book shopping in nyc + reading fourth wing + life reset _ mini vlog

**A Trip to New York and a Come-to-Jesus Moment**

I don't think I have footage of this trip, but I'm sure it was just thrilling to see Taylor Swift's original vinyl. It's always exciting to meet fans, and it sounds like one of our friends who is local to New York joined us on the trip. We went out for some Korean food with them after we finished visiting Taylor's album, and overall, it was a pretty good trip. I guess we're losing a friend, but that's okay - sometimes you have to let people go.

I'm at a bit of an impasse with this book, Fourth Wing by Taylor Swift. I'm 50 pages into the fourth wing, and I feel like I'm almost at a loss for words. This is some of the corniest, most cringeworthy stuff that I've ever read in my life. My expectations were not adjusted accordingly, which is why I'm still a little astounded by what I've been reading.

**SPOILER ALERT!**

I don't know how much more of this I can take, but I think I'll just have to spoil the rest of the book for you. Not only is the protagonist completely untalented and terrible at being a dragon writer or attempting to become one, but she somehow gains the ability to stop time and bonds with two dragons. This is something that no one has ever done before, and it's just not believable. Hearing her talk to the dragons was another level of cringeworthy that I wasn't expecting.

I'm genuinely at a loss for words, and I don't know how much more of this book I want to read. It's fast-paced, but in a way that's almost annoyingly so - it feels like people got sucked in by the idea of dragons and celebrity relationships, and decided that this was a good book just because of that.

I'm questioning everything about my friends' taste in books now. I don't have a single friend on Goodreads who has rated this book five stars, which is making me wonder if there's something wrong with my social circle. Maybe they're all just masochists or something.

**A Vlog Update**

I want to leave this vlog on a cliffhanger because I'm feeling so inclined right now. It was a fun and zesty little vlog, but I feel like I need to warn you all that things are about to get serious. I actually had a panic attack today, and I'm still feeling some anxiety. I don't know what triggered it yet, but I'll be talking about it in the next vlog.

For now, let's just say that I cleaned my house and read Fourth Wing. That's about all I can promise for this week. The next vlog is going to be wild and hot - I don't want to promise too much, because I feel like I'm setting myself up for disappointment. But let's just say that it'll be interesting, and you should stay tuned.

I've decided to finish this book and talk about some really honestly sad and depressing things that are happening in my life right now. You know how nosy some of your friends can be - well, I'm sure yours are too. They're going to want to hear all the juicy details about what's going on with me, and I'm happy to oblige.

I also have some exciting news: I'm going on a vacation with my little sister soon! We're heading to Rosemary Beach in Florida for the third week of June, and I'll be bringing my trusty mics with me. If you're there, please say hi - I'd love to meet some new people. But let's just say that things are going to get real on this vacation...

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my channel and welcome to start of a brand new lifestyle Vlog it has been a while since I have filmed one of these and I'm so excited to be bringing these back to my channel I if you are new here used to film some lifestyle Vlogs in 2022 where I shared more details of my everyday life took you around with me they were not the best but I sincerely miss them I was reflecting recently about how I miss documenting some of the more important moments of my life and even the mundane moments I had a beloved pet that passed away at the end of 2022 and getting to look back at those videos that I filmed where he was just in the background hanging out just don't want to miss out on any more moments in my life I want to be able to document those for myself and also hopefully share more with you I feel like I'm sort of retooling these videos going forward which I think should make them a little bit more exciting mostly in that I'm not gonna hold myself to the same standards that I did last time which was to pack in as much reading content as I possibly could over a given week while trying to also do like planned book content that was a bit Overkill these are going to be very lifestyle heavy with minimal reading and involved so if you just want to hang out with me you like beautiful b-roll and you just want to know more about my life I'm so glad you're here I am kicking off this Vlog because we just got back from a trip we just got back from New York and I'm ready to I'm gonna say change my life shall we say but I took an additional day off of work so that I can just kind of like get my life together I feel like I'm a little all over the place at the moment just because of some of the stuff that has been happening not gonna go into detail in this Vlog about some of the big changes that are happening in my life which are part of the reason that I'm going to be filming these Vlogs going forward because I'm kind of just still processing honestly some of the big emotions that I have kind of surrounding some of these changes I'll go into more detail on the next Vlog but I didn't want this one to be too sad so I'm not going to do that here instead I'm going to show you all of the fun b-roll and all of the fun Vlog footage from my new work trip and also just get my life together that is really what the point of this video is I want to clean my house I want to listen to an audiobook I knew I said this wasn't going to be all books all the time but here in this video I really want to read fourth Wing I've heard so many things about this book and yet I know nothing about the book at the same time I really just want to listen to an audiobook while I do clean my house I'll get my life back into order before I get back to my regular life tomorrow on Thursday so I'm gonna go ahead and finish up my makeup and then we can get started on some cleaning as I listen to Fourth wing thank you all right now that I am nice and appropriately out of breath from the cleaning I've been doing I wanted to take a second and tell you a little bit about the sponsor of today's video blue land as you all know I've been a homeowner for three years now which is