reading books i’m HYPED about| but did I like them? 📖🥀

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hello friends and welcome to a reading vlog. It's Friday. I'm waiting to pick up Piper from school. And you know what?

[00:00:08]I'm just in the mood to start a vlog today. So, that's what we're going to do. I don't know if it's going to be like a weekend vlog. I may extend it through. I It just depends. Okay. We're just going with the flow here. I don't really have a whole lot of plans this weekend, but the one plan that I did make, I'm already I'm regretting it. So, our community, they do once a year they'll do a community yard sale. And I've decided to sign us up for that. And it's tomorrow and I still have so much stuff to get ready. So, while I don't want to do it, like I really don't want to do it. I've already signed us up and I've got an audio book that I am listening to. So, I can kill two birds with one stone. I can listen to my audio book for this vlog and I can get some stuff ready for yard sale and hopefully I can get rid of stuff that I have needed to get rid of for a long time, like an embarrassingly long amount of time.

[00:01:15]Piper and I have gone through our closets so many times. There were probably six bags of clothes in our garage that I was supposed to take to Goodwill, but I just never got around to doing it. So, I went through those yesterday and got everything all situated. But, I still have some like home decor to go through tonight. So, I will be doing that while listening to The Bright Ears by Sarah Damoff. I started this while I was working today.

[00:01:49]I have heard nothing but good things about this book. Every review I see is like this was a five-st star read. This is a new favorite. So, I have very very high hopes for this book. And so far, I'm really really liking it. I would say I'm probably like maybe a 100 pages in, if that. I need to check the physical book when I get home.

[00:02:13]But I'm really liking it so far. Fingers crossed that this is a five star read because I have had one all year. One five star read all year, which I haven't really read a whole lot, but I just I need a good really good book. I need a new favorite. I'm craving it. And then as far as other books, I do know one book that I desperately want to read is Heathen and Honeysuckle by what is it?

[00:02:44]Sarah Bailey. Yeah, this is one that I have almost purchased so many times.

[00:02:52]Anytime I see it at Target or anytime I see it at Barnes & Noble, I'm like, "Do I want this book? Do I want this book?"

[00:02:58]And then I always put it back.

[00:03:03]But I've been seeing reviews again. Listen, I am easily influenced. I've been seeing so many good reviews pop up on Instagram and I'm like, you know what?

[00:03:16]I'm going to read it. So, I did end up ordering the paperback.

[00:03:21]Hopefully that doesn't bite me in the butt. And I actually do really like this story. I think it's a second chance romance.

[00:03:28]I believe it is. So, I do know that will be another book that I will read for this vlog. I don't know what else. We'll just kind of see where the wind takes us. And yeah, but I'm going to get off here cuz Piper is she's probably going to be walking up soon. Um, and she's probably going to ask me for John. So, I'll talk to you guys later.

[00:04:29]Happy Saturday, friends. I'm here with a couple updates because our yard sale happened this morning. It's like just now 1:00 and we had a few customers, but like was it worth the hassle? No. No, it it definitely was not worth the hassle of me taking everything out of the bags and the bins that I had them stored in only to just turn around and put them right back up. Did we get customers?

[00:04:57]customers, people, whatever. Our yard sale customers, customers.

[00:05:01]I'm thinking too much into it. We got a few people that stopped by. I was able to get rid of a few books. Piper actually sold some clothes of hers, so she's excited to have a little bit of money of her own, but I don't know that I would do it again. We are kind of a little ways out from sort of the heart of the city. We're definitely where the newer builds are. I mean, like just one street over, they're still building houses. So, I think people just didn't even think to come over here, which sucked. And we were the only house on our street that had anything out. So, I think that kind of played against us as well. But, you know, I did it. I didn't want to do it, but I did it. And Toy was a trooper. He was out there helping me and he sat with me. So, yeah. But we got everything packed up and I'm going to have to make a Goodwill run eventually.

