The Joy of Chatting with My Audience: A Reflection on YouTube and Life

As I lay in bed, surrounded by my comfort and familiarity, I find myself reminiscing about the countless hours I've spent chatting with my audience on YouTube. It's a feeling that never gets old, and one that I'm grateful for every day. I remember my first YouTube video, made in sixth grade with my friends, as a carefree and innocent time, free from the pressures of adulthood. Little did I know, this hobby would become an integral part of my life.

Fast forward to around this time last year, when my YouTube channel started gaining traction. One book-related video in particular, where I visited every bookstore in Austin, brought new viewers to my channel. It was a turning point for me, and I began to realize that I had the potential to make a career out of something I loved. And so, this summer, I made the decision to go full-time as a YouTuber, marking a new chapter in my life.

It's surreal to think about how far I've come since then. Just a year ago, if someone told me that I'd be making a living from YouTube, I wouldn't have believed it. But here I am, still pinching myself, and grateful for the opportunity to share my passions with all of you. The feeling of nostalgia washes over me as I think about my baby middle school self, who always dreamed of having this as her job. It's a dream that has finally come true, and it's a constant reminder to stay grounded and humble.

As I prepare for the launch of my new book club, I'm filled with excitement and anticipation. It's not just about discussing books; it's about building friendships and connections with all of you. I want this book club to be a space where we can chat about everything under the sun, from our favorite reads to our personal lives. It's going to be a journey of discovery, growth, and laughter, and I'm honored to have each and every one of you along for the ride.

I do need to stop talking now, though, and let you get some sleep. But before I do, I want to express my deepest gratitude to all of you who have supported me on this journey. Your enthusiasm, engagement, and kindness mean the world to me. I feel like I've grown accustomed to having you in my life, and it's hard to imagine doing what I do without your love and encouragement.

As for today, spring is finally here, and it feels like a breath of fresh air. It's the season that wakes me alive, filled with new beginnings and possibilities. Fall, on the other hand, is the season of contemplation – a time for reflection, self-care, and cozying up with good books.

Speaking of which, I've been trying to eat healthier lately, particularly in the mornings. Instead of my usual breakfast routine, I've taken to having something small, like a kiwi, to start my day off right. And while I still enjoy a good sleepover every now and then (more on that later), I've also grown accustomed to my own bed. There's something comforting about being able to shower before bed, have access to all my favorite things, and simply relax in the comfort of my own space.

But vacations with friends are still a highlight of my year. There's something special about sharing laughter, memories, and adventures with the people I love. Even if it means getting grimy and forgetting basic hygiene (hello, sleepover makeup!), those experiences always leave me feeling rejuvenated and refreshed.

And that's all for now. I'll let you guys go home, knowing that you're feeling a bit of sleepover-induced grime and want to shower up in the comfort of your own beds. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey, and I look forward to sharing more of my life with you through the book club. Don't forget to check out the link in the description, which will take you directly to our new book club. It means the world to me if you use that link to join us, and I promise it'll be an adventure worth taking!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign I wanted to know if you want to have a sleepover with me specifically a book sleepover I was thinking we could like go book shopping we could start body reading a book together we could even bake some like Christmas desserts tonight to kind of like get in the festive mood I'll even make you dinner so you don't have to worry about that wind tonight if you or like right now if you're young right now that would be great I know it was a little bit last minute sorry about that you can okay okay this is great all right I'll see you in like 10 minutes okay bye you made it yay I am so excited welcome to my third ever book sleepover if you couldn't tell by the text I put on the screen I you I was talking to you on the phone you're the one I invited all of you actually but yeah basically if you haven't seen one of my book sleepover videos before it's gonna be like a very cozy like chit chat book sleepover night with me like we are just besties hanging out and I just love doing these I haven't done one I didn't realize how long it's been I haven't done one since summer and it's December like it's been over six months since I did the last one and I can't believe it's been that long because I love to make these videos so I'm glad that we're doing another one I always talk about these videos how I wish we were like actually hang out with best friends because I don't really have any other friends in real life that read the same books as me you guys are my closest book besties genuinely and in theme with growing our bond as book besties I have a really really exciting announcement I created a virtual book club I have never ever in my life been a part of a book club or hosted a book club I have always wanted to so I'm so glad that I get to host my first ever book club with you guys like I don't know who else I would rather be in a book club with and you can join my book club through the app fable I will have a link in the description you can just click it go right in and join super super easy and Fable is completely free completely free book club we love that and I sat in a call with some lovely people at Fable and they took me through the entire app how to use all the features and it is genuinely such a cool app what I love most is that we're gonna be able to go so in depth with the books and also chat about so many things the literal book we're reading that month and anything else book related that we want there's an area called the club Lobby where I would love for you guys to like introduce yourselves when you join like let me know your name like something about you what you love to read and then when you actually go into the book that we're reading for each month there's a breakdown by chapter so we can go into all those chapters and get really nitty-gritty into our thoughts on the book I'm also going to be posting my thoughts as I go as well as discussion questions and then at the end we can all share our thoughts and our star rating it's literally literally like we're buddy reading this book together and I have never ever body read a book with somebody before so I'm just like a genuinely so so so excited and the first book that we're gonna read is Icebreaker by Hannah Grace this is a romance I plan on mostly doing romance in this book club because that's mostly what I read but also with the occasional mystery thriller fantasy thrown in because I love so many genres and I have been wanting to read this book for so so long it's about Anastasia who's a figure skater and Nathan who is the captain of a hockey team and if you're thinking oh I already read that book or oh I'm not really interested in reading that book that is completely okay I would still love you to join if you have already read this book you can still go in and share your thoughts you can be like our captain as we take our journey into this book because you've already read it and if you're not interested in this book it doesn't sound like your thing that's also okay too because like I said I plan on reading a book every single month in the book club so you can go ahead and join and I will post a