like lick or I'm trying to remember is it Kylie Scott I don't know who the author of that series is that I'm thinking of but there are plenty of rock star romances out there that I think do it better than this so I'm confident in Diana saying I don't know what book I'm gonna pick up next though we have two left which is good because that's about the amount of time that I have left to read books about enough like brain space and brain capacity for two more books okay so this should be interesting we've got medicine man and another by Fiona Cole I think I'm gonna do another next it is a surprise pregnancy one Sam reads a little like her recommendation her real and he's crossed that one goes well because um I want to win I want like a five star read in this because I think to this point even if I haven't found a five-star read Instagram has been a fairly successful tool I didn't have to use any of my skips for any of these so you know I think I think there's like a potential there for a five-star read maybe Medicine Man by saffron I don't know I don't know hello from your favorite corpse and your favorite cat it is a Saturday morning and I am like 30-ish percent into another by Fiona Cole that is the name of the book that Sam recommended to us in that reel about surprise pregnancy books so it's a book you know it certainly is a book is it a book that I'm loving no but I'm also not hating it you know for a Trope that I don't usually enjoy it could be a lot worse I guess though I am like seeing a lot of similarities between this book and a lot of other surprise pregnancy novels that I've read in that the characters are really annoying but let me tell you a little bit about this book before I about the characters um this book's about Fiona and Ian not Fiona wow the author's name is Fiona this book about Ian and Karina and after a really rough breakup Karina is given a like certificate to get a gift certificate to a Boudoir date thing go to a Boudoir photography session you know demand shows up um who's also there for the session and you guys take like intimate pictures together it's like a first date or something like that yeah I did like a surprise date kind of thing right so there is like undeniable chemistry immediately between Ian and Karina they are very attracted to each other even though they're both really bossy and like don't listen to the other they have this instant attraction and after the shoot's over they have some like quick passionate sex and then they never see each other again six weeks later guess who's pregnant our girl Karina which is challenging because she doesn't know who this gentleman is she didn't get his number she doesn't know his last name and whenever she tried to contact the photographer after the shoot the photographer is nowhere to be found she like skip town so anyway uh Karina can't figure out who her baby daddy is which is challenging for her obviously because she didn't really uh you know expect this and or necessarily even know if she wanted kids six months later she comes back into contact with Ian and they strike up a sort of like friendship I think she's eight months pregnant at this point she's just trying to kind of figure out her life and also have this like new guy in it I guess this guy that she kind of likes but also is kind of annoyed by and he's also a bit of a Playboy and I liked the opening scene of this book I will say I really enjoyed the like steamy sort of like hook up at the beginning and I'm not a hookup girly so y'all know that was like kind of a big deal for me I thought okay this this is going somewhere but pretty quickly I was like a little bit on edge because the characters are a little bit irritating both Ian and Karina are just too strong-willed to be enjoyable characters and I'm not saying you can't have two strong-willed people in a relationship the way that these two fight and bicker is just like not fun to read about they're giving very immature Vibes and that pops up again when they start I don't say hooking up whenever like Ian comes back into Karina's life like after he finds out that he is the father of this child and like after he figures out oh like I'm gonna have to step up or whatever he does nice things for her like he's been getting her burgers that she's been craving and stuff like that but they can't seem to agree on very many things and they just definitely like bicker too much for like the nature of their relationship I don't know it's like shouldn't you be open-minded and like try to get to know this guy that you slept with and like have an attraction to and it also is going to be the father of your child maybe it's asking too much but it is kind of like not the most fun to read about because of the characters it is reading really quickly and I'm not mad at it and I'm trying to keep an open mind because I think like maybe if these two you know open up to each other and like share their vulnerabilities and stuff like maybe I will start to understand their characters better and like root for them in their relationship I mean I like the concept honestly of a secret baby because I think wow okay their secret baby in accidental pregnancy I don't mind accidental pregnancies secret babies are tougher for me in this case it's like she couldn't have really prevented what happened I guess like she didn't have this man's contact information she wasn't trying to like keep him from his child so like that's fine with me I don't like when it's a secret baby and you're like hiding it from the baby's father I think that's like up this is like accidental pregnancy more so and I like the concept of them because I think it's a really compelling way to bring two people together because it's a little bit more high stakes but that being said I just don't think I've read very many accidental pregnancies that I've been like totally about because I feel like often times the characters are so stubborn red and Elizabeth O'Rourke book with a similar premise same with a Megan Quinn book and in both cases like the baby didn't I mean okay the baby's bringing these two together but they have to like bicker and be annoying and I'm like I get it to an extent but it seems a little tired like I want a different relationship Dynamic I will say this book has me intrigued in this series by this author though because we find out that the man that Karina was going to marry and I think she was dumped by is marrying a man and I'm assuming that like one of the previous books in the series is about him maybe discovering his sexuality or just like I don't know going after what he actually wants and marrying a man or like getting with a guy I don't know I'm very curious also at the beginning of the book we find out Karina was like she was engaged to someone and also two different men is what is what the beginning of the book says so I'm like was she engaged to her ex and like I don't know having some fun on the side was it like a threesome situation and like she was kicked out of it I want to know I want to know the T and I feel like I haven't gotten it it's entertaining I probably would not have picked this up on my own I've read one other Fiona Cole book I think it was a voyeur and I didn't love it but I am glad that I'm giving her a second chance for this video and also just like no I definitely wouldn't have picked up an accidental or secret pregnancy book on my own volition I mean I would say definitely but I usually don't pick up this sort of book on my own so I'm not mad that I'm picking it up before this video and I am again curious to see where things go alright friends I finished another by Fiona Cole I mean it was it was simply fine I think for an accidental pregnancy surprise pregnancy story this one was decent like I'd give it two and a half three stars I think my issue with this one is that the characters were unfortunately just pretty annoying and they never really got less annoying and I don't know why that's the case in like every accidental pregnancy book I've ever picked up but it seems like you know you have this conflict that's fabricated or whatever you know based on the pregnancy like oh no we don't know each other very well and now we're forced to work together because we have a kid together and like that can definitely create fun tension but