Real Drivers are Just Very Interesting: A Reading Experience

I recently had the opportunity to read a book that was just fascinating, and I have to say that it was totally worth my time. The author's writing style and the storyline were engaging, and I found myself completely absorbed in the story. One of the things that I appreciated about this book is that it was similar to another one of my favorite books, "Summer of Salt". While neither book was my absolute favorite, both had a certain appeal to them.

One thing that I noticed when reading this book was its creepy Halloween vibe. The atmosphere and tone were perfect for getting into the holiday spirit. If you're looking for a story with a spooky undertone, then this might be the book for you. Overall, I would definitely recommend it if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Reading Habits

I've been trying to get back into reading as much as possible lately. As a responsible adult, I'm making an effort to establish good habits and make time for activities that bring me joy. One of the things that's helped me get back into reading is having settled down in my life. It's amazing how much more manageable it feels to prioritize my hobbies when everything else is in order.

As someone who follows me on Instagram, you might be interested in knowing that I've been going through a bit of a midlife crisis lately. To be honest, it's been a bit of a rough patch for me. There were times when I felt like nothing was good enough, and that feeling of inadequacy was really overwhelming. However, I've come to realize that this is partly due to my mental health struggles.

One thing that's helped me cope with these feelings has been trying new things and taking calculated risks. For example, I've started considering the possibility of doing whatever I want with my channel from now on. This means posting every day except for weekends, and featuring a mix of content that I'm passionate about, including Sims-related content.

I know that some of you might be thinking that this sounds like a lot to handle, but I believe that it's doable. As someone who has been struggling with consistency in the past, I feel like having more freedom to experiment will actually help me stay on track. Plus, I've been working closely with my team to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

The Benefits of Midlife Crisis

One thing that I've realized about going through a midlife crisis is that it's not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it's given me the opportunity to re-evaluate my life and make positive changes. One of the things that I'm trying to work on is building good habits.

As someone who has struggled with motivation in the past, I've come to realize that having a routine can be incredibly beneficial. Establishing consistent habits, such as reading regularly, has helped me feel more grounded and focused. It's amazing how much better my life feels when I prioritize my hobbies and make time for activities that bring me joy.

New Bookmas Plans

As you may know, bookmas is an annual tradition where I post a daily wrap-up of all the books I've read in 2021. This year, I'm super excited to announce that I'll be posting a new video every day in December. While last year was a bit stressful due to personal reasons, I'm confident that this year will be much better.

One of the things that I'm looking forward to about bookmas is trying out some new topics and formats. I've been thinking about how to make it even more engaging for my audience, and I have a few ideas up my sleeve. Without giving too much away, let's just say that this year's bookmas is going to be an event to remember.