[00:05:57]Got in the shower, got ready a little bit. I still need to do my hair. But let's talk packages because I did get a few packages delivered. Non-bookish first. I got this Makeup Revolution or is it even Makeup Revolution? I think it's just Revolution now. Air blur soft matte liquid lip in the shade black cherry. This looks kind of intimidating, but it's supposed to be one of those where you can like maybe just dab it on, shear it out, and it just like looks like a little blurred, but it's more of like a kind of like a purpley mauve shade rather than super black cherry looking.

[00:06:45]Okay, that's pretty.

[00:06:47]I'm gonna need to try that out. That's not going anywhere either. Okay.

[00:06:53]H. All right. And then I saw a Tik Tok on this.

[00:07:01]I need to stay off of Tik Tok.

[00:07:03]The PDN hyaluron aua PDRN hyaluronic acid hydrating capsule mist. I saw some pretty good reviews on it, like in the comments where this creator was talking about it.

[00:07:17]Can I open it?

[00:07:21]There we go. That works.

[00:07:24]Um, so I thought, you know, why not give it a shot? That looks pretty cool. Look at that.

[00:07:32]Okay, my skin is breaking out right now, so I'm not going to try it just yet. I've been using these new like wrinkle patches at night on my forehead. So, I'm starting to get a couple little spots.

[00:07:45]So, I don't want to put anything new on just yet until I get that taken care of.

[00:07:51]Now, books. So, this first book, I actually owned it before and I ended up unhauling it because I was just like, I'm never going to read this. And I it had been on my shelves for years and at that time I just didn't think I was going to read it. and I wasn't reading as much just like general fiction as I am now. I wasn't reading a whole lot outside of the romance genre. So, I ended up buying this again because I've been seeing it pop up a little bit here and there. So, Pack Up the Moon by Kristen Higgins.

[00:08:27]This is supposed to be a very emotional book. Hopefully, it's going to make me cry. It is. So, every month a letter.

[00:08:36]That's what Lauren decides to leave her husband when she finds out she's dying.

[00:08:41]So, already Yeah, that's that's going to be pretty heavy. This one I think as well is supposed to be a emotionally heavy book. This book made me think of you by Libby Paige. This, I believe, is a newer release and I have been seeing some really good things about it. The right book in the hands of the right person at exactly the right moment can change their life forever.

[00:09:05]The cover is really cute. 12 books, 12 months, one chance to heal her heart.

[00:09:13]Okay. I think this one follows the wife of I think she's a widow. Yes, I believe she's a widow and her husband is sending her books I believe for the first year after he passes.

[00:09:34]Could be wrong. This one, listen you guys, you're going to think I'm ridiculous and I know that I am. Okay, I'm aware of my ridiculousness.

[00:09:46]But my hardback of Road of Bones by Demi Winters, it was a book of the month edition and it sucked. It like had this really cheap looking glossy cover and I just hated it. I hated it. So I decided to grab the paperback of it. And this paperback, she's floppy and we love her for it. Okay, we love her. So I am going to unhaul my hardback because I have the paperback. Okay, now let me I've been rambling here for too long. Let's talk about The Bright Ears by Sarah Damoff. I put a clip in here of me finishing this book last night. Man, I knew it was going to hit me hard and honestly, I expected it to kind of hit me a little bit harder. And I think that was sort of a feeling that I had throughout this book. Not that it's a light and fluffy read by any mean. I just thought that it was going to dive a little bit deeper into some of the the themes and things that are in here. And at certain points, it felt like things were just happening and kind of being glossed over a little bit.

[00:11:03]We didn't spend a whole lot of time with certain things that I felt deserved a little bit more time. So, that's kind of where I'm struggling with my rating because I I do feel that this book could have been a little longer, and that's not something that I usually say, but it it went very fast. Things were happening very fast. But on the other hand, this was a beautiful book. Like the writing was beautiful. It was simple and easy to follow, but still beautiful.