I think it would be more fun if the character is like fighting feelings for each other rather than being genuinely annoyed with each other so like the characters in this book were genuinely annoyed with each other and I feel like they never really got past their like archetypes the heroine was supposed to be like the strong Boss type and we never really got any vulnerability from her I don't feel like I mean I guess we kind of did it at the very end of the book but not throughout the story and I never really got to know her or what she wanted and then Ian he's like this Playboy and that keeps coming up time and time again obviously that's the conflict of the book is our heroine thinking that like he's not a reliable guy and oh he just wants to other girls not actually be there for me and my daughter I just like wasn't that great of a conflict which is kind of a bummer because I did like moments of the book like I feel like the sexual tension was certainly there and this money scenes were definitely hot so if that's what you're looking for you'll definitely find it in this book but I just like want something a little bit deeper but that's just me you know that's just who I am and who he is is really comfy I guess but I am ready to finish this Vlog off and and read this last book all right so I just finished my dinner and the intro to this video I I am really bad at filming intros uh before the video actually starts but I have gotten about 25 ish percent into a little book that I like to call medicine man um also that's just like the name of the book right um 25 into medicine man I saffron a cat and I just like needed to update you and like let you know how I'm feeling uh this is good this is actually like a solid book that I am enjoying I don't want to say I'm surprised because I've enjoyed a saffron a Kent book in the past but it was also unhinged and I read it like in 2018 like it has been very very long since I have picked up more works by this author and this one's impressing me so this book's about a main character Willow and she is in some sort of like inpatient psychiatric treatment because she had an attempt if you know what I'm saying she claims that this was a one-off mistake that she was inebriated and that she doesn't actually have the desire to like unalive herself and as a result of her like not actually wanting to do the thing that she's being like accused of almost of doing she is not uh cooperating shall we say with the powers that be she's in not like a an inpatient Hospital thing is an outpatient maybe it's outpatient I don't know she's like at a psychiatric like home for a little while for like 30 days and she's supposed to be working through her issues and yet she's just like really not she's not participating shall we say things change when she has someone new come into her life the doctor that normally um prescribes her medicine the psychiatrist gets sick and the new guy Simon is Young and he's handsome and he might be getting through to Willow I'm enjoying this book for a few different reasons I think the biggest one is that this one compared to pretty much all the other books that I've read for this video feels very stand out in terms of characterization and I don't want to say pacing but pacing yeah Willow's character is one that I am instantly intrigued by I don't know a ton about her past I don't know a ton about her interests but at the beginning of the book we learn more about her family and how she's kind of the odd one out we learn about how she doesn't like live up to expectations necessarily and how that could like weigh on her we get to really be present in her mind and really understand everything that's going on and this is like a huge contrast to that like country Starbucks or whatever that I dnf'd that one you know it was kind of a weird third person situation so I wasn't able to actually feel for the characters and in this one I instantly care about Willow and I care about kind know what she's going through and like the the fact that she is in this situation she doesn't want to be in I like that the pace of the romance is moving incredibly slowly it is a 500 page book that I was lucky enough to find an audiobook copy of on hoopla so I'm listening to the audiobook I will say like the female narrator kind of sounds like a 45 year old woman which nothing gets 45 year old woman but the woman in this book's 18. so don't recommend audiobook but it's been nice to listen to because I don't have to like use my eyes the pacing is good in this book I am appreciating that the romance is moving slowly I don't really know much about Simon but I want to know more about Simon there's just more there than in a lot of the other books that I have read and that's not like a knock to other books sometimes I don't need things to be in depth and I just like want a fun time but this is I think scratching an itch and I went in hesitant because I was like I don't know if I like the idea of this like patient falling for her doctor since she's pretty much established she might be depressed but she's not ideating like I'm feeling more sympathetic towards this like potential age Gap relationship so I don't know we'll see where things lead I am tentatively like again excited and interested in this book and I think the writing is like worlds uh above so on the other side I've read that being said if you are triggered At All by the mention of Harry Potter don't pick up this book it is mentioned so much our main character is like obsessed with it and she's constantly bringing it up and the majority of the clothes that she has brought to this inpatient outpatient whatever facility um are like Harry Potter theme so it's brought up frequently so if that's gotta bother you don't pick this up it's bothering me personally I'm gonna keep reading I don't know if I'll update you at 50 or when I'm done but living laughing loving it's only 6 30. I only have three hours of this book left you know what shout out to me for being on top of my and also just having a fun time with Instagram Instagram has been Instagram has been a good a good recommender of books if you hear any suspicious noises I can assure you it's my cat and not me um 50 into Medicine Man and I thought I would update you since it's such a long book so many thoughts and feelings this book is actually making me low-key kind of emotional this book is really heavy on the mental health representation and I think that that's pretty clear a lot of what I said previously doesn't necessarily stand in terms of our heroine and her ideations and stuff so like that's triggering definitely don't pick this book up there's just a lot of talk about mental health like that's what this book is all about it's all about our heroine and her depression and her trying to find sustained happiness when that's not something that she's ever really felt and if you're someone who suffers from depression like really do think this could be triggering I also think it could be kind of maybe cathartic or relatable and for me it is the laterally release feeling cathartic and relatable and I'm really like impressed with that I wasn't really expecting that from I don't want to say he wasn't expecting that from a romance as if I don't expect romances to be high quality and amazing and like do all the things but I just think like lately I haven't really been picking up romances that like do it all and this one is really impressing me I don't know that I love the Romantic relationship like I don't think it's very well developed um Grand I'm only 50 in and it's not like it's really going anywhere but our heroine has definitely made moves on the hero and like tried to kiss him I mean he definitely reciprocated it too but don't know enough about him and our heroine actually points that out she's like I just don't know much about him but I want to know more about him and I want him to help me like I want to be happy and um yeah I don't know I feel like I should have profound things to say but I think sometimes it is profound enough to just say this book is making me think and it is in my opinion well written again besides the Harry Potter like I really could have done without that but um other than that you know pretty good all right my friends we've reached the end of the road I