poll every single month so you can have more of a say and the next book that we read now to get into our book sleepover I think the first thing that we should do is go book shopping of course I headed to the romance section first and they had a ton of Christmas books out which is so cute the holiday trap looks super cute and then all of the books on this display for Christmas looked really cute for Christmas Bridgerton I've been debating reading Richardson for a while I've already seen the show and normally like to read a book before watching a movie or TV show adaptation so I'm curious if it would be fun to read the book since I've already seen the show I don't know let me know your thoughts neon Gods I've been wanting to read this book because I love the touch of darkness which is also about Hades and Persephone I love books about bookshops or people who love books so this one really caught my eye four aunties and a wedding I love dial a for aunties and I need to read the sequel ASAP the cheat sheet it's a sports romance football romance like that's all I need to hear I want to read it then I headed upstairs to check out the blind date with a book section teen Edition I couldn't find adult blind date with books so I'm just going with a teen blind date with a book today but so many looked so good good then I headed to the teen literature section I love young adult books and specifically a lot of the fantasy books were catching my eye like red queen these violent Delights I've heard such good things about in the car of all series and I ended up getting one book I'm pretty sure you can guess what it is by the fact that it is in packaging I just got out of book people and I ended up getting a blind date with a book and I'm gonna open it in this video which is rare for me normally I'll like accumulate blind dates with books and then I'll do one big like blind date with a book unboxing video so like the anticipation normally builds up for like weeks so it feels weird and like wrong to just like open and now immediately after I bought it this one says this book likes cute English boys romance and baking I was trying to think like do I have any guesses for what it could be the only book that comes to mind is boyfriend material because I know that it's British and it's a cute boys plural so I was like maybe it's a queer romance but I don't know I feel like it might have said that if it was okay let's open it oh the first rip is always so satisfying I'm covering up the title but the book is pink I have no idea what it's going to be but I feel like that gives me hope that it's like fun cute girly Romance okay all the paper's off and it is a Cuban girls guide to tea and tomorrow cute I actually really like the cover the colors are really pretty and it's in Reese's why a book club I didn't know that Reese Witherspoon had a young adult book club I know her Adult Book Club is super popular and I just read the back of the book and it says worried about Leela's mental health her parents make a new plan for her spend three months with family friends in England what would be her dream vacation starts to feel like a nightmare for Lila until she meets Orion Maxwell and I think that sounds so cute she's a Cuban and she's from Miami so I hope we get to learn like a lot about her Cuban culture and then I feel like it'll be interesting with her being Cuban and then meeting an English boy in England it also gonna be a really fun summer read and it is winter so I don't know if I'm gonna save this for summer or I've been reading a lot of Christmas books and I have a lot of winter reads planned for January so it might be fun to mix it up and bring some like summer to my winter but yeah let me know if any of you guys have read this book before did you like it should I put it high on my TBR okay let's go back and start doing some reading oh hello okay let's do some reading it's crazy how fast it gets dark nowadays like it's like 5 45 and it is Pitch Black outside that's insane what book should we read together in a holidays by Christine Lauren I'm currently reading and I have like 30 20 not very many pages left so I kind of want to finish this book tonight but then I also want to start Icebreaker with you guys because I'm really excited about starting the book club and I want to start like thinking of discussion questions sharing my favorite quotes and stuff like that on the app so when you guys join my book club there are like already be discussions and stuff for you guys there so I think I'm gonna start this book right now but then a little later tonight I might finish in the holidays foreign pillows also I'm wearing reindeer socks anyway I just read a page 20 and it's dual POV I love dual POV most of the time I feel like sometimes dual POV can be hard because normally romance books are written by women and so a woman riding a male's POV sometimes feels accurate to me sometimes doesn't I mean I don't actually know what it's like to be in a male's brain but I can imagine and so far this book is really really reminding me of the off-campus series so if you like the off-campus series I feel like you'll really like this book and I've only read one chapter in Nate's POV but so far I feel like it is really true to what I imagine is going on inside the college male brain okay I'm only three pages later on page 23 but I feel like this author is gonna have the best banter in this book a lot of like the dialogue and like her sentences are kind of funny and I love that I'm actually I'm gonna start highlighting some of like my favorite quotes and stuff in the fable app something I didn't talk about earlier is that you can actually buy the ebook that we're reading for that month inside the fable app so if you're like an ebook person that's a great way to get the ebook and also what's really cool about it is that you can choose whether you want to read the book on your own or with our entire book club so if you choose to read with our entire book club then you can see what everyone has highlighted What notes they have made you can also pick sections and make little quote tiles and I just think that's so cool that like not only are we discussing the book together but you can like literally literally read the book together but yeah basically the main character Anastasia she's got like this like friends with bonus type of relationship and she's like really stressed and he says I'll take you home and let you take out any remaining stress on my body and she says with a bat and I don't know I just feel like the main character is already like kind of like bold like not afraid to say what she wants and I don't know I love her and the banter that she has I try to page 50 and I really like it so far the characters finally met and like I said I really like Anastasia's character anyway I'm getting hungry and I know that I said I would make you guys dinner when I invited you to my sleepover but I think I'm gonna do just hang out because I'm honestly feeling lazy it's like been rainy all day I'm in that like rainy cozy I don't want to do anything Vibe so I did order Chinese takeout and I think it's almost here so let's go eat trying to take out never fails you let's see what my fortune is love is the Affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world I hate when fortunes are like wisdom like this one like I want an actual Fortune like what is my future gonna be like anyway I got these Pillsbury Christmas tree cookies and I thought it'd be so fun to make them I used to have these all the time as a kid and I have been looking for them every single Christmas for years and I can never find them and I finally went online and I found them at a Target like 20 minutes away from me so I drove 20 minutes just to get these cookies I'm kind of scared to try them because I feel like they might not be as good as I remember from when I was a kid so my drive might not have been worth it I don't know but I'm gonna bake some cookies I'm gonna take a bath and do some more reading foreign feels so weird wearing