COME BOOK SHOPPING WITH ME | Instagram controls my life

hey everyone it's jenny and welcome back to my channel the story ain't over so today i'm coming to you with a little bit of a different video this is gonna be a reading vlog slash like you know challenge video slash book shopping video and this video is being sponsored by karma which is an app and chrome extension that helps you never miss a price drop or coupon code i'll be talking about them a little bit more in just a second but first i want to talk about the kind of conception of this video and what it's going to entail so i decided i wanted to do a bit of a instagram controls my life video i've seen a lot of these before it was like kind of an older trend but i'm trying it out today so i left a bunch of polls for you guys on instagram last night and i wanted to see if i could get like a bunch of votes early on so that i wasn't like waiting during the day so i put up about six or seven questions polls uh to decide things during my day i didn't give you guys too much control because i am a control freak so i need to kind of decide things in my day but things that i was okay with kind of like letting go i was like okay you can decide this so the first thing that i put up was should i sleep in or should i wake up early and attempt to write and a lot of you were very kind and told me to sleep in so rather than waking up an hour earlier than usual i kind of slept in to my usual time that i usually wake up on saturdays to film so that was nice i did stay up late watching shiny videos but that's fine i'm well rested mostly so i haven't really looked at the rest of the polls i have a vague idea of what things are gonna win but i did put up a couple polls of what books i should buy and this is where karma comes in because i'm gonna be demoing karma and showing you how i use it to do some book shopping so karma used to be called shop tagger and they recently changed their name to kind of embody the good karma that you get when you shop smart which i think is really fun and honestly having tried other chrome extensions that help you shop i think karma is my favorite it definitely has a lot more capabilities than some of the other ones and it just made for a really easy shopping experience so it's super easy to kind of sign up and make an account i kind of connected mine to my google account and you just download the chrome extension on the chrome web store and it just adds the little button to your like bar at the top and it makes it really easy and accessible to use karma and so once you get to the chrome extension anytime you're on a retailer and there's a product that you like you can save it automatically right there to karma to different lists that you can kind of make yourself so i split mine out to like pre-orders that i want um just books that are already out and that i want to read uh random things that i want i also set up a list for stationery that i want because i feel like i'm always looking out for stationery that i want to get for my bullet journals but i don't necessarily want to buy them full price and one of the great things about saving a product to your karma list not only just to have like a shopping list of things that you want but don't necessarily want to buy right now it's also great because karma will notify you when there's a price drop for that product that you wanted and so you can set it up for any price drop or like 25 or more than that and you can also go to like your karma home page and like go through your list and organize it by like prices low to high or like what's on sale so that's what i find i like to do the best i like to organize it by what's on sale and so i can kind of see what i want to get and so the books that i put up on my instagram polls were all books that were on sale because i just didn't really want to spend too much money but these were all books that i was excited about and just happened to be on sale karma also has coupons that you can use and whenever you are checking out at any kind of retailer it will tell you the coupons that are available and it'll also automatically test those coupons for you so you don't have to keep like copying and pasting them into the coupon bar um another great thing is that with the notifications that it does you can either get emails or you can get push notifications on your phone if you download the app and if you shop from select retail partners you can also get cash back via paypal which is also super great so overall i just love like the whole concept of karma and now we are gonna go book shopping and i'm very very excited because um yeah i just love buying books it's like a whole other hobby beyond reading books i feel like buying books is like its own thing um so yes very excited we're gonna look at the polls that i put up on instagram as well and see which books are winning i have an idea potentially of what will win but we'll see okay so this isn't the most flattering angle but it's like directly in front of my monitor so it makes a little bit more sense okay so we're gonna go shopping so as you can see i have like a bunch of my items here i spent some time the other day adding stuff um like some books some stationery a body pillow that i want um so we are gonna go to what's on sale um and we're also gonna go to my want to read list so i'm not really interested in getting um any pre-orders today or stationery today we'll see um but this is my want to read list um and these are the stuff that's on sale so you can see like last saved and then this is the high to low view which is very convenient and low to high um so the cheapest books at the top and then the more expensive ones down here i really