I'll be starting to film soon, and I couldn't be more excited. It's going to be a fun time, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with all of you. Whether you're a fellow book lover or just someone who enjoys my content, I hope you can join me on this journey. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone it's hailey and today i wanted to share with you guys the books that i have read recently i only have four books to actually talk about today because i went through a phase of having a really hard time with reading and i mean there were numerous reasons for that for the millionth time the move was really stressful and took up a lot of my time obviously especially because things like didn't go that smoothly with a certain logistical things were just a nightmare to try and figure out so things were pushed back and that just really affected my mental health so i lost a lot of interest in reading but i have been getting back to it which i'm so excited about so i have some kind of like halloweeny i know halloween's done but i have some books that i read around halloween to share with you guys today i do have some books like there's a couple that i can talk about one in particular wait a second so one of the books that i kept trying to read and i had the hardest time getting into it and then finally i just put it down is 13 doorways wolves behind them all by laura ruby i'm not sure if i need to give this book a second chance or if i'm just going to call it and dnf it which dnf is did not finish please let me know your opinion but i tried restarting this like three times and i just felt very confused and i don't know if it's when i was reading it but i just didn't quite understand what was going on and even going into it i find the synopsis very confusing as well so i guess it's not all that surprising that i was kind of like what the whole time i was reading it but it is a historical fiction and it's set around the great depression so like it is one that i really wanted to try but i'm just not sure if this one is for me like there's two characters i just held up a three two characters but one of them is a ghost and then the other one is actually alive so i was getting really confused between the two of them and what was going on and i just felt like things weren't really explained so yeah i had a time reading this not sure if i will go back to it please let me know if you have read it if you think i should or if you think i should just call it and dnf it speaking of the first book that i have to talk about today is actually one that i dnf'd and this one it wasn't because of when i was reading it it just wasn't for me but that is the ones we're meant to find by joanne he so this cover beautiful absolutely such me and the synopsis sounds very cool as well but this story just wasn't what i was expecting from it and it's entirely a case of it's not you it's me because i think this was a really well written book it seemed very interesting however it got to the point where like there was this shocking reveal and i was surprised by it but i felt like the book was going to be over soon after but it wasn't there was still a lot left to go so at that point i just kind of was over it which is why i decided not to continue with it anymore it's definitely a really unique and interesting sci-fi story and i was kind of expecting more of a mystery there is a mystery element to it but for the most part it's sci-fi so it's about a girl who she wakes up on this island and her only memory is of having a sister that she needs to get to and that's essentially where the plot goes you're following her as she lives her life on this island and is trying to get to her sister i think it's a book that you should go into not knowing a lot that's kind of the best way to try it out and i can see a lot of people really loving it but i just was like i thought it was gonna be done i was reading it on my e-reader so because of that i didn't realize that like you know when you're physically reading a book obviously you can see okay i have this much left but no because i was reading it on my e-reader so i felt like i was like near the end had maybe this much left but i actually had like probably that much left and i just i didn't really care enough to continue with it i struggle with sci-fi as it is so it's not generally my cup of tea so like take my opinion on a sci-fi with a grain of salt i think if you like sci-fi and are interested in that sort of thing this is a really fascinating book but unfortunately it just it was not for me so after that i read a small favors by aaron a craig and this is by the author of house of sultan sorrows which i read last year around this time which was a 12 dancing as retelling and i enjoyed that one a lot more than i was expecting so i was really excited for her to be coming out with a new book i couldn't wait for it and i did like this one but i didn't fall in love with it like i did with house assault and sorrows it's very interesting because it has like really small town vibes and it reminds me a lot of the lottery by shirley jackson in a very strange way like i think just the small town and there's kind of like a committee how they decide things it just makes me think of that so there is kind of a dystopian element to it but it's also set like in a western sort of civilization but i i had a lot of trouble with this one because there were a lot of loose ends that were never really tied up so you're left with quite a few questions and i know that kind of adds to the mystery of things but i felt like in this case it just seemed like certain characters were forgotten because you never really found out what happened to them so i loved the fact that the main character in her family they were beekeepers i thought that was really interesting and it also provided a very interesting symbol for the story i just like i feel like this was a book where not a lot happened and i felt kind of confused so similarly to the ones we're meant to find this is kind of an acquired taste like certain people are going to really love this book and it's not that i didn't like it i just definitely didn't love it so it was very interesting but at the same time i kind of wanted more it's definitely a book that you can read for the vibes like it's haunting and eerie and chilling just because of the atmosphere in the setting but i just kind of was left wanting a little bit more from it unfortunately but i definitely will read more by this author in the future next i read white smoke by tiffany d jackson this will be my second tiffany d jackson book that i've read i do have do i just have one more i think i just have one more of hers on my tbr but i'm definitely going to need to pick up more because i really love her writing oh my goodness is it