[00:11:40]And the characters, you feel for them. They're not perfect, but they want to be perfect. They make mistakes. They have trauma. They have secrets. You are following four different generations of the same family. The book starts out in 1958, and you are following Ryan and his mother as they are fleeing from um the abuse of their father and her husband. And then you get Ryan and Lillian as they meet and kind of not necessarily trauma bond, but they've both been through a lot in their lives. And so they kind of they do bond over that and they they grow together over that kind of. I know that sounds really bad, but they've just they find that they have a lot in common because of things that they have gone through. So you follow them for the first few years of their marriage and you see them have a baby and be happy and then something just is dropped and it all comes crashing down. But there are many trigger warnings in here. Um alcohol addiction, miscarriages, domestic abuse. There there are many things in here going on. And I think I went into this book with the expectations of it really diving into those things like I said earlier, but I think the overall point of this book was to show the effects of one person's choices on an entire family. And you might think that you're making the right choice, but you're not. And you're putting a lot of hurt on a lot of people. And you want to remove yourself from a situation and be better, but at the expense of someone else. And again, wanting to be perfect and wanting to make the right decision and wanting to be different than how you were raised.

[00:13:48]and just all of the effects that that has on you and has on your family and still trying to show up for someone who is in an active addiction and still loving who they are. You still love them and you still care about them, but you are yearning for who they were before and you want that back desperately. And also having a parent come back into your life who you're not really used to and how that can affect you because that's that's my parent and I love them. But this is a you know you've not really been there for me. It's just been me and my other parent for my whole life and now you're coming in and you're wanting to play house.

[00:14:34]very just real and it makes you just take a step back and look at addiction and how that can really mess with a family. It's also about, you know, just finding joy in the little things in life and yes, bad things can happen to you, but what am I going to do about it? What am I going to do now? What am I going to do differently? This it was really good.

[00:15:03]So, I I think though that I am gonna settle on a four and a half star for it.

[00:15:08]It's not quite a five star.

[00:15:12]Four and a half. It was It was very good and I see why it's getting all of the hype that it's gotten. So, yeah. My next book I'm going to start Heathen and Honeysuckle. I have it on the counter in there. I don't know why I didn't bring it in here, but I'm gonna start that one and try and get some things done today.

[00:15:32]We'll see. But yeah, I'll update you all whenever I have an update.

[00:15:56]>> Hi, Murphy.

[00:16:00]Hi, Bubby.

[00:16:02]He thought he could come over here and just sit in my spot and that I wasn't going to move him.

[00:16:10]He's the sweetest boy.

[00:16:13]I don't know what I was thinking bringing this mini mic out, but there are many noises going on in my house right now. And I did not feel like going into my book room and putting my phone on. What are you doing, Murphy?

[00:16:30]I did not feel like putting my phone on the tripod and getting like a light or anything set up. So, this is what you're getting. Piper has two friends over.

[00:16:38]They just walked to the park. So, I've got a second to update you on the book that I am currently reading. I've got it sitting next to me on the couch, but I'll just pop in a picture because I don't have hands. I'm holding my phone and this mic. Does the mic help with the background noise? I hope so. I guess I'll see when I edit this. But Heathen and Honeysuckle, I am a couple chapters into this book. It is it's going well so far. It's told in a past and present timeline. So, we are following Darby and Leo and the book opens up and we know that like something has happened with these two and we're trying to figure out what is going on. Darby goes to the what is it?

[00:17:29]Pacific Coast Cove. Pacific Cove. What is the name of the series? I don't know.

[00:17:35]I'll I'll have it here somewhere. She goes for the summer to stay with her grandmother. She is from a pretty religious family and they have a lot of rules and expectations set upon her and she really she wants to do good by her family. but she just feels a little stifled by them. So, when she meets Leo at her grandmother's, he is a bad boy, a surfer. Of course, he's got all the ladies after him, and he is just like beautiful, and she is immediately like, "Yep, I I want to know more about you."