a bathing suit in December okay let's do a cookie taste test but I just as good as I remember well honestly they're nothing like crazy good but like the Nostalgia hits like that's the taste I remember I feel like Santa Claus like I'm eating like Christmas cookies but instead of milk I'm drinking wine if I was Santa I would request wine actually that's a lie I do really love milk which I feel like a lot of people think is weird I'm a milk girl I didn't like how it sounded okay I think I'm gonna finish in the holidays if any of you guys are not familiar with this book it's super good so far it's a Time Loop book so basically this girl is reliving the same vacation over and over again and it takes place at Christmas time in the snowy Utah cabin so The Vibes are there and I just love the main girl and the love interest oh I'm literally at the epilogue okay perfect I'm gonna finish this so fast oh my gosh how could I forget I need to put in my bath bomb I've gotten a lot of Lush bath bombs I love like the rainbow ones because they're so pretty to buy at the store but then whenever I put them in the bath the water is just like brown because there's so many colors this one was a little simpler just blue pink orange so I'm hoping the watercolor might look nice after I don't know three two one foreign I just finished the book I really liked it I would say four stars I was a little nervous when I first started it that I wouldn't like it because of the time Loop aspect I thought I would get really repetitive but I really don't think was repetitive at all and I thought it was really fun like I've seen Timeless movies but I've never read a timely book so to get to hear everything going on in her head as she's repeating the same day again was really interesting and seeing her try to like explain it to other people and get them to believe her and also make different choices every time plus I love the two main characters Andrew and Maisie they're so cute now that I'm done within holidays I think I'm going to read a little bit more of Icebreaker I feel like I've just gotten to the point where it's starting to get really good I drew to page 83 I don't know if this is really specific but I love in books when there is something different outside of just like the text of the story like diary entries letters text messages and in this book the main guy Nate has a group message with all of his like hockey friends so we get to see like a bunch of their text messages and then also Anastasia and Nate text and I don't know why I just think the text parts are so fun I'm definitely getting to the point where I'm like obsessed like I don't want to stop reading but I am cooking in this bath like I don't know if you guys have noticed but I have been sweating so I think I'm gonna get out and start getting ready for bed skincare time I would love to know as we're coming into the new year do you guys have any reading goals for 2023 wow it feels so weird to say 2023 that sounds like a futuristic year I mean I guess I know the future of the year but like it's got to be our year very soon I need to decide when I want to set my yearly reading goal to be for 2022 I set goal of 70 books and I surpassed that goal I believe in November so I feel like I can do better I think it'd be so cool to do a hundred books but I don't know if I can realistically do that and I feel like I never want to feel like pressured to read I always want it to be fun and enjoyable so I'm thinking maybe like 85 books for 2023 for my own personal goals now I feel like is the point in the sleepover where you could just not get me to shut up like we would lay in bed and I would just talk your ear off laughing gossiping like telling stories until you'd be like Ally I need to go to bed there's actually one time when I was like 10 and I had read somewhere that you like are supposed to get eight hours of sleep and I remember going to a sleepover and being like guys we have to sleep for eight hours tonight or something bad's gonna happen and everyone wanted to stay up late and I was like we can't like we're gonna die we have to get eight hours of sleep and everyone was so mad at me because it's like ruining their fun to like pull an all-nighter anyway I've been thinking a lot recently about just like you guys and YouTube and just like how happy I've been recently I've been making YouTube videos for a really long time just for fun like I made my first YouTube video in sixth grade just like with my friends so YouTube has always I feel like been a big part of my life but always in a hobby sense and around this time last year is actually when my YouTube channel started growing one of my book videos going to every bookstore in Austin started bringing a lot of new viewers to my channel and then I went full time on my YouTube channel in the summer of this year so still very new to like being a full-time YouTuber which is still crazy for me to say I don't know I've just been like so happy and I'm so so thankful to have all of you guys in my life that allows me to do this as my job especially now that it's marking like the one year of my channel gaining momentum I've just been feeling like really nostalgic to like my baby Middle School self who like always wanted this to be her job and now it is like if you told me that like five years ago even a year ago I would not have believed you I would be like you send yourself to the insane asylum because there's no way but here I am so yeah just like a big big fat giant thank you to all of you and that's part of the reason why I know I keep bringing this up but why I'm like so excited about doing the book club because I just want to become like best friends with all of you guys and I feel like it's such a good way for us to chat not just about the book we're reading but about like literally anything anyway I will stop talking your ear off and let you get some sleep and then I will see you guys in the morning okay good night spring is the season that wakes me alive and fall is the season to contemplate life good morning we are eating breakfast in bed well it's not really breakfast I'm just having a kiwi I used to be a big breakfast person like I would eat breakfast every single day without fail and lately I've been doing really early lunches like eat lunch at like 11 A.M so in the morning I'll just have something really small like some fruit so this morning is a kiwi oh that is not quite ripe but it's still really good I also try not to eat in bed but it's so nice and comfy I don't know why I feel like I'm at like a hotel in like room service brought me food and I'm eating in bed like I just love it I haven't had a sleepover with the person in real life in a really long time like in years I'm curious everyone would like it or not like it's so fun but also I feel like now I've grown accustomed to like my own bed I want to like shower before bed I want to have access to like all my things and like my comfort and I feel like after sleepovers as a kid I'd be like so grimy the next day because I probably wouldn't use their shower I'd probably like fall asleep in my makeup because I'd like forget makeup wipes or something I don't know I just feel like I just really valued my own space now but like vacations with friends I'm about that I feel like that sounds so lame I would still have a sleepover with someone in real life anyway I will let you guys go home because I'm sure you're feeling that sleepover griminess of you want to shower be in your own room so thank you so much for coming to my sleepover this was so much fun and of course my obligatory last reminder to join my new book club so we can continue the sleepover Vibes over there of growing our friendship and Buddy reading books together and like I said I'll have a link in the description that will take you directly to my book club and it helps me out if you use my link to go to it so yeah kiwi cheers to a successful sleepover bye trees cause it still feels like summer but it is probablyforeign I wanted to know if you want to have a sleepover