good she also has a wiener dog so i feel like we're just connected on that level but anyways this i knew going into it was a haunted house story but it's a twist on your typical haunted house story that deals with some really important issues and i thought it did it in such a brilliant way like you have a girl who's kind of out running her ghost but then they chase her to her new town they're in this new creepy house like her mother's a writer so they're staying in this house as a grant and it's this creepy old abandoned house and there's a lot of like history to it that everyone else in the town knows but she doesn't know and that's where you get kind of the typical haunted house story but where this one differs is that it deals with some very important actual historical issues and like gentrification and prejudice and i felt like it was such an expert way to like address something like that it really was scary because like it's an actual real life thing so i found this very hard to read because it was super creepy but at the same time like i did not see the twist coming and i don't generally see twists coming but in this case like i really didn't see it coming and i was super surprised by it and it still leaves me kind of feeling like creeped out a little bit but it's such a fabulous book like wow this one totally blew me away and it's a great one to read and lastly i listened to the audiobook for horrid by katrina leno so i also have read another katrina leno book i read a summer of salt last year and i really liked that one this one's very different i had to stop listening to this audiobook while i was reading white smoke because they both kind of have a similar haunted house story vibe they're both very different stories but at the same time like it's the going to this house and the whole town knows the secrets around it but the main character doesn't actually know so in this case the main character they have returned to her mother's childhood home and there's this storage room that was locked but then some creepy things start happening and the main character ends up learning that there are some secrets like some things that she doesn't know that are major and life-changing so it's really interesting had a lot of vibes i finished it yesterday actually when i was listening to an audiobook because i had like an hour and 40 minute drive back from my hair appointment because traffic so i had plenty of listening time and it provided for very very interesting listening while driving in the crazy like montreal drivers are just very interesting so it was it was a fascinating experience but totally worth the read like i enjoyed summer of salt more than this one but i think if you're looking for like a creepy halloween vibe story it is a good one so those are all the books that i have read lately i'm really trying to get back into the habit of reading i'm trying to build up the good habits that i had before now that we've finally settled down it's really something that i'm trying to work on but obviously as you guys know if you follow me on instagram or whatever i've been trying to work on a lot i have been going we're just gonna have a little chat here i've been going through like a minor midlife crisis where i'm like just feeling like everything and i mean i know it's because i'm mentally ill but i feel like everything i do isn't good enough so i've been trying to change things up and bring some fresh things to my channel now going forward i do have bookmas which means a video every day but i kind of also had a thought that might be something that i regret and i'm not sure if i'm actually going to do it but i was kind of thinking of doing whatever i want with this channel pretty much so i wanted to post maybe every day except for weekends but it would just be whatever i want so i will continue obviously to prioritize book videos but i would also post like sims content the stuff that i was posting on my second channel and just bring it all here because kind of right now where i'm at is all the views on my videos are at even levels so i feel like if i start doing some different content i mean it's not going to hurt because i will start posting more consistently because i feel like part of the reason that i've been having trouble with the consistency of posting is because i feel really limited so i know that the second channel was to make it so it wouldn't feel so limited and it does do that but at the same time i'm like maybe i'll have everything in one space i don't know like if you guys hate the idea that's fine too but it's just something i've kind of been toying with it's like posting every day or nearly every day and just doing whatever and i know that might seem like a lot because i know in the past i have gotten overwhelmed with bookmas but i would like to mention that last year when i got really overwhelmed with bookmas i was not in a good place i was not medicated and really should have been now i'm medicated so i feel like it's going to go a lot better and i feel like it might be fun to do like kind of a video every day without the pressure though just like trying to but if i don't it's fine i don't know i've been in very weird trying to figure out my life and not knowing what to do sort of headspace in case you can't tell but at least i have started reading again which is nice i also really want to get back to reading vlogs i have started like four reading vlogs and i just end up not finishing them so i want to get back to those and posting them because i love vlogging it's just something about like when i take a break then it takes me forever to actually like finish a vlog and post it i will start them but i don't actually end up finishing them which is very strange and i don't know why i'm like that but it is what it is but yeah uh that i guess is my kind of announcement i will do a separate video but bookmas is coming and i'm super excited i have some really exciting topics for this year that i haven't tried before and i'm really looking forward to doing them for you guys so i'm going to start filming probably soon actually which is awesome and it's going to be a good time so i hope you will join me if you guys don't know bookmas is where i post a kind of christmasy it's like basically a month-long wrap-up of everything that i read in 2021 so i will post a bunch of different like topics and everything like that and i post every single day in the month of december and i have a blast with it last year was a little bit stressful but this year it's going to be a lot of fun again because i'm getting started early early so i will be prepared for everything but yeah that was those were all the books that i've read recently and that was all i really wanted to chat with you guys about but thank you guys so much for watching and