absolutely nuts to me and in that time I have really figured out how important cleaning my house is to me I feel like when I was in an apartment or living with other people it was harder to prioritize keeping my home as neat and tidy as I would like I thought I'm in a home I have not only tried to prioritize keeping my house clean but I've also a vid super interested in finding products that really align with the things that I personally believe in and as someone who's been trying to cut down on single-use plastic I was super excited when Foodland reached out to me blue land believes that you can have it all with your everyday products their products are effective convenient affordable and sourced from clean ingredients blue land uses no single use plastic in any component from bottles tablets wrappers to shipping materials blue land is also EPA certified which means EPA scientists have evaluated every ingredient in the product to make sure it meets safer choices stringent criteria unlike your traditional liquid cleaners that are sold in single-use Plastics that inevitably pile up with blue land all you need to clean your house or hand is the this nickel size tablet stop paying for wasteful plastic bottles you are throwing away money when you throw away those plastic bottles in the past I would pay five or six dollars for a single bottle of household cleaner or hand soap and with blue land it's just two dollars and 25 cents for a refill and it's super easy to set up all you have to do is fill up a bottle with warm water drop one of the tablets into the water bottle screw the nozzle back on and you can easily use it in minutes I'm sure you can see I selected the clean Essentials bundle which gives you a glass cleaner a bathroom cleaner multi-surface cleaner and the Foaming Hand Soap which I'm really excited about because I'm going to be putting this in my primary bathroom there's so much that I love about blue land as I was pulling the tablets out of the packaging I was really impressed by the scents of each of the products nothing was over the top and then additionally I love the way that everything comes packaged in the cabinet under my sink there are endless bottles that all kind of look the same from similar Brands and with blue land everything is perfectly color coordinated you know which product you're going to be picking up based on the color so even if you for some reason missed the color of the bottle you can also look at the back of the nozzle for the color which corresponds with the product it is obviously if I'm going to pick up a multi-purpose cleaner I know it's my yellow bottle right here that's not to mention how amazing these products are when you actually go to use them I first use these on my bathroom which really needed a good scrub down after coming back from my vacation and I was surprised to have a little elbow grease it really took to get things clean if you want to try out blue land for yourself all you have to do is click the link in my description you get 15 off of your first kit I'm gonna get back to cleaning but thanks again to Blue land for sponsoring this portion of today's video thank you foreign so it is like eight o'clock I think at this point which feels so late and I feel like obviously should have updated you earlier however uh today has been a bit of a whirlwind Hayden and I had to run an errand together we got lunch and then came home I did some cleaning which all saw and then we had dinner so you know like not a whole lot of time to update you but I have been listening to the audiobook obviously in fourth Wing I don't understand the hype but I'm gonna be honest I can appreciate the speed at which this book moves and how kind of quickly you're getting into everything how thrilling it can feel if you're used to like slow moving or like plotting fantasies however I was trying to think of how to really Define what I don't like about this book and kind of what is making it not feel like this incredible immersive and amazing experience part of it's definitely the audiobook that that is definitely part of the problem a lot of people were complaining about this audiobook I noticed in the reviews for it and also in the replies that I got on Instagram they're like oh she had a cold when she narrated it was terrible and I haven't noticed that too much because I listen on three times speed however there is a lot of gulping which is not great but that has nothing to do with the book itself right the actual content of the book I think my issue and I think the initial thing that I thought and I think something that a lot of people who did not like this book said in the reviews were that it felt like why a fantasy they don't know that I like that because I think that is saying that ya fantasy is inherently lesser in some way than adult fantasy and I don't agree that it is yes I think typically you have slightly easier to digest pieces if you are going to be presenting information to younger age demographic that doesn't mean you have to like dumb things down it just means that things are going to be a little bit more straightforward typically um that's not bad this book doesn't feel like ya fantasy because it's not like the concepts in this book are easy breezy and nice to understand it's that the pacing and the World building is a little bit interesting you get thrown in immediately to this world and off the bat I was intrigued I suppose because not having to sit and like I don't know listen to the beginning of let's say like the way of kings that book starts out so so freaking boring like that's the comparison I'm making here guy on a caravan and you're learning about this world and you're like I don't care this book you know you're thrown in she's sort of almost like a Hunger Game situation where you've got a girl who doesn't know what she's doing doesn't want to be a dragon rider he's supposed to be a scribe or something because she's weak and she has no powers or I don't know something to that effect I guess humans don't have powers until they're bondage of dragons or some nonsense anyway but she's just not the right candidate I guess to be a dragon writer and yet her mom's making her do it because her mom's like a I don't know high up in the dragon army or something like that do we have our main character Violet getting sent to this like Dragon Academy where she's going to learn become a dragon writer everybody around her wants to kill her and it's really brutal and you're like oh my God like oh like she shouldn't be here she's not trained