with me specifically a book sleepover I was thinking we could like go book shopping we could start body reading a book together we could even bake some like Christmas desserts tonight to kind of like get in the festive mood I'll even make you dinner so you don't have to worry about that wind tonight if you or like right now if you're young right now that would be great I know it was a little bit last minute sorry about that you can okay okay this is great all right I'll see you in like 10 minutes okay bye you made it yay I am so excited welcome to my third ever book sleepover if you couldn't tell by the text I put on the screen I you I was talking to you on the phone you're the one I invited all of you actually but yeah basically if you haven't seen one of my book sleepover videos before it's gonna be like a very cozy like chit chat book sleepover night with me like we are just besties hanging out and I just love doing these I haven't done one I didn't realize how long it's been I haven't done one since summer and it's December like it's been over six months since I did the last one and I can't believe it's been that long because I love to make these videos so I'm glad that we're doing another one I always talk about these videos how I wish we were like actually hang out with best friends because I don't really have any other friends in real life that read the same books as me you guys are my closest book besties genuinely and in theme with growing our bond as book besties I have a really really exciting announcement I created a virtual book club I have never ever in my life been a part of a book club or hosted a book club I have always wanted to so I'm so glad that I get to host my first ever book club with you guys like I don't know who else I would rather be in a book club with and you can join my book club through the app fable I will have a link in the description you can just click it go right in and join super super easy and Fable is completely free completely free book club we love that and I sat in a call with some lovely people at Fable and they took me through the entire app how to use all the features and it is genuinely such a cool app what I love most is that we're gonna be able to go so in depth with the books and also chat about so many things the literal book we're reading that month and anything else book related that we want there's an area called the club Lobby where I would love for you guys to like introduce yourselves when you join like let me know your name like something about you what you love to read and then when you actually go into the book that we're reading for each month there's a breakdown by chapter so we can go into all those chapters and get really nitty-gritty into our thoughts on the book I'm also going to be posting my thoughts as I go as well as discussion questions and then at the end we can all share our thoughts and our star rating it's literally literally like we're buddy reading this book together and I have never ever body read a book with somebody before so I'm just like a genuinely so so so excited and the first book that we're gonna read is Icebreaker by Hannah Grace this is a romance I plan on mostly doing romance in this book club because that's mostly what I read but also with the occasional mystery thriller fantasy thrown in because I love so many genres and I have been wanting to read this book for so so long it's about Anastasia who's a figure skater and Nathan who is the captain of a hockey team and if you're thinking oh I already read that book or oh I'm not really interested in reading that book that is completely okay I would still love you to join if you have already read this book you can still go in and share your thoughts you can be like our captain as we take our journey into this book because you've already read it and if you're not interested in this book it doesn't sound like your thing that's also okay too because like I said I plan on reading a book every single month in the book club so you can go ahead and join and I will post a poll every single month so you can have more of a say and the next book that we read now to get into our book sleepover I think the first thing that we should do is go book shopping of course I headed to the romance section first and they had a ton of Christmas books out which is so cute the holiday trap looks super cute and then all of the books on this display for Christmas looked really cute for Christmas Bridgerton I've been debating reading Richardson for a while I've already seen the show and normally like to read a book before watching a movie or TV show adaptation so I'm curious if it would be fun to read the book since I've already seen the show I don't know let me know your thoughts neon Gods I've been wanting to read this book because I love the touch of darkness which is also about Hades and Persephone I love books about bookshops or people who love books so this one really caught my eye four aunties and a wedding I love dial a for aunties and I need to read the sequel ASAP the cheat sheet it's a sports romance football romance like that's all I need to hear I want to read it then I headed upstairs to check out the blind date with a book section teen Edition I couldn't find adult blind date with books so I'm just going with a teen blind date with a book today but so many looked so good good then I headed to the teen literature section I love young adult books and specifically a lot of the fantasy books were catching my eye like red queen these violent Delights I've heard such good things about in the car of all series and I ended up getting one book I'm pretty sure you can guess what it is by the fact that it is in packaging I just got out of book people and I ended up getting a blind date with a book and I'm gonna open it in this video which is rare for me normally I'll like accumulate blind dates with books and then I'll do one big like blind date with a book unboxing video so like the anticipation normally builds up for like weeks so it feels weird and like wrong to just like open and now immediately after I bought it this one says this book likes cute English boys romance and baking I was trying to think like do I have any guesses for what it could be the only book that comes to mind is boyfriend material because I know that it's British and it's a cute boys plural so I was like maybe it's a queer romance but I don't know I feel like it might have said that if it was okay let's open it oh the first rip is always so satisfying I'm covering up the title but the book is pink I have no idea what it's going to be but I feel like that gives me hope that it's like fun cute girly Romance okay all the paper's off and it is a Cuban girls guide to tea and tomorrow cute I actually really like the cover the colors are really pretty and it's in Reese's why a book club I didn't know that Reese Witherspoon had a young adult book club I know her Adult Book Club is super popular and I just read the back of the book and it says worried about Leela's mental health her parents make a new plan for her spend three months with family friends in England what would be her dream vacation starts to feel like a nightmare for Lila until she meets Orion Maxwell and I think that sounds so cute she's a Cuban and she's from Miami so I hope we get to learn like a lot about her Cuban culture and then I feel like it'll be interesting with her being Cuban and then meeting an English boy in England it also gonna be a really fun summer read and it is winter so I don't know if I'm gonna save this for summer or I've been reading a lot of Christmas books and I have a lot of winter reads planned for January so it might be fun to mix it up and bring some like summer to my winter but yeah let me know if any of you guys have read this book before did you like it should I put it high on my TBR okay let's go back and start doing some reading oh hello okay let's do some reading it's crazy how fast it gets dark nowadays like it's like 5 45 and it is Pitch Black outside that's insane what