am shrinking I guess my tripod always likes to sink down she's a little unstable it's like the characters in this book um okay uh I don't know I think I'm gonna give this book four stars and it's not because I think the romance was fantastic it's because I liked the mental health representation there are very few books that have mental health representation in them that I feel seen by I feel like there are tons of books out there that touch on Mental Health but they're just not you know books that I connect with and this book I did connect with so to me that makes this book kind of Stand Out do I think that romance is amazing not so much like the smut is definitely there it feels very taboo saffronic definitely like goes there and she she has gone there in both of the books that I've read by her but I don't know that I like love the dynamic there right like I think we can all probably acknowledge that like a doctor-patient relationship is not appropriate especially when the patient is like fresh out of high school and you know sometimes I am willing to like Overlook things make exceptions whatever but in this book it just it felt kind of icky to me so like I didn't love the romance in this one so it feels weird to write this one highly even though I didn't love their romance component of it but like I do think this one was pitched well I went back and like read the caption of the post that this one was like pitched to me and it said this one had really good mental health representation it's taboo and I mean like it definitely delivered on all of that I agree with pretty much everything that was said in the caption um there weren't any like words on the graphics or anything it was just a picture of this book so I don't feel like misled or anything but you know this has been a fun experiment overall I really enjoyed getting to look at Instagram and actually take book recommendations from Instagram for once because like I said I just like never do that and I feel like even though I had varying levels of success I feel like I know what to look for now when it comes to book recommendations I definitely need someone to really outline um in their caption what a book is about and like what they like about it or I need a really good graphic to kind of let me in on what the tropes are or like what the extra things are I feel like the posts that I saw that were a little bit more I don't want to say like attention grabby but I think the posts that tended to be more like here's a pretty picture of a book or this one had across this particular Trope like if it's just like a split second thing like I don't think that works for me as well I like in-depth stuff which you know what that makes sense right like I'm a I'm a YouTube ass like I want people to talk in depth about books so I can really decide whether or not I want to take a chance on it but um I had fun I had fun I definitely think that bookstagram is legit as I think you can find great recommendations there definitely it kind of makes me want to read more books from uh bookstagram recommendation so thanks so much for watching this video I had a really fun time filming it in the comments down below let me know if you have read any of these books and let me know who your favorite bookstagrammers are I would love to know thanks so much for watching this video I love you all so much and until next time thank youhello welcome back to my channel in today's video I'm going to be letting Instagram choose my TBR I know this is not exactly a revolutionary idea I know other people have done videos like this before but I have not only never let Instagram pick my TBR for a video I've just never gotten book recommendations from Instagram before at least to my knowledge which is a damn shame because I follow so many people on bookstagram who have these beautiful curated posts that follow a certain Trope or it's just a really beautiful picture of a book that I'm like tempted to read just because the picture is really pretty and yet I never actually follow through and read the books that I see so I'm gonna remedy that in today's video I'm gonna hop on Instagram I'm going to just let it guide my reading I will let future me run you through the details and the rules but I'm hoping to just hop on Instagram in the first five books that I see that I haven't read that are Romance I'm gonna be reading them I'm gonna have some fun this week all right before we get screen recording I have three rules number one only romances are what I'm gonna be selecting from the books that I see on Instagram I only want to read romance most of the time I'm not gonna like pick up 30 book in a series you know fantasy or something like that not happening rule number two is if it's a book that I have read already I'm not going to reread it and rule number three if there is a book that I really don't want to read I have one Skip and one skip only so I need to use that skip very wisely as we work our way through Instagram all right let's go ahead and get screen recording fingers crossed I find some really juicy good stuff to read that I wouldn't have picked up otherwise there's going to be a lot of stuff to scroll through that just is not books all right first up we have Find You Again by Ava Hunter which is a rockstar romance forced proximity Second Chance book two it sounds really good just from the the brief like synopsis and or this graphic I'm gonna add this one to the list this is going to be I'm not using a skip closed door romance graphic this is really cute I don't know why it like shows you the second one first uh let's keep going how about the spice meter I love there's options on this graphic should we do the therapy one probably because I think I've read almost all of these other ones a little spice yeah let's go full therapy I have read there are no Saints I haven't had much luck with Rina Kent so I'm looking at the ritual and brutal Obsession let's go with brutal Obsession that'll be book number two I could pick more from this graphic but like I I feel like we need some variety here okay so book number two brutal Obsession by S Mastery thank you Grace this one interesting Medicine Man by saffron Aiken This is a book that I have considered reading in the past and just haven't picked up I've read one other saffron akent book before I think it's called unrequited or something like that it's a it's a student teacher thing giving a major Lana Del Rey Vibes I liked it so I think medicine man is going to be book number three for us alone with you in The Ether no when someone says they don't like surprise pregnancy you know I wasn't gonna go off of a real but I think I mean it is a book that I'm seeing and it is it is romance I don't know I can't tell what these are because it's mirrored I can have to do some like research on on this book yeah uh whatever this Fiona Cole book is the surprise pregnancy one I guess is the one that I'm gonna read so that's book Number Four whoo surprise pregnancy wasn't expecting that oh okay and then the last one is going to be fractured Sky by Katherine Cowell's small town romance emotional age Gap rooting hero I hate everyone but you recluse suspense Romance I'm liking these selections I'm very much liking these selections also I really love Graphics like this so shout out to Ava for this graphic a bunch of romances that I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own so I am looking forward to seeing how this experiment goes I don't know what I'm gonna pick up first I'm excited to to go along on this journey with all of you let's get into it therapy is right I decided to pick up brutal Obsession first I don't know what compelled me to pick up the 600 page book first but I was just feeling like I needed something different and this book is certainly that it is quite different so this book wow where to even begin don't pick it up if you have triggers perhaps or maybe look up the triggers I I I am at a loss for words kind of about the themes in this book I don't have any particular triggers I kind of go off of like a case-by-case basis when I pick up a book as to what I'm comfortable or not comfortable with in a given moment or just like I don't know how things are presented and in this book it is unhinged as but I am somehow not hating the way that