for this she didn't know she was gonna have to do this intriguing enough concept and again I think that's what initially like propelled me into the story I was like okay I'm down with this but the more that I read and the more that I am reading it's reminding me of a situation that I got myself into today I don't know that I got myself into the situation it was more like thrust upon me but we're having water pressure issues because there is a break in the main pipeline or something to that effect breaking them in trying to add water lines in my area and they ended up breaking it instead so clearly that process has not been seamless and that's kind of a comparison I would draw to this book right if you're trying to make updates you're trying to get a point across and you're trying to make it seamless you can't have it be disruptive that's where I'm going with this um the World building in this book is very disruptive it's like you're listening you're listening you're listening and then here's a fire hose have some World building it is a little jarring at times I don't like the kind of random interspersedness of the World building in this book it is kind of driving me a little bit nuts that you have to understand like what's coming next as I'm reading like I understand I suppose like the appeal of the story because people like dragons and people like enemies to love her stories and there's like a potential love interest I can already tell who doesn't like our heroine and like I don't know he's like he's a wing leader so there's like kind of a power Dynamic thing there but he like wants to make her better I don't know I don't know just there's so much going on and yet I don't really care that much about any of it I think the characterization is also kind of weak like the world building's certainly weak and then the characterization is also pretty weak Violet is just this character who is described as weak and yet she never seems to have any consequences to like her weakness I suppose like she gets beat up I guess but she's also not incinerated by dragons like some of the other people in this book who are obviously quite dumb so why is she not facing any consequences for her inadequacies I don't know basically she's the main character so we can't kill her off but I just I don't know I don't know y'all I really thought that I would like start this and be enamored because so many people have said this is incredible and such a fun fantasy and I really went in I think with the appropriate expectations that this would be a fantasy romance that it wouldn't be that great and here's the thing I don't think that fantasy romance has to be not as good as fantasy that is devoid of romance I just haven't found one that is better than most mainstream fantasies that's kind of where I'm at right now you know like I've never read a fantasy romance and I'm like wow this is like Brandon Sanderson level like this is really good so yeah like I went in with the appropriate expectations and I'm still disappointed I don't know I'm gonna withhold my judgment though I'm only like 20-ish percent in and our heroine hasn't like really faced anything yet you know she hasn't gotten her Dragon I don't know if she got a bond with the dragon we're finding out too that like dragons have writers once the human dies the dragon finds a new writer but the the dragons don't want writers or like fewer dragons want writers at this point and the humans need the dragons to like defeat their enemy and I don't really know who the enemy is it's like we're getting all this world building but like also I have no idea I don't know what's going on do I need better reading comprehension most likely I also think that like these things should be easily explainable you know paced well throughout the story and yet here we are so I am going to tuck myself into bed for a little bit I probably feel like the next hour to listen to more of this audiobook I definitely not finishing this book today which is such a disappointment but I'm definitely gonna get like 50 75-ish in maybe just 50. we'll see but I will definitely keep you posted and I will probably pick this book back up for the next weekly reading Vlog of course because like I'm not gonna leave you hanging I've got to give you all my final thoughts and feelings about this book but that's sort of where I'm at and yeah I just want to get cozy I just want to like snuggle up in bed and just like chill because I have been cleaning all day I didn't get like footage of all of it because even though I have this like new handy dandy microphone setup so like sorry if you're not loving the audio quality I do actually prefer the audio quality of my other microphone better this is actually like more convenient and better in an echoey how's the situation even though I have this handy dandy little thing what I was trying to say is that I for some reason cannot find all of my backup batteries for my camera so I've had to like charge the battery between filming it's it's right I can't just like film whenever I want to which is frustrating I have to be like strategic about what I'm building so yeah I've been cleaning all day and I'm so tired and I'm gonna eventually need to clean these sheets uh but I'm gonna do that like when I feed the cats right like in an hour so I can just like get in full crust mode I saw Tick Tock recently that was like productive people don't understand what a crust day looks like which is basically just when you're in bed all day and like are a complete sloth and you don't do anything like I need at least one of those days um every week and I haven't had one of those in a while since I was like traversing those mean treats to New York with Hayden speaking of which that's what you're gonna watch next uh in this like interstitial space between me talking about this book enjoy our delightful trip to New York and when it is over I will tell you more about this book hello hello from the Mean Streets of New York City my face looks horrible from this angle it was my head look like an egg vlogging with our new microphones it's kind of fun and I told you I promised y'all that I would give you content in new places and here we are we are at we're in the newest of places we're in a park the New York oh yeah if you if you look right back there that's the flat iron building so that's cool we're obviously really decided to take a pit stop we just had bagels and we are actually going to head to the Strand but it also doesn't open for 30 minutes so luckily it's a 30 minute walk