[00:18:17]So they start hanging out and he is really showing her how fun life can be.

[00:18:25]And then we are getting present day where like I said we know something has happened and Darby is about to get married to someone who she does not love but because of the expectations of her family she's marrying this dude.

[00:18:46]But then her sister comes in carrying a bouquet of honeysuckles, which is what Leo always called her was honeysuckle.

[00:18:54]So carrying that.

[00:18:57]And it's got a note from him.

[00:19:01]So she decides to run away. So we got a runaway bride.

[00:19:07]I'm I'm liking the vibes so far. I'm liking the vibes. I don't want to jinx it, though. But I think my little mini mic is dying because it's flashing right at me. I don't know. But I'll update you guys whenever I, you know, finish this.

[00:19:21]Probably when I finish this, which might be tomorrow because I don't know that I'm going to have a quiet moment to do it tonight. But yeah, I have finished Heathen and Honeysuckle by Sarah A.

[00:19:31]Bailey. I'm going to give this book a four-st star rating. I did overall really enjoy this book. I went into it hoping that I was going to love it, but also apprehensive because like I said earlier, this book has been getting a lot of hype. Everyone that I see talk about it loves it. And sometimes those don't really work for me. If it's a super hyped book, sometimes I'm on the other end where I hate it. That was not the case for this one. I thoroughly enjoyed the way that Leo and Darby's story wrapped up. I liked some of the this sounds, you know, a little depraved to say, but I liked some of the hardships that they had to go through in order to get there happily ever after.

[00:20:17]Um, there were some things thrown in here that I was not expecting. So, that kind of upped the emotional depth to the story a little bit for me. So, yeah, four stars. I did really enjoy this and honestly I kind of want to continue reading the series because the next book I believe it's the next book that follows Darby's sister and she is a single mother. So I'm very curious about that because I do love a single parent romance. So yeah, four stars for Heathen and Honeysuckle. And a little sneak peek for you guys because I am working on a like summer reading list. this is going to be in it because he's a server and it's set in the summer. I loved this.

[00:21:02]So, yeah, four stars. I did start The Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson. I started that last night, so I'm not very far into it. So, when I do have something to say about it, I will come back on here and share with you guys.

[00:21:15]But yeah, that is my reading update for now.

[00:22:29]Hello friends, another couch update for you because I cannot be bothered to move somewhere else. I want to become one with this couch today. I am 50% of the way through the poison daughter. I keep wanting to say poison princess, but it's poison daughter. And listen, I'm going to need our girl Harlo to open up a little bit. I need her to be just a tad bit vulnerable because she's driving me mad. Driving me mad. I need her to give just a little bit. Just a little. a little bit of something. Okay. I'm I'm struggling with her at this point. And I'm really really loving Henry for sure.

[00:23:14]Like anytime Henry opens up, you think that maybe Harlo is going to reciprocate, but she she doesn't. She'll give just enough to appease Henry, but never like anything more.

[00:23:33]Like on one hand I get it, but on the other hand I'm like okay as the reader gonna need a little bit more from you.

[00:23:40]I'm hoping that it's going to come because I am 50% of the way through and we just got past their wedding. So give me something else. Okay, give me give me a little something else. That's all I'm asking for right now. But I am really liking it.

[00:23:58]I'm enjoying it so far.

[00:24:01]I just hope Oh, girl can break down her walls a little bit. My mic just died. But I don't think I'm going to finish this tonight, but I will keep reading and I will update you tomorrow. I am here to wrap up this reading vlog. Last book that I read, The Poison Daughter.

[00:24:20]That was a long book. A long book. And like I said earlier, no audio. There was no audio to this. So, I read this on my Kindle.

[00:24:31]Uh, did I like it? I'm I'm struggling with it a little bit because I did like it, but I didn't love it. So, my rating, I think I'm sitting between like a three and a half or a four.