it's being presented to me so okay this book's better two main characters Violet and Grayson at the beginning of the book Grayson is driving a sports car way too fast with another person in the passenger seat it's a woman he is expecting her to perform you know a sex act on him at some point the way that he speaks and the way that he delivers his I don't want to say lines but just the narration is it's giving sociopath frankly it is scary to listen to this man speak he rounds a corner and I guess doesn't see oncoming vehicle and ends up crashing into this vehicle but since he doesn't want to ruin his own life he decides to move his passenger into the driver's seat and flee the scene even though he knows that the other vehicle and the passenger is in distress and injured he just leaves he gets his comeuppance when the police show up his door like I don't know 20 minutes later because they're like yo yeah he definitely did this and through a series of events he ends up in a situation where he is kicked out of school I think his dad's a senator and like is facing some consequences based on Grayson's actions now he's at a new school and playing hockey so like did he really get punished very hard no he did not who should be in attendance at that University but the woman that he crashed into who is now unable to dance because she has a leg injury like any sane individual Grayson is just so sad about what happened and so remorseful that he decides he's going to become friends with Violet just kidding of course he's not guess he's mad for some reason at violent for the things that have transpired he's I guess mostly upset because I think his dad like faced some career consequences we're not sure what those are yet because of the car accident and so he's angry and he's gonna take it out on Violet and he already has multiple times in this first 20 and it is brutal he does have a brutal obsession with her the title is very apt for this book he is a nut job he says multiple times that he just can't stay away from her he's he says I'm not attracted to her and I don't have feelings for her but I want to destroy her and I it's a lot to handle is it compelling certainly is it a book that I'm going to continue reading yes is it a book that I'll probably finish also yes and I don't know what that says about me the writing of this book I think is pretty good I think I would like to see a little bit more from both characters in terms of like their motivations and what they want out of life I mean I guess I understand Violet not really knowing what she wants given that like her life dream of being like a professional ballerina and Dancer has just been taken from her I want a little bit more there besides just the relationship between Grayson and violet I just feel like I'm sensitive to that because I recently just dnf'd a book for that particular reason for you know it not having characters with like real life issues and motivations and it's okay me wrong I mean there's real life issues here but um the motivations are just really not adding up to me and maybe they don't have to maybe he is just psychotic and I mean this this could not have been I think more solidly pitched so Grace your graphic really worked um maybe I do need therapy all right so I finished brutal Obsession last night and it was really something in terms of like Instagram recommendations and what this book was like advertised as I think Grace did a really good job at representing the kind of person that should read this book or like might enjoy this book and um you know I already go to therapy but I do think that if you sincerely like this book and it is romantic you might need therapy I don't know not to psychologize here but this book I don't even know where to begin and it's like I don't want to necessarily spoil it because I enjoyed it enough don't worry I think if you are a certain kind of reader who doesn't really have triggers like maybe you might enjoy this it certainly kept me entertained and I don't want to say it was a palette cleanser but I think this could be a slump breaker despite the length of it just because of how different it is I feel like I have not read a dark romance in a while and I don't think I've ever really read a dark Sports romance so basically this story just kind of continues with our KIRO Grayson shall we say pursuing our heroine ruthlessly like he is very into her and he pursues her despite his ideas that like maybe she's not right for him or that like I don't know she's like trying to ruin his life I don't know that's basically how the book carries on and there is like a switch I would say at like the 75 Mark where the hero it turns from like Obsession and trying to like ruin her life to actually like wanting her just for himself now I'm not saying it's like a true really romantic story and he's like making amends and is like apologizing for the things that he's done to her it's more like our heroine also has some perhaps psychotic Tendencies shows him that and he's like wow okay we really should be together forever she's like you know what I think you're right so like I guess they come to that agreement and he does definitely do less unhinged stuff as the book goes on he like protects the heroine which I kind of liked the romance grew in that way and also that like wasn't a dramatic he changed overnight sort of thing it was like it's slowly over time he sort of like got there the reason this book is never going to like get five stars is because it is so unhinged right like I don't think I could in good conscience say that this book is like so romantic and like something that everybody would love I don't think it has like the Nuance of something like a Pam Godwin dark romance where she really like dives into the morality and like makes you think like this definitely like the characters are just up right and like there isn't a ton of depth there there's enough depth to keep me interested but no beyond that the reason I couldn't give this book like higher than I would say like I don't know what I'm gonna read this book I don't know if I will read this book there are too many conflicts in this book there are I believe four conflicts we've got the conflict between our hero and heroine we have of our heroine and her ex-boyfriend we have our heroine and a stalker who she has not identified and then we also have our heroine in conflict with the hero's father actually there's a fifth one and it's also the conflict between the heroine and her mom like there's just too much going on for this to be a cohesive storyline and I think part of the problem is it is 500 pages I think had this a bit narrowed down to maybe two or three conflicts it would have been fine and here's the thing like books need subplots we do need like layers but I feel like these were all pretty much third act conflicts and it got a little too confusing and or like or really that many people obsessed with this woman like I just don't really get it I don't know y'all this was like a really tough one for me because I I frankly had a really good time with this book I think it's because I knew what to expect going in because of how this would advertised so Grace congrats on on a good good selection maybe I don't even know if I'd call it a good selection but you advertise this book well I think you know if people are looking for a certain kind of book they can find it in your post so awesome graphic so I've been cleaning up my house about to throw my sheets in the wash because you know breakfast in bed can get messy I did um unfortunately spill tea all over myself today so I'm 50 in to fractured sky and tell me why I was trying to think of the character names for these characters and my first my first thought was like Romulus and salami it's Shiloh and Ramsey okay this book starts out and we find out that Shiloh is kidnapped by a guy who has some mental issues I think is what we find out like kidnapped her and he tortured her for a little bit I don't know how long she was kidnapped but one of his children ended up getting help for Philo which is really awesome and um you know flash forward to the future and her family is just like they're not shitty people but they definitely don't treat her like the adult that she is and she she feels very stifled right she