want to get gold diggers by sanjina sathyan because i saw rashani shakshi talk about it on her instagram but it's really expensive even though it's already on sale it's originally 36 but it's like down to 30 but i'm still not convinced that that's a good price 30 canadian by the way i'm canadian okay so the books that i put on my instagram pools were these four up here so um days of distraction by alexandra chang um which i actually heard about through um alexandria on instagram i'm just gonna go to the page on chapters so i'm canadian so i usually shop through choppers indigo um it's the like big book retail chain here in canada i did used to work there also which was a lot of fun and i used to like recommend books all the time and i used to have a discount on the books um now i do not which is unfortunate but yeah so david distraction is one of the books that i put up on my poll and this was recommended by alexandria on instagram and she also has a booktube channel i've talked about her a couple times i'll leave her link down below but i saw her talk about this book from what i know it's like a contemporary book with a 24 year old narrator and she's asian american and it's just like her life and i think it's a little bit on the literary side contemporary side and she just said it was great so i'm very excited to try it out i also just really like the cover i think it's really pretty all right and then the other book that i was thinking about buying is the final revival of opal and nev by donnie walton this recently came out and i've seen it on bookstagram a lot from like various different accounts um and the cover is just really nice i like the guitar on it i have seen it compared to daisy jones and the six which is why i was like super interested in it um i think it was amplified bookstore on their instagram they did like an if you like this you might like this um kind of recommendation so i was super curious about it and it does involve a interracial rock duo in the 1970s which i thought was like super cool and then another reason why i was thinking about picking this up was because uh this book is on sale right now 39 off on indigo and it is a paperback um so that's why i was like okay these two books are on sale they're great concepts i'm interested in them so these might be two good ones to pick up so i put up my poll on instagram and let's see what you guys said so i did take a peek last night and i thought that opal nev would be winning by like a long shot because i've seen it everywhere what i found instead was that days of distraction was actually the more popular option days of distraction is winning by 64 64 of you voted for it and 36 voted for opel nev so i'm gonna go with days of distraction over here it's 21 to 52 canadian it's 35 off which is a great price there is a paperback for like 50 cents less which is not on sale and i can't decide but i feel like the the hardcover might be really pretty so i'm going to go with the hardcovers since it's on sale all right then the other two books that i also put a poll up for on instagram were the downstairs girl by stacy lee and i have been wanting to read this for so freaking long i've heard so many great things about stacey lee's books i've seen her books like everywhere they all feature asian american protagonists but they're often historical which i think is really cool and i haven't gotten to read one of them yet but i've heard really great things about the downstairs girl and i think it was on my wish list for this year and i also saw that the hardcover was on sale but there's also a paperback which is a little bit cheaper so i think i would probably go with that because it's 14.99 and the other book that i put as an option for that instagram story was raybear by jordan fuco and i have seen so many great things about this book so many people have been raving about it it is a y fantasy with a black main lead and i don't honestly know too much about like the actual story itself but i think i read the description like once and it just seemed really cool it i don't exactly remember what it was but like i don't wanna know more because i just wanna kind of dive into it but it's the same story with this one the hardcover is on sale so it's 22 off so it's 18.57 but there's also a paperback for 13.99 but i'm kind of on the fence with this one because i don't know if the rest of you feel this but i honestly own all of my like fantasy series in hardcover mostly because often times like i read the first book but then i want to read the next one as soon as it comes out and obviously as soon as it comes out it comes out in hardcover and so i need them to match and so i end up with like a bunch of hardcovers even though i personally prefer paperbacks and so sometimes if the series is like already done by the time i get to it like by the time i start to read it then i'll just get all of the paperbacks which is what i did with poppy war but for other books it's just like i can't do that sometimes so yeah i'm like on the fence here because like if i buy the paperback then i have to buy the paperbacks for the rest but then if i want to read the second one when it comes out i'll have to wait like a year for the paperback to come out so i can buy it but then i want to read the book as soon as it comes out so i'll probably have to like borrow from the library but then there will be like a bajillion holds on it at the library and so i won't be able to read it right away so i'm like on the fence but i also don't want to spend like the extra money on a hardcover so here we are i think i'm going to end up going with the paperback because i just like paperbacks and they're just easier to read from i feel