book should we read together in a holidays by Christine Lauren I'm currently reading and I have like 30 20 not very many pages left so I kind of want to finish this book tonight but then I also want to start Icebreaker with you guys because I'm really excited about starting the book club and I want to start like thinking of discussion questions sharing my favorite quotes and stuff like that on the app so when you guys join my book club there are like already be discussions and stuff for you guys there so I think I'm gonna start this book right now but then a little later tonight I might finish in the holidays foreign pillows also I'm wearing reindeer socks anyway I just read a page 20 and it's dual POV I love dual POV most of the time I feel like sometimes dual POV can be hard because normally romance books are written by women and so a woman riding a male's POV sometimes feels accurate to me sometimes doesn't I mean I don't actually know what it's like to be in a male's brain but I can imagine and so far this book is really really reminding me of the off-campus series so if you like the off-campus series I feel like you'll really like this book and I've only read one chapter in Nate's POV but so far I feel like it is really true to what I imagine is going on inside the college male brain okay I'm only three pages later on page 23 but I feel like this author is gonna have the best banter in this book a lot of like the dialogue and like her sentences are kind of funny and I love that I'm actually I'm gonna start highlighting some of like my favorite quotes and stuff in the fable app something I didn't talk about earlier is that you can actually buy the ebook that we're reading for that month inside the fable app so if you're like an ebook person that's a great way to get the ebook and also what's really cool about it is that you can choose whether you want to read the book on your own or with our entire book club so if you choose to read with our entire book club then you can see what everyone has highlighted What notes they have made you can also pick sections and make little quote tiles and I just think that's so cool that like not only are we discussing the book together but you can like literally literally read the book together but yeah basically the main character Anastasia she's got like this like friends with bonus type of relationship and she's like really stressed and he says I'll take you home and let you take out any remaining stress on my body and she says with a bat and I don't know I just feel like the main character is already like kind of like bold like not afraid to say what she wants and I don't know I love her and the banter that she has I try to page 50 and I really like it so far the characters finally met and like I said I really like Anastasia's character anyway I'm getting hungry and I know that I said I would make you guys dinner when I invited you to my sleepover but I think I'm gonna do just hang out because I'm honestly feeling lazy it's like been rainy all day I'm in that like rainy cozy I don't want to do anything Vibe so I did order Chinese takeout and I think it's almost here so let's go eat trying to take out never fails you let's see what my fortune is love is the Affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world I hate when fortunes are like wisdom like this one like I want an actual Fortune like what is my future gonna be like anyway I got these Pillsbury Christmas tree cookies and I thought it'd be so fun to make them I used to have these all the time as a kid and I have been looking for them every single Christmas for years and I can never find them and I finally went online and I found them at a Target like 20 minutes away from me so I drove 20 minutes just to get these cookies I'm kind of scared to try them because I feel like they might not be as good as I remember from when I was a kid so my drive might not have been worth it I don't know but I'm gonna bake some cookies I'm gonna take a bath and do some more reading foreign feels so weird wearing a bathing suit in December okay let's do a cookie taste test but I just as good as I remember well honestly they're nothing like crazy good but like the Nostalgia hits like that's the taste I remember I feel like Santa Claus like I'm eating like Christmas cookies but instead of milk I'm drinking wine if I was Santa I would request wine actually that's a lie I do really love milk which I feel like a lot of people think is weird I'm a milk girl I didn't like how it sounded okay I think I'm gonna finish in the holidays if any of you guys are not familiar with this book it's super good so far it's a Time Loop book so basically this girl is reliving the same vacation over and over again and it takes place at Christmas time in the snowy Utah cabin so The Vibes are there and I just love the main girl and the love interest oh I'm literally at the epilogue okay perfect I'm gonna finish this so fast oh my gosh how could I forget I need to put in my bath bomb I've gotten a lot of Lush bath bombs I love like the rainbow ones because they're so pretty to buy at the store but then whenever I put them in the bath the water is just like brown because there's so many colors this one was a little simpler just blue pink orange so I'm hoping the watercolor might look nice after I don't know three two one foreign I just finished the book I really liked it I would say four stars I was a little nervous when I first started it that I wouldn't like it because of the time Loop aspect I thought I would get really repetitive but I really don't think was repetitive at all and I thought it was really fun like I've seen Timeless movies but I've never read a timely book so to get to hear everything going on in her head as she's repeating the same day again was really interesting and seeing her try to like explain it to other people and get them to believe her and also make different choices every time plus I love the two main characters Andrew and Maisie they're so cute now that I'm done within holidays I think I'm going to read a little bit more of Icebreaker I feel like I've just gotten to the point where it's starting to get really good I drew to page 83 I don't know if this is really specific but I love in books when there is something different outside of just like the text of the story like diary entries letters text messages and in this book the main guy Nate has a group message with all of his like hockey friends so we get to see like a bunch of their text messages and then also Anastasia and Nate text and I don't know why I just think the text parts are so fun I'm definitely getting to the point where I'm like obsessed like I don't want to stop reading but I am cooking in this bath like I don't know if you guys have noticed but I have been sweating so I think I'm gonna get out and start getting ready for bed skincare time I would love to know as we're coming into the new year do you guys have any reading goals for 2023 wow it feels so weird to say 2023 that sounds like a futuristic year I mean I guess I know the future of the year but like it's got to be our year very soon I need to decide when I want to set my yearly reading goal to be for 2022 I set goal of 70 books and I surpassed that goal I believe in November so I feel like I can do better I think it'd be so cool to do a hundred books but I don't know if I can realistically do that and I feel like I never want to feel like pressured to read I always want it to be fun and enjoyable so I'm thinking maybe like 85 books for 2023 for my own personal goals now I feel like is the point in the sleepover where you could just not get me to shut up like we would lay in bed and I would just talk your ear off laughing gossiping like telling stories until you'd be like Ally I need to go to bed there's actually one time when I was like 10 and I had read somewhere that you like are supposed to get eight hours of sleep and I remember going to a sleepover and being like guys we have to sleep for eight hours tonight or something bad's