doesn't like to be touched but also she just feels very like overwhelmed by the amount of pressure that's on her to like be a certain way she's not having it right and she has been escaping basically the family ranch or Farm or whatever to go and hang out next door at this guy's like horse rehab Ranch eventually she decides she's gonna like go live with him I mean she like talks to him about it and like they Strike Up kind of a tentative friendship and she's gonna go work for him and live at his like horse rehab Ranch things get complicated though when we find out that someone is still after Shiloh even though I mean they kidnapped her initially is recently deceased he was in prison and now he's deceased someone is sending her like threatening messages and she is scared also she's like been assaulted uh recently like she got punched in public and then I guess like not kidnapped but like we're trying to find out what's happening to her and who could be after her which apparently is a running theme in a lot of Catherine Cowell's books which I'm coming to find I actually read um her most recent novel what is it Whispers of you I tried to read that I got 50 in and dnf'd it because I just was not viping with the lack of characterization and character motivations I think that's something that I'm finding in her books not as much in this one but just in general that she doesn't tend to write around her characters very much this book at least I'm getting more setting right like at least I'm kind of understanding you know the people around our characters and kind of what they're going through but I just feel like I personally like my characters to have more than just one dimension to them like I want them to not just have one struggle in their life but I want to know about their desires and what they're doing like what's their career what it what are their hopes and dreams Etc I want this to feel like a real person rather than just someone who's in a distressing situation that's why these books are a little bit challenging for me this one however I will say does feel a little bit better than Whispers of you like I dnf that one because I just like I just didn't care this one I think because it's not a second chance romance we are at least getting like on page character development and relationship development between salami and Romulus I literally can never remember their names Shiloh and Ramsey which is nice I don't know it's definitely a romantic suspense kind of Novel so if that's something you're looking for and or you like small town romances that have like a little bit more to them I guess plot wise like maybe this would be something that you'd really be into I honestly like prefer a quieter Romance I'm not saying that the plot of this book is bad but I would prefer it to be quieter and have more in the way of like character development relationship development swooniness I mean I am excited for these two to get together I'm not like it was is gross but I'm just not like 100 sold though I will say Ava's post and like advertising of this book or like pitch I guess to um other bookstagrammers or people like looking for books was definitely good like she said this is like a recluse small town romance and I mean she was totally right so I I don't think this is like bad by any means but I just don't know that like this author is totally for me and like I said I just dnf'd Whispers of you like a couple of days ago so I'm getting like a crash course in her in her rating so it is what it is I am gonna finish this book because again it's like good enough for me to finish and been an enjoyable listening experience while I clean my house I'm gonna go ahead and finish it up and I will let you know what my official rating is I am gonna read these books um that last one though no words this is shaping of to be one of the most interesting Vlogs I have ever filmed also can you see Pepper's little head right here um okay I am a complex individual with complex thoughts and feelings how do I even describe how I felt about fractured sky without sounding insane for enjoying the last book more Okay the reason this book was is a Miss for me personally is because of how trauma is handled right here's the deal I don't need every book to be sunshine and Roses or anything like that I'm not even saying that I don't want trauma in my books because that's not necessarily true however find it sort of hard to sympathize with a book when we have a character who comes in traumatized right our heroine was kidnapped at the beginning of the book and she thinks she is safe because you know the guy is in prison and the guy is deceased right she is being followed and stalked and we're wondering if she's going to be you know kidnapped again or if something bad is going to happen to her and that alone should have like been a red flag for me but as the book continues things grow more and more unhinged and apparently that's par for the course of this author like that is just kind of how she does things she really likes a damsel and distress sort of situation and she likes I guess uh kidnapping plot lines and romantic suspense plot lines and I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily but I don't see how it really benefits our character's growth to re-traumatize her to me it just seems needlessly cruel to put your character to through that and also it's completely unbelievable like that this sort of situation would happen I mean I say that like I'm sure things like this have happened in real life but it's just not something I want to read about in a romantic context and maybe that's just me and maybe I just am not cut out for romantic suspense novels again it's like how how can I say that and yet also enjoyed brutal Obsession I think the thing there was that heroine was very much in control of her own destiny in that story in some ways like maybe not at the beginning of the story but as the story carried on she was in control and she had a say in her Destiny right there was sort of a damsel in distress situation in that one too but I don't know that one was supposed to be maybe a little silly this one I think they did have so much going for it because we do have in my opinion a fairly well developed romance I liked seeing Ramsay and Shiloh get together I liked their vulnerabilities with each other like that was all working but I just feel like the ending really made this book not one that I personally enjoy I just yeah I think I really just don't like romantic suspense very much so that's definitely a me thing and as I was reading this book I was definitely thinking to myself totally see how people like this it's a small town Romance it's got Vibes where you can tell I mean this is like the fifth book final book in a series that no you were you're growing to love the characters and you know the family members as the series goes on and stuff like I totally understand why people like this book but um it's just not for me I really I'm very particular about how women are treated in books and it doesn't always make sense right like some of y'all are going to read brutal Obsession or um I mean even for my description of it are probably like dude what the um how can you like that and not like this book but I'm weird I don't know I don't know what to say I it just is what it is that being said I give it three stars like this is not a terrible book by any means by any stretch of the imagination I just like couldn't rate it higher because my actual enjoyment of this book was very three star like there was so much good but there's also so much I didn't like and so I'm just gonna leave it at three star and if I'm thinking about my rating of the first book I think like on an objective level on like a would I recommend this to people and do I think this is like a Quality quality book no like it's a two star but when it comes to like my enjoyment of it and how much of a page Turner it was it was a four star you know what I mean like my actual enjoyment of the story was like a four star if I'm looking at it objectively but it's merits like maybe two so I don't know reading books is weird deciding how you feel about books is weird and I'm not gonna apologize for it right like we're all weird people and we all have contradictions in our lives right