thank you for your continued support as i have been a little bit all over the place i really appreciate it and i will see you guys in another new video soon byehey everyone it's hailey and today i wanted to share with you guys the books that i have read recently i only have four books to actually talk about today because i went through a phase of having a really hard time with reading and i mean there were numerous reasons for that for the millionth time the move was really stressful and took up a lot of my time obviously especially because things like didn't go that smoothly with a certain logistical things were just a nightmare to try and figure out so things were pushed back and that just really affected my mental health so i lost a lot of interest in reading but i have been getting back to it which i'm so excited about so i have some kind of like halloweeny i know halloween's done but i have some books that i read around halloween to share with you guys today i do have some books like there's a couple that i can talk about one in particular wait a second so one of the books that i kept trying to read and i had the hardest time getting into it and then finally i just put it down is 13 doorways wolves behind them all by laura ruby i'm not sure if i need to give this book a second chance or if i'm just going to call it and dnf it which dnf is did not finish please let me know your opinion but i tried restarting this like three times and i just felt very confused and i don't know if it's when i was reading it but i just didn't quite understand what was going on and even going into it i find the synopsis very confusing as well so i guess it's not all that surprising that i was kind of like what the whole time i was reading it but it is a historical fiction and it's set around the great depression so like it is one that i really wanted to try but i'm just not sure if this one is for me like there's two characters i just held up a three two characters but one of them is a ghost and then the other one is actually alive so i was getting really confused between the two of them and what was going on and i just felt like things weren't really explained so yeah i had a time reading this not sure if i will go back to it please let me know if you have read it if you think i should or if you think i should just call it and dnf it speaking of the first book that i have to talk about today is actually one that i dnf'd and this one it wasn't because of when i was reading it it just wasn't for me but that is the ones we're meant to find by joanne he so this cover beautiful absolutely such me and the synopsis sounds very cool as well but this story just wasn't what i was expecting from it and it's entirely a case of it's not you it's me because i think this was a really well written book it seemed very interesting however it got to the point where like there was this shocking reveal and i was surprised by it but i felt like the book was going to be over soon after but it wasn't there was still a lot left to go so at that point i just kind of was over it which is why i decided not to continue with it anymore it's definitely a really unique and interesting sci-fi story and i was kind of expecting more of a mystery there is a mystery element to it but for the most part it's sci-fi so it's about a girl who she wakes up on this island and her only memory is of having a sister that she needs to get to and that's essentially where the plot goes you're following her as she lives her life on this island and is trying to get to her sister i think it's a book that you should go into not knowing a lot that's kind of the best way to try it out and i can see a lot of people really loving it but i just was like i thought it was gonna be done i was reading it on my e-reader so because of that i didn't realize that like you know when you're physically reading a book obviously you can see okay i have this much left but no because i was reading it on my e-reader so i felt like i was like near the end had maybe this much left but i actually had like probably that much left and i just i didn't really care enough to continue with it i struggle with sci-fi as it is so it's not generally my cup of tea so like take my opinion on a sci-fi with a grain of salt i think if you like sci-fi and are interested in that sort of thing this is a really fascinating book but unfortunately it just it was not for me so after that i read a small favors by aaron a craig and this is by the author of house of sultan sorrows which i read last year around this time which was a 12 dancing as retelling and i enjoyed that one a lot more than i was expecting so i was really excited for her to be coming out with a new book i couldn't wait for it and i did like this one but i didn't fall in love with it like i did with house assault and sorrows it's very interesting because it has like really small town vibes and it reminds me a lot of the lottery by shirley jackson in a very strange way like i think just the small town and there's kind of like a committee how they decide things it just makes me think of that so there is kind of a dystopian element to it but it's also set like in a western sort of civilization but i i had a lot of trouble with this one because there were a lot of loose ends that were never really tied up so you're left with quite a few questions and i know that kind of adds to the mystery of things but i felt like in this case it just seemed like certain characters were forgotten because you never really found out what happened to them so i loved the fact that the main character in her family they were beekeepers i thought that was really interesting and it also provided a very interesting symbol for the story i just like i feel like this was a book where not a lot happened and i felt kind of confused so similarly to the ones we're meant to find this is kind of an acquired taste like certain people are going to really love this book and it's not that i didn't like it i just definitely didn't love it so it was very interesting but at the same time i kind of wanted more it's definitely a book that you can read for the vibes like it's haunting and eerie and chilling just because of the atmosphere in the setting but i just kind of was left wanting a little bit more from it unfortunately but i definitely will read more by this author in the future next i read white smoke by tiffany d jackson this will be my second tiffany d jackson book that i've read i do have do i just have one more i think i just have one more of hers on my tbr but i'm definitely going to need to pick up more because i really love her writing oh my goodness is it good she also has a wiener dog so i feel like we're just connected on that level but anyways this i knew going into it was a haunted house story but it's a twist