so sometimes it's a 30 minute walk I don't know if I believe him or not well I mean it's 14 minutes from from where we are now so oh I'm getting the Beyonce Breeze me too and it's not doing me good you get Beyonce I'm getting rancid I'm putting I'm putting mine on my on my shirt and I think I'm ready to walk destroyed I'm gonna hold mine because it's more fun Magellan over here is navigating for us we go this way if we lived here we would have gone that's all I'm saying I don't know if we would have lived much longer but you know go off there was a bus coming and thus begins our trip and our true journey in New York city so we obviously went to the Strand and this is a place that I've actually been before I went in 2019 when I went to bookcon and it is equally delightful a second time around it was actually really fun getting to bring Hayden here this time because he I don't believe went with me the first time that we actually went to the Strand I think I went with a bunch of other booktubers which was fun but it was nice getting to explore this bookstore with Hayden he got some coffee I found a signed copy of yellowface by RF Kong which I was super excited about and of course I had to Mosey on over to the romance section to check things out um it's so fun honestly getting to check out your favorite genre in a new city because there's always books here that I don't feel like I see at my little Half Price Books or at um Barnes Noble so there's like a mix of new and used books here which I really like didn't like meet me at the lake by Carly Fortune um and I was obviously showing Hayden the sequel to his favorite Romance Planet barbarians and then we had a fun time too checking out the various erotica as well in the romance section we always have a ball together obviously our time in New York was definitely an interesting one it's something that I'm definitely going to tell y'all a little bit more about uh in the next Vlog it was a time of both like a great excitement and also um great sorrow I was dealing with kind of a lot when we were on this trip but we traveled to New York actually for a wedding for a friend which is really nice um also here's some delightful footage of the Ghostbusters car they were filming I guess in New York which is really cool to see on the streets but we went to Brooklyn later that day for my friend's wedding and it was absolutely beautiful brief there's you know a small chance you're watching this just wanted to let you know you're watching this beautiful and we had a really good time I would say the day after the wedding was probably my favorite time that we spent in New York we went to Chelsea Market which was a whole lot of fun I will say it was very overwhelming experience which I feel like I should have expected but it's it's pretty crowded in there and I would definitely recommend going on like off-peak days or off-peak hours because we went on Sunday and it was just a little bit overwhelming and packed I didn't even get to film in this bookstore which kind of sucked and then I would say like probably my favorite was the last day that we spent in New York uh we didn't have a lot planned on this trip again we were just going for the wedding but the last day that we spent there we had a couple of things we wanted to do we had some pizza over at Bleecker Street Pizza which was so freaking good probably my favorite pizza that I have had in New York to date we also had scars the day before which is pretty good but like this was my favorite um just a good slice of pepperoni uh we also went to olfactory which is a place where you can make your own perfume which I had a really good time doing and Hayden actually joined in on the fun as well and made his own fragrance as he likes to say then we headed over to a record store which I don't think I have footage of I got an original vinyl of fearless which is just thrilling obviously it's a Taylor Swift fan later that day we went and got some Korean food with one of our friends who was local to New York so overall it was a pretty good trip oh well I guess we're losing a friend hello let's have a come to Jesus moment shall we I am 50 into fourth wing and I feel the same way that I did in the first clip I feel like I'm almost at a loss for words this is some of the corniest some of the corniest stuff that I've ever read in my life think that my expectations just were not adjusted accordingly you know I thought that I had just did my expectations I thought like okay yeah like this is you know it's a fantasy romance like it's not going to be mind-blowing and yet I'm still just a little bit astounded at what I've been reading I don't know how much I want to spoil I'm going to do a spoiler section actually you know what I've decided okay spoilers right now so maybe uh skip ahead if you don't want to hear the spoilers not only is this woman girl whatever not only is she completely untalented and terrible at being a dragon writer or attempting to become a dragon writer but she somehow gained the ability to stop time and bonds with two dragons which is something that no one does and has never been done before and I just wonder why hearing her talk to the dragons was also another level of Courtney that I just like certainly was not expecting I genuinely am just I Atlas I'm at a loss for words in a way I'm not going to talk spoilers anymore I just think that this book is so fast-paced and I was gonna say decently written it's so fast-paced that I think people got sucked in I think people were enamored by the idea that there were dragons that there was going to be an enemy celebrities relationship that our heroine is like I don't know a little bit of an underdog that people decided that this was a good book they decided that this for the five stars I don't have a single friend I believe I'd Goodreads who has rated this lesson five stars so I don't know what that says about the friends that I have in Goodreads but I am questioning everything I'm questioning everything let's leave it at that and you know what I actually like kind of want to leave this Vlog on a cliffhanger because I'm feeling feeling so inclined this is like a shorty a shorty little Vlog a fun zesty little Vlog shall we say I hope you enjoyed that New York footage by the way I enjoyed doing the voiceover and just like you know General editing for that I wish that I would have shared a little bit more about my day with y'all but you know what a girl had not a panic attack but but some serious anxiety today uh based on some things again that I