and maybe that's just what I'm dealing with today so in terms of like Instagram and the recommendation I think that Ava again like she advertised this so well I think that by looking at kind of like how this book was pitched I feel like it definitely delivered on those things and I'm not mad at it like I I didn't know that I didn't necessarily like romantic suspense until I read this one and you know maybe maybe maybe there's like more nuanced there maybe I do like some romantic suspense and and not others but you know I found something new out about myself today and I'm like actually not mad about it all right besties um actually I'm gonna dnf a book okay first of all I'm tired so that that could definitely be influencing my need to dnf this book but I think really for me I'm not feeling drunk these characters and dual POV third person is a choice for a romance novel and it's not a choice that I necessarily love because it does not allow you to get as close to the characters as you need to be let me see if I can like find a little tidbit from this book that would like kind of get you to understand or like feel what I'm feeling when I'm reading this book okay let me pull her open I got 26 in before I decided not to not finish this after a careful glance at Alabama who sits with sagged shoulders Griff exits the room to fill a glass of water in the small bathroom Alabama he thinks it's the closest to Heaven he's gonna get his lips on hers that's not to say she ain't played the devil with that hot as hell body of hers but he returns to the bedroom he swears it kind it feels almost like I'm reading the script for a TV show or a movie and at first I was like kind of fine with that I was like okay it's reminding me of the show Nashville like I'm I'm intrigued I'm interested but the farther I was getting the more I was like we're not getting any deeper here and I think it's because of the way the book's told so this book's about Griff and Alabama Alabama got in trouble I guess probably in the last book because it's the second book in the series she got in trouble for kissing a guy who's married and she was doing it to like blackmail the married guy for her business manager or something she ends up getting caught and getting over and so now she's like back in her hometown and is no longer like a star on the rise she's like the number one hit single in Nashville right now but like everybody hates her so she's back in her small town of like is it Clover Texas or something like that I don't know and Griff used to be her high school sweetheart until they got a car accident together in high school and she was left alone like he is there for her recovery and then immediately leaves or something like that kind of reminded me of Whispers of you which I read recently anyway they have to team up because Griff's tour is kind of going poorly because he has been getting into like brawls and drinking too much and so they think that Alabama will be a mess to distract from his mess so she's gonna be the opener for his tour and it's gonna be a dive bar tour and yeah they're on a tour of us together it's sort of like a forced proximity situation and I will say to Tori's credit like I think that she advertised this book as exactly what it is let me pull up the graphic yeah it's just it says Force proximity Second Chance Rockstar romance and I mean that's exactly what this is like it's definitely not advertised incorrectly but I feel like I I needed like maybe a little bit more in terms of context to like pick this book up and feel confident about it I really just think it's the POV issue I think have this been told differently dual POV first person I would have enjoyed it and I also think some of the language usage could have been cooled down a little bit both of these characters are from small town in Texas outside of Austin I'm from Texas this I am from a big city I guess you could say I'm from Houston and I do know people with Southern Accents but they don't speak in the way that the characters in this book speak I also have family from East Texas with a really thick country accents and they don't speak like this so I I'm a little bit like I don't it's taking me out of the story too like having to kind of puzzle through some of like the language and dialect choices given that like I'm from Texas I don't know I don't know I'm just like I'm kind of whatever about this book I wanted to like it but it seems like very surface level so I'm just gonna go ahead and dnf it I feel fine about that I think maybe pick this up if you want something easy breezy it's a short book it's like under 300 pages and I think if you're just looking for a quick easy rock star romance this could do it for you but I think there's a lot of other like really good rock star romances out there Kristin Callahan's VIP series is really fun uh there's another series I think it's one of the books called like lick or I'm trying to remember is it Kylie Scott I don't know who the author of that series is that I'm thinking of but there are plenty of rock star romances out there that I think do it better than this so I'm confident in Diana saying I don't know what book I'm gonna pick up next though we have two left which is good because that's about the amount of time that I have left to read books about enough like brain space and brain capacity for two more books okay so this should be interesting we've got medicine man and another by Fiona Cole I think I'm gonna do another next it is a surprise pregnancy one Sam reads a little like her recommendation her real and he's crossed that one goes well because um I want to win I want like a five star read in this because I think to this point even if I haven't found a five-star read Instagram has been a fairly successful tool I didn't have to use any of my skips for any of these so you know I think I think there's like a potential there for a five-star read maybe Medicine Man by saffron I don't know I don't know hello from your favorite corpse and your favorite cat it is a Saturday morning and I am like 30-ish percent into another by Fiona Cole that is the name of the book that Sam recommended to us in that reel about surprise pregnancy books so it's a book you know it certainly is a book is it a book that I'm loving no but I'm also not hating it you know for a Trope that I don't usually enjoy it could be a lot worse I guess though I am like seeing a lot of similarities between this book and a lot of other surprise pregnancy novels that I've read in that the characters are really annoying but let me tell you a little bit about this book before I about the characters um this book's about Fiona and Ian not Fiona wow the author's name is Fiona this book about Ian and Karina and after a really rough breakup Karina is given a like certificate to get a gift certificate to a Boudoir date thing go to a Boudoir photography session you know demand shows up um who's also there for the session and you guys take like intimate pictures together it's like a first date or something like that yeah I did like a surprise date kind of thing right so there is like undeniable chemistry immediately between Ian and Karina they are very attracted to each other even though they're both really bossy and like don't listen to the other they have this instant attraction and after the shoot's over they have some like quick passionate sex and then they never see each other again six weeks later guess who's pregnant our girl Karina which is challenging because she doesn't know who this gentleman is she didn't get his number she doesn't know his last name and whenever she tried to contact the photographer after the shoot the photographer is nowhere to be found she like skip town so anyway uh Karina can't figure out who her baby daddy is which is challenging for her obviously because she didn't really uh you know expect this and or necessarily even know if she wanted kids six months later she comes back into contact with Ian and they strike up a sort of like friendship I think she's eight months pregnant at this point she's just trying to kind of figure out her life and also have this like new guy in it I guess this guy that she kind of likes but also is kind of annoyed by and he's also a bit of a Playboy and I liked the opening scene of this book