gonna happen and everyone wanted to stay up late and I was like we can't like we're gonna die we have to get eight hours of sleep and everyone was so mad at me because it's like ruining their fun to like pull an all-nighter anyway I've been thinking a lot recently about just like you guys and YouTube and just like how happy I've been recently I've been making YouTube videos for a really long time just for fun like I made my first YouTube video in sixth grade just like with my friends so YouTube has always I feel like been a big part of my life but always in a hobby sense and around this time last year is actually when my YouTube channel started growing one of my book videos going to every bookstore in Austin started bringing a lot of new viewers to my channel and then I went full time on my YouTube channel in the summer of this year so still very new to like being a full-time YouTuber which is still crazy for me to say I don't know I've just been like so happy and I'm so so thankful to have all of you guys in my life that allows me to do this as my job especially now that it's marking like the one year of my channel gaining momentum I've just been feeling like really nostalgic to like my baby Middle School self who like always wanted this to be her job and now it is like if you told me that like five years ago even a year ago I would not have believed you I would be like you send yourself to the insane asylum because there's no way but here I am so yeah just like a big big fat giant thank you to all of you and that's part of the reason why I know I keep bringing this up but why I'm like so excited about doing the book club because I just want to become like best friends with all of you guys and I feel like it's such a good way for us to chat not just about the book we're reading but about like literally anything anyway I will stop talking your ear off and let you get some sleep and then I will see you guys in the morning okay good night spring is the season that wakes me alive and fall is the season to contemplate life good morning we are eating breakfast in bed well it's not really breakfast I'm just having a kiwi I used to be a big breakfast person like I would eat breakfast every single day without fail and lately I've been doing really early lunches like eat lunch at like 11 A.M so in the morning I'll just have something really small like some fruit so this morning is a kiwi oh that is not quite ripe but it's still really good I also try not to eat in bed but it's so nice and comfy I don't know why I feel like I'm at like a hotel in like room service brought me food and I'm eating in bed like I just love it I haven't had a sleepover with the person in real life in a really long time like in years I'm curious everyone would like it or not like it's so fun but also I feel like now I've grown accustomed to like my own bed I want to like shower before bed I want to have access to like all my things and like my comfort and I feel like after sleepovers as a kid I'd be like so grimy the next day because I probably wouldn't use their shower I'd probably like fall asleep in my makeup because I'd like forget makeup wipes or something I don't know I just feel like I just really valued my own space now but like vacations with friends I'm about that I feel like that sounds so lame I would still have a sleepover with someone in real life anyway I will let you guys go home because I'm sure you're feeling that sleepover griminess of you want to shower be in your own room so thank you so much for coming to my sleepover this was so much fun and of course my obligatory last reminder to join my new book club so we can continue the sleepover Vibes over there of growing our friendship and Buddy reading books together and like I said I'll have a link in the description that will take you directly to my book club and it helps me out if you use my link to go to it so yeah kiwi cheers to a successful sleepover bye trees cause it still feels like summer but it is probablyforeign I wanted to know if you want to have a sleepover with me specifically a book sleepover I was thinking we could like go book shopping we could start body reading a book together we could even bake some like Christmas desserts tonight to kind of like get in the festive mood I'll even make you dinner so you don't have to worry about that wind tonight if you or like right now if you're young right now that would be great I know it was a little bit last minute sorry about that you can okay okay this is great all right I'll see you in like 10 minutes okay bye you made it yay I am so excited welcome to my third ever book sleepover if you couldn't tell by the text I put on the screen I you I was talking to you on the phone you're the one I invited all of you actually but yeah basically if you haven't seen one of my book sleepover videos before it's gonna be like a very cozy like chit chat book sleepover night with me like we are just besties hanging out and I just love doing these I haven't done one I didn't realize how long it's been I haven't done one since summer and it's December like it's been over six months since I did the last one and I can't believe it's been that long because I love to make these videos so I'm glad that we're doing another one I always talk about these videos how I wish we were like actually hang out with best friends because I don't really have any other friends in real life that read the same books as me you guys are my closest book besties genuinely and in theme with growing our bond as book besties I have a really really exciting announcement I created a virtual book club I have never ever in my life been a part of a book club or hosted a book club I have always wanted to so I'm so glad that I get to host my first ever book club with you guys like I don't know who else I would rather be in a book club with and you can join my book club through the app fable I will have a link in the description you can just click it go right in and join super super easy and Fable is completely free completely free book club we love that and I sat in a call with some lovely people at Fable and they took me through the entire app how to use all the features and it is genuinely such a cool app what I love most is that we're gonna be able to go so in depth with the books and also chat about so many things the literal book we're reading that month and anything else book related that we want there's an area called the club Lobby where I would love for you guys to like introduce yourselves when you join like let me know your name like something about you what you love to read and then when you actually go into the book that we're reading for each month there's a breakdown by chapter so we can go into all those chapters and get really nitty-gritty into our thoughts on the book I'm also going to be posting my thoughts as I go as well as discussion questions and then at the end we can all share our thoughts and our star rating it's literally literally like we're buddy reading this book together and I have never ever body read a book with somebody before so I'm just like a genuinely so so so excited and the first book that we're gonna read is Icebreaker by Hannah Grace this is a romance I plan on mostly doing romance in this book club because that's mostly what I read but also with the occasional mystery thriller fantasy thrown in because I love so many genres and I have been wanting to read this book for so so long it's about Anastasia who's a figure skater and Nathan who is the captain of a hockey team and if you're thinking oh I already read that book or oh I'm not really interested in reading that book that is completely okay I would still love you to join if you have already read this book you can still go in and share your thoughts you can be like our captain as we take our journey into this book because you've already read it and if you're not interested in this book it doesn't sound like your thing that's also okay too because like I said I plan on reading a book every single month in the book