like um i read in bed a lot so like i'll you know lie on my side and read through a paperback so it's like really nice so that's where i'm at but between these two books so ray bear and the downstairs girl i probably shouldn't have paired them because they're so different like downstairs girl is a historical book and then ray bearer is like a fantasy and fantasies usually tend to do really well but it looks like 61 of you voted for ray bearer and then 39 voted for the downstairs girl so you guys are controlling my life so i'm adding ray bear to my cart and oh my god i just realized the paperback doesn't come out until august so i guess i'm getting the hardcover or what me oh well it's on sale it's fine um i guess it'll match with all the rest so my dilemma was a non-dilemma i'm so traumatic okay so we have days of track distraction ray bearer i also have to buy my little cousin a barbie doll because apparently she wants one so i'm just gonna grab the link to that i mean i could also buy some other books i did really want to buy we are not free by tracy but i also feel like i might want to listen to the audiobook for that and so usually if i feel like i'm going to listen to the audiobook i try not to buy the actual book but i've also been stupid and done the exact opposite so yes i also have like ace of spades here which i really want to read um wings of ebony i also really want to read but i do know the audiobook is on scribd so i'll probably listen to the audiobook and then i have like some south asian like romances here serena thing flips the script the dating plan i really want to read both i don't know if i want to buy them though right now especially because they're both not on sale so i think i'm gonna wait for them to go on sale and karma will let me know um so that's probably what i'm gonna do okay so i'm pretty happy with this it's a good haul i'm not buying too much i let you guys decide and i'm excited about both books and i think i'll actually get to them pretty soon um because days of distraction is kind of the perfect like literary type thing that i want to pick up right now that i'm kind of in the mood for and then i've been wanting to read ray bearer for a while so i think it's just a good decision overall and i'm getting my cousin her barbie doll so yeah we're gonna go check out now all right so now that we've done our book shopping i also put up a story of any questions that you guys might have so i thought i'd answer a couple right now so someone asked for my favorite songs at the moment and i am actually currently in love with shinee's repackaged album atlantis of like their new seventh album don't call me um i love shiny i've always loved shiny they're my favorite k-pop group ever they're really the only k-pop group i listen to anymore but i just love getting new music from them and i went down a rabbit hole of making a playlist of all my favorite songs by them so that was great so yeah literally anything by shiny makes me happy and that's kind of what i'm listening to right now it's been a while since like i listened to their old albums so i'm just loving all of those but if anyone's interested i'll leave the shiny playlist linked down below because they're just awesome and you should check them out someone else what changes do you feel in the book community from the day you started and today i started my channel at the end of 2017 so it's been quite a while but i feel like in terms of changes that i can visibly see there's a lot more people of color on booktube but now i feel like a lot more bigger channels that are people of color uh so that's really exciting and then i feel like content has really changed like over the years on booktube like at the beginning there's like a lot of tags and challenges and stuff and i've been watching booktube since like i was in high school so i've been watching since like the og years and um i've seen how like the content has kind of changed and how like reading vlogs became a really big thing around the time that i started but i feel like now they're not as big of a thing and even though there's like a lot of the staple content like tbrs book hauls wrap ups that kind of thing which is a lot of stuff that i do still i feel like there's a lot of people who are now branching out you know i'm doing journaling videos i've seen a lot of other booktubers do journaling videos or more like lifestyle videos which i just personally really enjoy like i like the mix of lifestyle and booktube and just like other things other interests sprinkled in a lot more booktubers are posting about like their interest in kpop which i love um so yeah i just like the variety that's kind of popping up um and i'm just always excited for for new booktube content someone asked what's a series you found was not as good as everyone said it was um for this i definitely have to go with the raven cycle i've talked about this in my popular books i don't like anymore video i read the entire series actually i think most of it through the audiobook so that might have affected my opinion but i honestly just didn't see the appeal in that whole series i felt like i was just kind of muddling through it and it was like vaguely interesting but not that interesting um yeah so that was like an interesting one like i feel like it got hyped really hard and it was really really popular when like the last couple books were coming out but i just honestly didn't really connect to it that's the one that like always comes to mind but like usually booktube is like pretty good about like telling me books that i like but i'm also a pretty good judge of like what i know i'm gonna like so i rarely end up picking up books that i don't like so