I will say I really enjoyed the like steamy sort of like hook up at the beginning and I'm not a hookup girly so y'all know that was like kind of a big deal for me I thought okay this this is going somewhere but pretty quickly I was like a little bit on edge because the characters are a little bit irritating both Ian and Karina are just too strong-willed to be enjoyable characters and I'm not saying you can't have two strong-willed people in a relationship the way that these two fight and bicker is just like not fun to read about they're giving very immature Vibes and that pops up again when they start I don't say hooking up whenever like Ian comes back into Karina's life like after he finds out that he is the father of this child and like after he figures out oh like I'm gonna have to step up or whatever he does nice things for her like he's been getting her burgers that she's been craving and stuff like that but they can't seem to agree on very many things and they just definitely like bicker too much for like the nature of their relationship I don't know it's like shouldn't you be open-minded and like try to get to know this guy that you slept with and like have an attraction to and it also is going to be the father of your child maybe it's asking too much but it is kind of like not the most fun to read about because of the characters it is reading really quickly and I'm not mad at it and I'm trying to keep an open mind because I think like maybe if these two you know open up to each other and like share their vulnerabilities and stuff like maybe I will start to understand their characters better and like root for them in their relationship I mean I like the concept honestly of a secret baby because I think wow okay their secret baby in accidental pregnancy I don't mind accidental pregnancies secret babies are tougher for me in this case it's like she couldn't have really prevented what happened I guess like she didn't have this man's contact information she wasn't trying to like keep him from his child so like that's fine with me I don't like when it's a secret baby and you're like hiding it from the baby's father I think that's like up this is like accidental pregnancy more so and I like the concept of them because I think it's a really compelling way to bring two people together because it's a little bit more high stakes but that being said I just don't think I've read very many accidental pregnancies that I've been like totally about because I feel like often times the characters are so stubborn red and Elizabeth O'Rourke book with a similar premise same with a Megan Quinn book and in both cases like the baby didn't I mean okay the baby's bringing these two together but they have to like bicker and be annoying and I'm like I get it to an extent but it seems a little tired like I want a different relationship Dynamic I will say this book has me intrigued in this series by this author though because we find out that the man that Karina was going to marry and I think she was dumped by is marrying a man and I'm assuming that like one of the previous books in the series is about him maybe discovering his sexuality or just like I don't know going after what he actually wants and marrying a man or like getting with a guy I don't know I'm very curious also at the beginning of the book we find out Karina was like she was engaged to someone and also two different men is what is what the beginning of the book says so I'm like was she engaged to her ex and like I don't know having some fun on the side was it like a threesome situation and like she was kicked out of it I want to know I want to know the T and I feel like I haven't gotten it it's entertaining I probably would not have picked this up on my own I've read one other Fiona Cole book I think it was a voyeur and I didn't love it but I am glad that I'm giving her a second chance for this video and also just like no I definitely wouldn't have picked up an accidental or secret pregnancy book on my own volition I mean I would say definitely but I usually don't pick up this sort of book on my own so I'm not mad that I'm picking it up before this video and I am again curious to see where things go alright friends I finished another by Fiona Cole I mean it was it was simply fine I think for an accidental pregnancy surprise pregnancy story this one was decent like I'd give it two and a half three stars I think my issue with this one is that the characters were unfortunately just pretty annoying and they never really got less annoying and I don't know why that's the case in like every accidental pregnancy book I've ever picked up but it seems like you know you have this conflict that's fabricated or whatever you know based on the pregnancy like oh no we don't know each other very well and now we're forced to work together because we have a kid together and like that can definitely create fun tension but I think it would be more fun if the character is like fighting feelings for each other rather than being genuinely annoyed with each other so like the characters in this book were genuinely annoyed with each other and I feel like they never really got past their like archetypes the heroine was supposed to be like the strong Boss type and we never really got any vulnerability from her I don't feel like I mean I guess we kind of did it at the very end of the book but not throughout the story and I never really got to know her or what she wanted and then Ian he's like this Playboy and that keeps coming up time and time again obviously that's the conflict of the book is our heroine thinking that like he's not a reliable guy and oh he just wants to other girls not actually be there for me and my daughter I just like wasn't that great of a conflict which is kind of a bummer because I did like moments of the book like I feel like the sexual tension was certainly there and this money scenes were definitely hot so if that's what you're looking for you'll definitely find it in this book but I just like want something a little bit deeper but that's just me you know that's just who I am and who he is is really comfy I guess but I am ready to finish this Vlog off and and read this last book all right so I just finished my dinner and the intro to this video I I am really bad at filming intros uh before the video actually starts but I have gotten about 25 ish percent into a little book that I like to call medicine man um also that's just like the name of the book right um 25 into medicine man I saffron a cat and I just like needed to update you and like let you know how I'm feeling uh this is good this is actually like a solid book that I am enjoying I don't want to say I'm surprised because I've enjoyed a saffron a Kent book in the past but it was also unhinged and I read it like in 2018 like it has been very very long since I have picked up more works by this author and this one's impressing me so this book's about a main character Willow and she is in some sort of like inpatient psychiatric treatment because she had an attempt if you know what I'm saying she claims that this was a one-off mistake that she was inebriated and that she doesn't actually have the desire to like unalive herself and as a result of her like not actually wanting to do the thing that she's being like accused of almost of doing she is not uh cooperating shall we say with the powers that be she's in not like a an inpatient Hospital thing is an outpatient maybe it's outpatient I don't know she's like at a psychiatric like home for a little while for like 30 days and she's supposed to be working through her issues and yet she's just like really not she's not participating shall we say things change when she has someone new come into her life the doctor that normally um prescribes her medicine the psychiatrist gets sick and the new guy Simon is Young and he's handsome and he might be getting through to Willow I'm enjoying this book for a few different reasons I think the biggest one is that this one compared to pretty much all the other books that I've read for this video feels very stand out in terms of characterization and I don't want to say pacing but pacing yeah Willow's character is one that I am instantly intrigued by I don't know a ton about her past I don't know a ton about her interests