will be telling you in the next Vlog so next Vlog is going to be wild and hot you know I don't want to like Promise Too Much I Feel like I might have promised too much even going into this Vlog but I feel like I delivered right I cleaned my house I Read Fourth Wing I don't know what else I said I was going to do but I feel like I accomplished those things for the most part in the next Vlog what you can expect from me is finishing this book talking about some really honestly kind of sad and depressing things but like life update things you know like if you if y'all are nosy which I know some of y'all are I mean I'm nosy too You're Gonna Wanna You're Gonna Wanna stay tuned for the next Vlog there's definitely some stuff in there that is dramatizing me currently but uh we'll bake for hopefully interesting entertaining content I don't know I'm really selling it right I'm really selling this Vlog and selling the Vlogs in general but uh yeah this month is gonna be interesting next Vlog is definitely going to be more serious I'm going to be sharing that kind of stuff with y'all and then the following week I'm actually going on a vacation with my little sister is endlessly entertaining and he will probably be reading a lot on that vacation so she will have things to say for the Vlog I'm gonna bring my little mics like this and uh yeah we're going to Rosemary Beach Florida so if you're there the third week of June I will be there say hi or something I don't know what am I what am I saying oh there's gonna be Vlogs there's gonna be many Vlogs many much things happening this month but anyway thanks so much for watching this video love y'all so much and uh until next time thank youhello welcome back to my channel and welcome to start of a brand new lifestyle Vlog it has been a while since I have filmed one of these and I'm so excited to be bringing these back to my channel I if you are new here used to film some lifestyle Vlogs in 2022 where I shared more details of my everyday life took you around with me they were not the best but I sincerely miss them I was reflecting recently about how I miss documenting some of the more important moments of my life and even the mundane moments I had a beloved pet that passed away at the end of 2022 and getting to look back at those videos that I filmed where he was just in the background hanging out just don't want to miss out on any more moments in my life I want to be able to document those for myself and also hopefully share more with you I feel like I'm sort of retooling these videos going forward which I think should make them a little bit more exciting mostly in that I'm not gonna hold myself to the same standards that I did last time which was to pack in as much reading content as I possibly could over a given week while trying to also do like planned book content that was a bit Overkill these are going to be very lifestyle heavy with minimal reading and involved so if you just want to hang out with me you like beautiful b-roll and you just want to know more about my life I'm so glad you're here I am kicking off this Vlog because we just got back from a trip we just got back from New York and I'm ready to I'm gonna say change my life shall we say but I took an additional day off of work so that I can just kind of like get my life together I feel like I'm a little all over the place at the moment just because of some of the stuff that has been happening not gonna go into detail in this Vlog about some of the big changes that are happening in my life which are part of the reason that I'm going to be filming these Vlogs going forward because I'm kind of just still processing honestly some of the big emotions that I have kind of surrounding some of these changes I'll go into more detail on the next Vlog but I didn't want this one to be too sad so I'm not going to do that here instead I'm going to show you all of the fun b-roll and all of the fun Vlog footage from my new work trip and also just get my life together that is really what the point of this video is I want to clean my house I want to listen to an audiobook I knew I said this wasn't going to be all books all the time but here in this video I really want to read fourth Wing I've heard so many things about this book and yet I know nothing about the book at the same time I really just want to listen to an audiobook while I do clean my house I'll get my life back into order before I get back to my regular life tomorrow on Thursday so I'm gonna go ahead and finish up my makeup and then we can get started on some cleaning as I listen to Fourth wing thank you all right now that I am nice and appropriately out of breath from the cleaning I've been doing I wanted to take a second and tell you a little bit about the sponsor of today's video blue land as you all know I've been a homeowner for three years now which is absolutely nuts to me and in that time I have really figured out how important cleaning my house is to me I feel like when I was in an apartment or living with other people it was harder to prioritize keeping my home as neat and tidy as I would like I thought I'm in a home I have not only tried to prioritize keeping my house clean but I've also a vid super interested in finding products that really align with the things that I personally believe in and as someone who's been trying to cut down on single-use plastic I was super excited when Foodland reached out to me blue land believes that you can have it all with your everyday products their products are effective convenient affordable and sourced from clean ingredients blue land uses no single use plastic in any component from bottles tablets wrappers to shipping materials blue land is also EPA certified which means EPA scientists have evaluated every ingredient in the product to make sure it meets safer choices stringent criteria unlike your traditional liquid cleaners that are sold in single-use Plastics that inevitably pile up with blue land all you need to clean your house or hand is the this nickel size tablet stop paying for wasteful plastic bottles you are throwing away money when you throw away those plastic bottles in the past I would pay five or six dollars for a single bottle of household cleaner or hand soap and with blue land it's just two dollars and 25 cents for a refill and it's super easy to set up all you have to do is fill up a bottle with warm water drop one of the tablets into the water bottle screw the nozzle back on and you can easily use it in minutes I'm sure you can see I selected the clean Essentials