[00:24:48]Yeah, like three and a half, four stars.

[00:24:51]I don't even think I've told you what this is about. It is a standalone, at least to my knowledge. There could be I could see potential for more books in this world, but um yeah, I don't know. I know that this one is a standalone. So like Henry and Harlo's story has wrapped up.

[00:25:12]So, but I again I could be wrong because I haven't really looked into it, but I think it's a standalone dark fantasy romance following Henry and Harlo. Now Henry is from Mountain Haven and 10 years prior to this book taking place there was a drained attack and it killed a lot of his people. He is the heir. So his mother is the king and queen of um Mountain Haven. So he took a lot of what happened upon himself like he was not able to keep his friends and the people of his city.

[00:25:55]He was not able to keep them safe and they have been rebuilding for 10 years.

[00:26:03]And then you have Harlo whose mother and father is the king and queen of Lunamade. And Lunamade is a much bigger, stronger city than Mountain Haven, but they, you know, have, you know, their kids have kind of been married off for political gain. And Harlo is actually, she's 30 years old.

[00:26:28]She was married off to someone of her parents' choosing, but she is a widow now. But in comes Henry and his mother and father, and they want a political marriage. So Harlo's dad is like, "Hey, uh, you get to marry Henry, but I need you to do my dirty work for me. I need you to figure out what they're planning because they've just seemingly come out of nowhere. Nobody has really heard anything from them since this drained attack 10 years ago."

[00:27:05]So they get married. Also very important to note that Harlo has the gift of poison. So she can poison people with her kiss and her touch. But Henry is somehow Is that in the in the thing? He's immune to it.

[00:27:26]I'm going to have to look that up before I post this. Um, but yeah, he he doesn't die. And we spend a lot of time in this book trying to figure out, do they really like each other? And like, while yes, I get it because they both know that each other is coming into this marriage with ulterior motives. Like, I know that your family is wanting something from this, but what is it? And it's it's both sides. So, it takes them a very very very very long time to trust each other.

[00:28:02]Like a long time. And even at the be at the end of the book, I was like, do they like you could tell that they liked each other?

[00:28:10]But I feel like it just wasn't quite enough buildup from, hey, I don't trust you to yes, I trust you and I want to be with you.

[00:28:24]Because even like up until the end of the book, there were still secrets that they were keeping from one another and those were revealed like at the very end of the book. Honestly, I feel like this could have benefited from being a series at least a duogy maybe. So, we could have gotten a little bit more not only like the romantic development, but the character development because there wasn't there wasn't a whole lot of that in my opinion up until like the very end of the book. I know the trash man is out here, so I apologize if you can hear that. But the my previous clip I talked about like I need Harlo to give just a little bit more. I need her to be a little bit vulnerable. That went on until probably like 80% of the book.

[00:29:13]We we saw she was just she was fighting it. She was fighting it so hard. And again, I get it, but I did just need a little bit more in order to believe that these characters liked each other.

[00:29:27]And like I said, I was kind of questioning whether or not they actually did like each other up until the very end. And then it was just like, oh yeah, I I like you. So yeah, I think three and a half stars probably is where I'm going to land on this one.

[00:29:44]Yeah, it was fun, but just not what I was hoping for. And that's okay. That's all right. Okay, so let's wrap up this vlog. So, I gave The Bright Ears four and a half stars.

[00:30:00]Heathen and Honeysuckle I gave four stars. And then The Poison Daughter is going to get a three and a half. So, overall, I would say that this vlog was a success. I got some books that I had been really, really hyped to read off of my TBR, so that's always a plus. Let me know if you have read any of these books in the comments down below. Did you like them? Did you not like them? Give me all of your thoughts and opinions. And if you've made it this far in the video and you'd like to leave me an emoji, leave me a h leave me a rose for the poison daughter in the comments down below.

[00:30:35]Thank you so much for watching. Please like, comment, and subscribe, and I will see you next time. Bye.