but at the beginning of the book we learn more about her family and how she's kind of the odd one out we learn about how she doesn't like live up to expectations necessarily and how that could like weigh on her we get to really be present in her mind and really understand everything that's going on and this is like a huge contrast to that like country Starbucks or whatever that I dnf'd that one you know it was kind of a weird third person situation so I wasn't able to actually feel for the characters and in this one I instantly care about Willow and I care about kind know what she's going through and like the the fact that she is in this situation she doesn't want to be in I like that the pace of the romance is moving incredibly slowly it is a 500 page book that I was lucky enough to find an audiobook copy of on hoopla so I'm listening to the audiobook I will say like the female narrator kind of sounds like a 45 year old woman which nothing gets 45 year old woman but the woman in this book's 18. so don't recommend audiobook but it's been nice to listen to because I don't have to like use my eyes the pacing is good in this book I am appreciating that the romance is moving slowly I don't really know much about Simon but I want to know more about Simon there's just more there than in a lot of the other books that I have read and that's not like a knock to other books sometimes I don't need things to be in depth and I just like want a fun time but this is I think scratching an itch and I went in hesitant because I was like I don't know if I like the idea of this like patient falling for her doctor since she's pretty much established she might be depressed but she's not ideating like I'm feeling more sympathetic towards this like potential age Gap relationship so I don't know we'll see where things lead I am tentatively like again excited and interested in this book and I think the writing is like worlds uh above so on the other side I've read that being said if you are triggered At All by the mention of Harry Potter don't pick up this book it is mentioned so much our main character is like obsessed with it and she's constantly bringing it up and the majority of the clothes that she has brought to this inpatient outpatient whatever facility um are like Harry Potter theme so it's brought up frequently so if that's gotta bother you don't pick this up it's bothering me personally I'm gonna keep reading I don't know if I'll update you at 50 or when I'm done but living laughing loving it's only 6 30. I only have three hours of this book left you know what shout out to me for being on top of my and also just having a fun time with Instagram Instagram has been Instagram has been a good a good recommender of books if you hear any suspicious noises I can assure you it's my cat and not me um 50 into Medicine Man and I thought I would update you since it's such a long book so many thoughts and feelings this book is actually making me low-key kind of emotional this book is really heavy on the mental health representation and I think that that's pretty clear a lot of what I said previously doesn't necessarily stand in terms of our heroine and her ideations and stuff so like that's triggering definitely don't pick this book up there's just a lot of talk about mental health like that's what this book is all about it's all about our heroine and her depression and her trying to find sustained happiness when that's not something that she's ever really felt and if you're someone who suffers from depression like really do think this could be triggering I also think it could be kind of maybe cathartic or relatable and for me it is the laterally release feeling cathartic and relatable and I'm really like impressed with that I wasn't really expecting that from I don't want to say he wasn't expecting that from a romance as if I don't expect romances to be high quality and amazing and like do all the things but I just think like lately I haven't really been picking up romances that like do it all and this one is really impressing me I don't know that I love the Romantic relationship like I don't think it's very well developed um Grand I'm only 50 in and it's not like it's really going anywhere but our heroine has definitely made moves on the hero and like tried to kiss him I mean he definitely reciprocated it too but don't know enough about him and our heroine actually points that out she's like I just don't know much about him but I want to know more about him and I want him to help me like I want to be happy and um yeah I don't know I feel like I should have profound things to say but I think sometimes it is profound enough to just say this book is making me think and it is in my opinion well written again besides the Harry Potter like I really could have done without that but um other than that you know pretty good all right my friends we've reached the end of the road I am shrinking I guess my tripod always likes to sink down she's a little unstable it's like the characters in this book um okay uh I don't know I think I'm gonna give this book four stars and it's not because I think the romance was fantastic it's because I liked the mental health representation there are very few books that have mental health representation in them that I feel seen by I feel like there are tons of books out there that touch on Mental Health but they're just not you know books that I connect with and this book I did connect with so to me that makes this book kind of Stand Out do I think that romance is amazing not so much like the smut is definitely there it feels very taboo saffronic definitely like goes there and she she has gone there in both of the books that I've read by her but I don't know that I like love the dynamic there right like I think we can all probably acknowledge that like a doctor-patient relationship is not appropriate especially when the patient is like fresh out of high school and you know sometimes I am willing to like Overlook things make exceptions whatever but in this book it just it felt kind of icky to me so like I didn't love the romance in this one so it feels weird to write this one highly even though I didn't love their romance component of it but like I do think this one was pitched well I went back and like read the caption of the post that this one was like pitched to me and it said this one had really good mental health representation it's taboo and I mean like it definitely delivered on all of that I agree with pretty much everything that was said in the caption um there weren't any like words on the graphics or anything it was just a picture of this book so I don't feel like misled or anything but you know this has been a fun experiment overall I really enjoyed getting to look at Instagram and actually take book recommendations from Instagram for once because like I said I just like never do that and I feel like even though I had varying levels of success I feel like I know what to look for now when it comes to book recommendations I definitely need someone to really outline um in their caption what a book is about and like what they like about it or I need a really good graphic to kind of let me in on what the tropes are or like what the extra things are I feel like the posts that I saw that were a little bit more I don't want to say like attention grabby but I think the posts that tended to be more like here's a pretty picture of a book or this one had across this particular Trope like if it's just like a split second thing like I don't think that works for me as well I like in-depth stuff which you know what that makes sense right like I'm a I'm a YouTube ass like I want people to talk in depth about books so I can really decide whether or not I want to take a chance on it but um I had fun I had fun I definitely think that bookstagram is legit as I think you can find great recommendations there definitely it kind of makes me want to read more books from uh bookstagram recommendation so thanks so much for watching this video I had a really fun time filming it in the comments down below let me know if you have read any of these books and let me know who your favorite bookstagrammers are I would love to know thanks so much for watching this video I love you all so much and until next time thank you\n"