bundle which gives you a glass cleaner a bathroom cleaner multi-surface cleaner and the Foaming Hand Soap which I'm really excited about because I'm going to be putting this in my primary bathroom there's so much that I love about blue land as I was pulling the tablets out of the packaging I was really impressed by the scents of each of the products nothing was over the top and then additionally I love the way that everything comes packaged in the cabinet under my sink there are endless bottles that all kind of look the same from similar Brands and with blue land everything is perfectly color coordinated you know which product you're going to be picking up based on the color so even if you for some reason missed the color of the bottle you can also look at the back of the nozzle for the color which corresponds with the product it is obviously if I'm going to pick up a multi-purpose cleaner I know it's my yellow bottle right here that's not to mention how amazing these products are when you actually go to use them I first use these on my bathroom which really needed a good scrub down after coming back from my vacation and I was surprised to have a little elbow grease it really took to get things clean if you want to try out blue land for yourself all you have to do is click the link in my description you get 15 off of your first kit I'm gonna get back to cleaning but thanks again to Blue land for sponsoring this portion of today's video thank you foreign so it is like eight o'clock I think at this point which feels so late and I feel like obviously should have updated you earlier however uh today has been a bit of a whirlwind Hayden and I had to run an errand together we got lunch and then came home I did some cleaning which all saw and then we had dinner so you know like not a whole lot of time to update you but I have been listening to the audiobook obviously in fourth Wing I don't understand the hype but I'm gonna be honest I can appreciate the speed at which this book moves and how kind of quickly you're getting into everything how thrilling it can feel if you're used to like slow moving or like plotting fantasies however I was trying to think of how to really Define what I don't like about this book and kind of what is making it not feel like this incredible immersive and amazing experience part of it's definitely the audiobook that that is definitely part of the problem a lot of people were complaining about this audiobook I noticed in the reviews for it and also in the replies that I got on Instagram they're like oh she had a cold when she narrated it was terrible and I haven't noticed that too much because I listen on three times speed however there is a lot of gulping which is not great but that has nothing to do with the book itself right the actual content of the book I think my issue and I think the initial thing that I thought and I think something that a lot of people who did not like this book said in the reviews were that it felt like why a fantasy they don't know that I like that because I think that is saying that ya fantasy is inherently lesser in some way than adult fantasy and I don't agree that it is yes I think typically you have slightly easier to digest pieces if you are going to be presenting information to younger age demographic that doesn't mean you have to like dumb things down it just means that things are going to be a little bit more straightforward typically um that's not bad this book doesn't feel like ya fantasy because it's not like the concepts in this book are easy breezy and nice to understand it's that the pacing and the World building is a little bit interesting you get thrown in immediately to this world and off the bat I was intrigued I suppose because not having to sit and like I don't know listen to the beginning of let's say like the way of kings that book starts out so so freaking boring like that's the comparison I'm making here guy on a caravan and you're learning about this world and you're like I don't care this book you know you're thrown in she's sort of almost like a Hunger Game situation where you've got a girl who doesn't know what she's doing doesn't want to be a dragon rider he's supposed to be a scribe or something because she's weak and she has no powers or I don't know something to that effect I guess humans don't have powers until they're bondage of dragons or some nonsense anyway but she's just not the right candidate I guess to be a dragon writer and yet her mom's making her do it because her mom's like a I don't know high up in the dragon army or something like that do we have our main character Violet getting sent to this like Dragon Academy where she's going to learn become a dragon writer everybody around her wants to kill her and it's really brutal and you're like oh my God like oh like she shouldn't be here she's not trained for this she didn't know she was gonna have to do this intriguing enough concept and again I think that's what initially like propelled me into the story I was like okay I'm down with this but the more that I read and the more that I am reading it's reminding me of a situation that I got myself into today I don't know that I got myself into the situation it was more like thrust upon me but we're having water pressure issues because there is a break in the main pipeline or something to that effect breaking them in trying to add water lines in my area and they ended up breaking it instead so clearly that process has not been seamless and that's kind of a comparison I would draw to this book right if you're trying to make updates you're trying to get a point across and you're trying to make it seamless you can't have it be disruptive that's where I'm going with this um the World building in this book is very disruptive it's like you're listening you're listening you're listening and then here's a fire hose have some World building it is a little jarring at times I don't like the kind of random interspersedness of the World building in this book it is kind of driving me a little bit nuts that you have to understand like what's coming next as I'm reading like I understand I suppose like the appeal of the story because people like dragons and people like enemies to love her stories and there's like a potential love interest I can already tell who doesn't like our heroine and like I don't know he's like he's a wing leader so there's like kind of a power Dynamic thing there but he like wants to make her better I don't know I don't know just there's so much going on and yet I don't