club so you can go ahead and join and I will post a poll every single month so you can have more of a say and the next book that we read now to get into our book sleepover I think the first thing that we should do is go book shopping of course I headed to the romance section first and they had a ton of Christmas books out which is so cute the holiday trap looks super cute and then all of the books on this display for Christmas looked really cute for Christmas Bridgerton I've been debating reading Richardson for a while I've already seen the show and normally like to read a book before watching a movie or TV show adaptation so I'm curious if it would be fun to read the book since I've already seen the show I don't know let me know your thoughts neon Gods I've been wanting to read this book because I love the touch of darkness which is also about Hades and Persephone I love books about bookshops or people who love books so this one really caught my eye four aunties and a wedding I love dial a for aunties and I need to read the sequel ASAP the cheat sheet it's a sports romance football romance like that's all I need to hear I want to read it then I headed upstairs to check out the blind date with a book section teen Edition I couldn't find adult blind date with books so I'm just going with a teen blind date with a book today but so many looked so good good then I headed to the teen literature section I love young adult books and specifically a lot of the fantasy books were catching my eye like red queen these violent Delights I've heard such good things about in the car of all series and I ended up getting one book I'm pretty sure you can guess what it is by the fact that it is in packaging I just got out of book people and I ended up getting a blind date with a book and I'm gonna open it in this video which is rare for me normally I'll like accumulate blind dates with books and then I'll do one big like blind date with a book unboxing video so like the anticipation normally builds up for like weeks so it feels weird and like wrong to just like open and now immediately after I bought it this one says this book likes cute English boys romance and baking I was trying to think like do I have any guesses for what it could be the only book that comes to mind is boyfriend material because I know that it's British and it's a cute boys plural so I was like maybe it's a queer romance but I don't know I feel like it might have said that if it was okay let's open it oh the first rip is always so satisfying I'm covering up the title but the book is pink I have no idea what it's going to be but I feel like that gives me hope that it's like fun cute girly Romance okay all the paper's off and it is a Cuban girls guide to tea and tomorrow cute I actually really like the cover the colors are really pretty and it's in Reese's why a book club I didn't know that Reese Witherspoon had a young adult book club I know her Adult Book Club is super popular and I just read the back of the book and it says worried about Leela's mental health her parents make a new plan for her spend three months with family friends in England what would be her dream vacation starts to feel like a nightmare for Lila until she meets Orion Maxwell and I think that sounds so cute she's a Cuban and she's from Miami so I hope we get to learn like a lot about her Cuban culture and then I feel like it'll be interesting with her being Cuban and then meeting an English boy in England it also gonna be a really fun summer read and it is winter so I don't know if I'm gonna save this for summer or I've been reading a lot of Christmas books and I have a lot of winter reads planned for January so it might be fun to mix it up and bring some like summer to my winter but yeah let me know if any of you guys have read this book before did you like it should I put it high on my TBR okay let's go back and start doing some reading oh hello okay let's do some reading it's crazy how fast it gets dark nowadays like it's like 5 45 and it is Pitch Black outside that's insane what book should we read together in a holidays by Christine Lauren I'm currently reading and I have like 30 20 not very many pages left so I kind of want to finish this book tonight but then I also want to start Icebreaker with you guys because I'm really excited about starting the book club and I want to start like thinking of discussion questions sharing my favorite quotes and stuff like that on the app so when you guys join my book club there are like already be discussions and stuff for you guys there so I think I'm gonna start this book right now but then a little later tonight I might finish in the holidays foreign pillows also I'm wearing reindeer socks anyway I just read a page 20 and it's dual POV I love dual POV most of the time I feel like sometimes dual POV can be hard because normally romance books are written by women and so a woman riding a male's POV sometimes feels accurate to me sometimes doesn't I mean I don't actually know what it's like to be in a male's brain but I can imagine and so far this book is really really reminding me of the off-campus series so if you like the off-campus series I feel like you'll really like this book and I've only read one chapter in Nate's POV but so far I feel like it is really true to what I imagine is going on inside the college male brain okay I'm only three pages later on page 23 but I feel like this author is gonna have the best banter in this book a lot of like the dialogue and like her sentences are kind of funny and I love that I'm actually I'm gonna start highlighting some of like my favorite quotes and stuff in the fable app something I didn't talk about earlier is that you can actually buy the ebook that we're reading for that month inside the fable app so if you're like an ebook person that's a great way to get the ebook and also what's really cool about it is that you can choose whether you want to read the book on your own or with our entire book club so if you choose to read with our entire book club then you can see what everyone has highlighted What notes they have made you can also pick sections and make little quote tiles and I just think that's so cool that like not only are we discussing the book together but you can like literally literally read the book together but yeah basically the main character Anastasia she's got like this like friends with bonus type of relationship and she's like really stressed and he says I'll take you home and let you take out any remaining stress on my body and she says with a bat and I don't know I just feel like the main character is already like kind of like bold like not afraid to say what she wants and I don't know I love her and the banter that she has I try to page 50 and I really like it so far the characters finally met and like I said I really like Anastasia's character anyway I'm getting hungry and I know that I said I would make you guys dinner when I invited you to my sleepover but I think I'm gonna do just hang out because I'm honestly feeling lazy it's like been rainy all day I'm in that like rainy cozy I don't want to do anything Vibe so I did order Chinese takeout and I think it's almost here so let's go eat trying to take out never fails you let's see what my fortune is love is the Affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world I hate when fortunes are like wisdom like this one like I want an actual Fortune like what is my future gonna be like anyway I got these Pillsbury Christmas tree cookies and I thought it'd be so fun to make them I used to have these all the time as a kid and I have been looking for them every single Christmas for years and I can never find them and I finally went online and I found them at a Target like 20 minutes away from me so I drove 20 minutes just to get these cookies I'm kind of scared to try them because I feel like they might not be as good as I remember from when I was a kid so my drive might not have been worth it I don't know but I'm gonna bake some cookies I'm gonna take a bath and