on your typical haunted house story that deals with some really important issues and i thought it did it in such a brilliant way like you have a girl who's kind of out running her ghost but then they chase her to her new town they're in this new creepy house like her mother's a writer so they're staying in this house as a grant and it's this creepy old abandoned house and there's a lot of like history to it that everyone else in the town knows but she doesn't know and that's where you get kind of the typical haunted house story but where this one differs is that it deals with some very important actual historical issues and like gentrification and prejudice and i felt like it was such an expert way to like address something like that it really was scary because like it's an actual real life thing so i found this very hard to read because it was super creepy but at the same time like i did not see the twist coming and i don't generally see twists coming but in this case like i really didn't see it coming and i was super surprised by it and it still leaves me kind of feeling like creeped out a little bit but it's such a fabulous book like wow this one totally blew me away and it's a great one to read and lastly i listened to the audiobook for horrid by katrina leno so i also have read another katrina leno book i read a summer of salt last year and i really liked that one this one's very different i had to stop listening to this audiobook while i was reading white smoke because they both kind of have a similar haunted house story vibe they're both very different stories but at the same time like it's the going to this house and the whole town knows the secrets around it but the main character doesn't actually know so in this case the main character they have returned to her mother's childhood home and there's this storage room that was locked but then some creepy things start happening and the main character ends up learning that there are some secrets like some things that she doesn't know that are major and life-changing so it's really interesting had a lot of vibes i finished it yesterday actually when i was listening to an audiobook because i had like an hour and 40 minute drive back from my hair appointment because traffic so i had plenty of listening time and it provided for very very interesting listening while driving in the crazy like montreal drivers are just very interesting so it was it was a fascinating experience but totally worth the read like i enjoyed summer of salt more than this one but i think if you're looking for like a creepy halloween vibe story it is a good one so those are all the books that i have read lately i'm really trying to get back into the habit of reading i'm trying to build up the good habits that i had before now that we've finally settled down it's really something that i'm trying to work on but obviously as you guys know if you follow me on instagram or whatever i've been trying to work on a lot i have been going we're just gonna have a little chat here i've been going through like a minor midlife crisis where i'm like just feeling like everything and i mean i know it's because i'm mentally ill but i feel like everything i do isn't good enough so i've been trying to change things up and bring some fresh things to my channel now going forward i do have bookmas which means a video every day but i kind of also had a thought that might be something that i regret and i'm not sure if i'm actually going to do it but i was kind of thinking of doing whatever i want with this channel pretty much so i wanted to post maybe every day except for weekends but it would just be whatever i want so i will continue obviously to prioritize book videos but i would also post like sims content the stuff that i was posting on my second channel and just bring it all here because kind of right now where i'm at is all the views on my videos are at even levels so i feel like if i start doing some different content i mean it's not going to hurt because i will start posting more consistently because i feel like part of the reason that i've been having trouble with the consistency of posting is because i feel really limited so i know that the second channel was to make it so it wouldn't feel so limited and it does do that but at the same time i'm like maybe i'll have everything in one space i don't know like if you guys hate the idea that's fine too but it's just something i've kind of been toying with it's like posting every day or nearly every day and just doing whatever and i know that might seem like a lot because i know in the past i have gotten overwhelmed with bookmas but i would like to mention that last year when i got really overwhelmed with bookmas i was not in a good place i was not medicated and really should have been now i'm medicated so i feel like it's going to go a lot better and i feel like it might be fun to do like kind of a video every day without the pressure though just like trying to but if i don't it's fine i don't know i've been in very weird trying to figure out my life and not knowing what to do sort of headspace in case you can't tell but at least i have started reading again which is nice i also really want to get back to reading vlogs i have started like four reading vlogs and i just end up not finishing them so i want to get back to those and posting them because i love vlogging it's just something about like when i take a break then it takes me forever to actually like finish a vlog and post it i will start them but i don't actually end up finishing them which is very strange and i don't know why i'm like that but it is what it is but yeah uh that i guess is my kind of announcement i will do a separate video but bookmas is coming and i'm super excited i have some really exciting topics for this year that i haven't tried before and i'm really looking forward to doing them for you guys so i'm going to start filming probably soon actually which is awesome and it's going to be a good time so i hope you will join me if you guys don't know bookmas is where i post a kind of christmasy it's like basically a month-long wrap-up of everything that i read in 2021 so i will post a bunch of different like topics and everything like that and i post every single day in the month of december and i have a blast with it last year was a little bit stressful but this year it's going to be a lot of fun again because i'm getting started early early so i will be prepared for everything but yeah that was those were all the books that i've read recently and that was all i really wanted to chat with you guys about but thank you guys so much for watching and thank you for your continued support as i have been a little bit all over the place i really appreciate it and i will see you guys in another new video soon bye\n"