really care that much about any of it I think the characterization is also kind of weak like the world building's certainly weak and then the characterization is also pretty weak Violet is just this character who is described as weak and yet she never seems to have any consequences to like her weakness I suppose like she gets beat up I guess but she's also not incinerated by dragons like some of the other people in this book who are obviously quite dumb so why is she not facing any consequences for her inadequacies I don't know basically she's the main character so we can't kill her off but I just I don't know I don't know y'all I really thought that I would like start this and be enamored because so many people have said this is incredible and such a fun fantasy and I really went in I think with the appropriate expectations that this would be a fantasy romance that it wouldn't be that great and here's the thing I don't think that fantasy romance has to be not as good as fantasy that is devoid of romance I just haven't found one that is better than most mainstream fantasies that's kind of where I'm at right now you know like I've never read a fantasy romance and I'm like wow this is like Brandon Sanderson level like this is really good so yeah like I went in with the appropriate expectations and I'm still disappointed I don't know I'm gonna withhold my judgment though I'm only like 20-ish percent in and our heroine hasn't like really faced anything yet you know she hasn't gotten her Dragon I don't know if she got a bond with the dragon we're finding out too that like dragons have writers once the human dies the dragon finds a new writer but the the dragons don't want writers or like fewer dragons want writers at this point and the humans need the dragons to like defeat their enemy and I don't really know who the enemy is it's like we're getting all this world building but like also I have no idea I don't know what's going on do I need better reading comprehension most likely I also think that like these things should be easily explainable you know paced well throughout the story and yet here we are so I am going to tuck myself into bed for a little bit I probably feel like the next hour to listen to more of this audiobook I definitely not finishing this book today which is such a disappointment but I'm definitely gonna get like 50 75-ish in maybe just 50. we'll see but I will definitely keep you posted and I will probably pick this book back up for the next weekly reading Vlog of course because like I'm not gonna leave you hanging I've got to give you all my final thoughts and feelings about this book but that's sort of where I'm at and yeah I just want to get cozy I just want to like snuggle up in bed and just like chill because I have been cleaning all day I didn't get like footage of all of it because even though I have this like new handy dandy microphone setup so like sorry if you're not loving the audio quality I do actually prefer the audio quality of my other microphone better this is actually like more convenient and better in an echoey how's the situation even though I have this handy dandy little thing what I was trying to say is that I for some reason cannot find all of my backup batteries for my camera so I've had to like charge the battery between filming it's it's right I can't just like film whenever I want to which is frustrating I have to be like strategic about what I'm building so yeah I've been cleaning all day and I'm so tired and I'm gonna eventually need to clean these sheets uh but I'm gonna do that like when I feed the cats right like in an hour so I can just like get in full crust mode I saw Tick Tock recently that was like productive people don't understand what a crust day looks like which is basically just when you're in bed all day and like are a complete sloth and you don't do anything like I need at least one of those days um every week and I haven't had one of those in a while since I was like traversing those mean treats to New York with Hayden speaking of which that's what you're gonna watch next uh in this like interstitial space between me talking about this book enjoy our delightful trip to New York and when it is over I will tell you more about this book hello hello from the Mean Streets of New York City my face looks horrible from this angle it was my head look like an egg vlogging with our new microphones it's kind of fun and I told you I promised y'all that I would give you content in new places and here we are we are at we're in the newest of places we're in a park the New York oh yeah if you if you look right back there that's the flat iron building so that's cool we're obviously really decided to take a pit stop we just had bagels and we are actually going to head to the Strand but it also doesn't open for 30 minutes so luckily it's a 30 minute walk so sometimes it's a 30 minute walk I don't know if I believe him or not well I mean it's 14 minutes from from where we are now so oh I'm getting the Beyonce Breeze me too and it's not doing me good you get Beyonce I'm getting rancid I'm putting I'm putting mine on my on my shirt and I think I'm ready to walk destroyed I'm gonna hold mine because it's more fun Magellan over here is navigating for us we go this way if we lived here we would have gone that's all I'm saying I don't know if we would have lived much longer but you know go off there was a bus coming and thus begins our trip and our true journey in New York city so we obviously went to the Strand and this is a place that I've actually been before I went in 2019 when I went to bookcon and it is equally delightful a second time around it was actually really fun getting to bring Hayden here this time because he I don't believe went with me the first time that we actually went to the Strand I think I went with a bunch of other booktubers which was fun but it was nice getting to explore this bookstore with Hayden he got some coffee I found a signed copy of yellowface by RF Kong which I was super excited about and of course I had to Mosey on over to the romance section to check things out um it's so fun honestly getting to check out your favorite genre in a new city because there's always books here that I don't feel like I see at my little Half Price Books or at um Barnes Noble so there's like a mix of new and used books here which I really like didn't like meet me at the lake by Carly Fortune um and I was obviously showing Hayden the sequel to his favorite Romance Planet barbarians and then we had a fun time too checking