do some more reading foreign feels so weird wearing a bathing suit in December okay let's do a cookie taste test but I just as good as I remember well honestly they're nothing like crazy good but like the Nostalgia hits like that's the taste I remember I feel like Santa Claus like I'm eating like Christmas cookies but instead of milk I'm drinking wine if I was Santa I would request wine actually that's a lie I do really love milk which I feel like a lot of people think is weird I'm a milk girl I didn't like how it sounded okay I think I'm gonna finish in the holidays if any of you guys are not familiar with this book it's super good so far it's a Time Loop book so basically this girl is reliving the same vacation over and over again and it takes place at Christmas time in the snowy Utah cabin so The Vibes are there and I just love the main girl and the love interest oh I'm literally at the epilogue okay perfect I'm gonna finish this so fast oh my gosh how could I forget I need to put in my bath bomb I've gotten a lot of Lush bath bombs I love like the rainbow ones because they're so pretty to buy at the store but then whenever I put them in the bath the water is just like brown because there's so many colors this one was a little simpler just blue pink orange so I'm hoping the watercolor might look nice after I don't know three two one foreign I just finished the book I really liked it I would say four stars I was a little nervous when I first started it that I wouldn't like it because of the time Loop aspect I thought I would get really repetitive but I really don't think was repetitive at all and I thought it was really fun like I've seen Timeless movies but I've never read a timely book so to get to hear everything going on in her head as she's repeating the same day again was really interesting and seeing her try to like explain it to other people and get them to believe her and also make different choices every time plus I love the two main characters Andrew and Maisie they're so cute now that I'm done within holidays I think I'm going to read a little bit more of Icebreaker I feel like I've just gotten to the point where it's starting to get really good I drew to page 83 I don't know if this is really specific but I love in books when there is something different outside of just like the text of the story like diary entries letters text messages and in this book the main guy Nate has a group message with all of his like hockey friends so we get to see like a bunch of their text messages and then also Anastasia and Nate text and I don't know why I just think the text parts are so fun I'm definitely getting to the point where I'm like obsessed like I don't want to stop reading but I am cooking in this bath like I don't know if you guys have noticed but I have been sweating so I think I'm gonna get out and start getting ready for bed skincare time I would love to know as we're coming into the new year do you guys have any reading goals for 2023 wow it feels so weird to say 2023 that sounds like a futuristic year I mean I guess I know the future of the year but like it's got to be our year very soon I need to decide when I want to set my yearly reading goal to be for 2022 I set goal of 70 books and I surpassed that goal I believe in November so I feel like I can do better I think it'd be so cool to do a hundred books but I don't know if I can realistically do that and I feel like I never want to feel like pressured to read I always want it to be fun and enjoyable so I'm thinking maybe like 85 books for 2023 for my own personal goals now I feel like is the point in the sleepover where you could just not get me to shut up like we would lay in bed and I would just talk your ear off laughing gossiping like telling stories until you'd be like Ally I need to go to bed there's actually one time when I was like 10 and I had read somewhere that you like are supposed to get eight hours of sleep and I remember going to a sleepover and being like guys we have to sleep for eight hours tonight or something bad's gonna happen and everyone wanted to stay up late and I was like we can't like we're gonna die we have to get eight hours of sleep and everyone was so mad at me because it's like ruining their fun to like pull an all-nighter anyway I've been thinking a lot recently about just like you guys and YouTube and just like how happy I've been recently I've been making YouTube videos for a really long time just for fun like I made my first YouTube video in sixth grade just like with my friends so YouTube has always I feel like been a big part of my life but always in a hobby sense and around this time last year is actually when my YouTube channel started growing one of my book videos going to every bookstore in Austin started bringing a lot of new viewers to my channel and then I went full time on my YouTube channel in the summer of this year so still very new to like being a full-time YouTuber which is still crazy for me to say I don't know I've just been like so happy and I'm so so thankful to have all of you guys in my life that allows me to do this as my job especially now that it's marking like the one year of my channel gaining momentum I've just been feeling like really nostalgic to like my baby Middle School self who like always wanted this to be her job and now it is like if you told me that like five years ago even a year ago I would not have believed you I would be like you send yourself to the insane asylum because there's no way but here I am so yeah just like a big big fat giant thank you to all of you and that's part of the reason why I know I keep bringing this up but why I'm like so excited about doing the book club because I just want to become like best friends with all of you guys and I feel like it's such a good way for us to chat not just about the book we're reading but about like literally anything anyway I will stop talking your ear off and let you get some sleep and then I will see you guys in the morning okay good night spring is the season that wakes me alive and fall is the season to contemplate life good morning we are eating breakfast in bed well it's not really breakfast I'm just having a kiwi I used to be a big breakfast person like I would eat breakfast every single day without fail and lately I've been doing really early lunches like eat lunch at like 11 A.M so in the morning I'll just have something really small like some fruit so this morning is a kiwi oh that is not quite ripe but it's still really good I also try not to eat in bed but it's so nice and comfy I don't know why I feel like I'm at like a hotel in like room service brought me food and I'm eating in bed like I just love it I haven't had a sleepover with the person in real life in a really long time like in years I'm curious everyone would like it or not like it's so fun but also I feel like now I've grown accustomed to like my own bed I want to like shower before bed I want to have access to like all my things and like my comfort and I feel like after sleepovers as a kid I'd be like so grimy the next day because I probably wouldn't use their shower I'd probably like fall asleep in my makeup because I'd like forget makeup wipes or something I don't know I just feel like I just really valued my own space now but like vacations with friends I'm about that I feel like that sounds so lame I would still have a sleepover with someone in real life anyway I will let you guys go home because I'm sure you're feeling that sleepover griminess of you want to shower be in your own room so thank you so much for coming to my sleepover this was so much fun and of course my obligatory last reminder to join my new book club so we can continue the sleepover Vibes over there of growing our friendship and Buddy reading books together and like I said I'll have a link in the description that will take you directly to my book club and it helps me out if you use my link to go to it so yeah kiwi cheers to a successful sleepover bye trees cause it still feels like summer but it is probably\n"