out the various erotica as well in the romance section we always have a ball together obviously our time in New York was definitely an interesting one it's something that I'm definitely going to tell y'all a little bit more about uh in the next Vlog it was a time of both like a great excitement and also um great sorrow I was dealing with kind of a lot when we were on this trip but we traveled to New York actually for a wedding for a friend which is really nice um also here's some delightful footage of the Ghostbusters car they were filming I guess in New York which is really cool to see on the streets but we went to Brooklyn later that day for my friend's wedding and it was absolutely beautiful brief there's you know a small chance you're watching this just wanted to let you know you're watching this beautiful and we had a really good time I would say the day after the wedding was probably my favorite time that we spent in New York we went to Chelsea Market which was a whole lot of fun I will say it was very overwhelming experience which I feel like I should have expected but it's it's pretty crowded in there and I would definitely recommend going on like off-peak days or off-peak hours because we went on Sunday and it was just a little bit overwhelming and packed I didn't even get to film in this bookstore which kind of sucked and then I would say like probably my favorite was the last day that we spent in New York uh we didn't have a lot planned on this trip again we were just going for the wedding but the last day that we spent there we had a couple of things we wanted to do we had some pizza over at Bleecker Street Pizza which was so freaking good probably my favorite pizza that I have had in New York to date we also had scars the day before which is pretty good but like this was my favorite um just a good slice of pepperoni uh we also went to olfactory which is a place where you can make your own perfume which I had a really good time doing and Hayden actually joined in on the fun as well and made his own fragrance as he likes to say then we headed over to a record store which I don't think I have footage of I got an original vinyl of fearless which is just thrilling obviously it's a Taylor Swift fan later that day we went and got some Korean food with one of our friends who was local to New York so overall it was a pretty good trip oh well I guess we're losing a friend hello let's have a come to Jesus moment shall we I am 50 into fourth wing and I feel the same way that I did in the first clip I feel like I'm almost at a loss for words this is some of the corniest some of the corniest stuff that I've ever read in my life think that my expectations just were not adjusted accordingly you know I thought that I had just did my expectations I thought like okay yeah like this is you know it's a fantasy romance like it's not going to be mind-blowing and yet I'm still just a little bit astounded at what I've been reading I don't know how much I want to spoil I'm going to do a spoiler section actually you know what I've decided okay spoilers right now so maybe uh skip ahead if you don't want to hear the spoilers not only is this woman girl whatever not only is she completely untalented and terrible at being a dragon writer or attempting to become a dragon writer but she somehow gained the ability to stop time and bonds with two dragons which is something that no one does and has never been done before and I just wonder why hearing her talk to the dragons was also another level of Courtney that I just like certainly was not expecting I genuinely am just I Atlas I'm at a loss for words in a way I'm not going to talk spoilers anymore I just think that this book is so fast-paced and I was gonna say decently written it's so fast-paced that I think people got sucked in I think people were enamored by the idea that there were dragons that there was going to be an enemy celebrities relationship that our heroine is like I don't know a little bit of an underdog that people decided that this was a good book they decided that this for the five stars I don't have a single friend I believe I'd Goodreads who has rated this lesson five stars so I don't know what that says about the friends that I have in Goodreads but I am questioning everything I'm questioning everything let's leave it at that and you know what I actually like kind of want to leave this Vlog on a cliffhanger because I'm feeling feeling so inclined this is like a shorty a shorty little Vlog a fun zesty little Vlog shall we say I hope you enjoyed that New York footage by the way I enjoyed doing the voiceover and just like you know General editing for that I wish that I would have shared a little bit more about my day with y'all but you know what a girl had not a panic attack but but some serious anxiety today uh based on some things again that I will be telling you in the next Vlog so next Vlog is going to be wild and hot you know I don't want to like Promise Too Much I Feel like I might have promised too much even going into this Vlog but I feel like I delivered right I cleaned my house I Read Fourth Wing I don't know what else I said I was going to do but I feel like I accomplished those things for the most part in the next Vlog what you can expect from me is finishing this book talking about some really honestly kind of sad and depressing things but like life update things you know like if you if y'all are nosy which I know some of y'all are I mean I'm nosy too You're Gonna Wanna You're Gonna Wanna stay tuned for the next Vlog there's definitely some stuff in there that is dramatizing me currently but uh we'll bake for hopefully interesting entertaining content I don't know I'm really selling it right I'm really selling this Vlog and selling the Vlogs in general but uh yeah this month is gonna be interesting next Vlog is definitely going to be more serious I'm going to be sharing that kind of stuff with y'all and then the following week I'm actually going on a vacation with my little sister is endlessly entertaining and he will probably be reading a lot on that vacation so she will have things to say for the Vlog I'm gonna bring my little mics like this and uh yeah we're going to Rosemary Beach Florida so if you're there the third week of June I will be there say hi or something I don't know what am I what am I saying oh there's gonna be Vlogs there's gonna be many Vlogs many much things happening this month but anyway thanks so much for watching this video love y'all so much and uh until next time thank you\n"