yeah and then someone asked how excited are you for the shadow and bone series and do you like the crow's mission i am so excited for the shadow and bone series like i just am a ball of excitement i took the day off next week for when it comes out i think this video goes up like a couple of days before it comes out so i'm gonna be like screaming internally but yeah i'm just so excited by the cast by like the sets all of these snippets that they've posted like it just seems like it's gonna be awesome and it's just gonna be eight hours of just pure joy for me so yeah i'm super excited definitely watch out for the review that i do after the show comes out because i'm gonna binge it all one day and then film a review the next day and just talk all things shadow and bone i am also really excited for the crow's mission actually i love the way that they're bringing the two series together and i love that it's gonna be like extra content about the crows pre the actual book so very excited okay so i think that's enough questions for now so i think now i will get to the next story that i posted which was to decide which book box i should unbox in this vlog so i put up the option between owlcrate and illumikrite i think both of these are the march boxes if i'm not mistaken my fairy loot one hasn't come yet so that's why i'm not doing like the full roundup of all three in one video but i thought it would be fun to unbox one today and let you guys decide so when i first put this up i think i checked like a couple hours afterwards and illumicrate was actually winning and it was like i had to buy like 100 points but i guess the you know nighttime crowd is a little bit different and now it's 51 to 49 owlcrate is winning um which is kind of interesting and it's actually quite on par which i thought was kind of interesting like i don't know if you guys have a preference for which book box i kind of find that they all kind of get mixed up in my head but i think they're all great and i love all the book choices that they have and all like the cute little knickknacks but i guess we are unboxing an owlcrate box today i haven't unboxed a book box in a while i feel like so this should be fun oh okay so first thing in here is the theme card which is of witches and wonder which is super cute i love this artwork like i love the colors they're just totally my vibe so first thing in here is a little pin which is very exciting i'm like so obsessed with pins these days ever since i got my like little um pennant flag that i put my pins on i have them on display now and so they just look really pretty so this one is by icy designs and it says magic has consequences and it's so cute it's like a little cauldron oh i love this so much super cute next thing in here is this little box and let's find out what's inside it's gonna be like a lip balm perfume what's inside oh what is this perfume oil i was right okay so it is by fiction bath co and it's emmanuel it's blackberry sage and cypress and i'll create exclusive handmade 10 milliliter perfume oil so this is it i feel like the name is a name of a character in the book in the box let's smell this too oh that's so nice yeah it's like the little rollerball like perfume thing that's super cute i love it okay next is this white box here with the little designs on it i love the like packaging for owlcrate boxes they're so cute so it says reading through seasons to celebrate the unique beauty found in each of the four seasons we've created a special limited edition of drinkware designed by artist macarena chomek our tribute to springtime and its lovely blossoms is this stunning tumbler featuring a quote from sylvia plath interesting okay oh it's like a little like the short tumblers oh that's cute i love these cheers for spring for life for a growing soul oh that's so cute this is actually adorable i love these and i was actually thinking about how i wanted one of these so this is perfect i like drink my tea in this okay the next thing in here is super cute and it is a bookmark holder sleeve thing like i've seen book sleeves but this is a bookmark sleeve which i think is adorable and it says magic is desire made real and it's got like this butterfly on it and like this whole design is just beautiful and it's designed by amy mac illustration which is super cool but yeah it's like this fabric pouch thing and i love it oh my god so cute okay next we have this little box here and on the back it says there's a little witch in all of us add a bit of magic to your morning brew with this tea bag rest it keeps your tea bag or tea ball or spoon tidy while you've got your nose stuck in a book that is adorable oh my god oh that's so cute i mean this also kind of works as like a jewelry um plate which i also love so it says there's a little witch in all of us it's so cute oh my god i love the star shape oh okay the next thing in here i think is a sketchbook yeah oh my god i was just thinking that i should get a sketchbook so this is perfect so it says the magician on the front and it's got this beautiful artwork of this like witchy girl and i love this so much oh my god it's so pretty it's designed by talia skies so that's super super pretty i love love this artwork so much okay so before we get to the book of the box i'm going to show you two last things so one is this little bookmark which is this reading challenge that is being hosted by owlcrate i guess so for each letter there's like a different prompt so that's super cool i love this and honestly like i probably do most of these in a year so i'm excited to try this out and then on the back you can also write the books that you read for each prompt all right and then for next month's theme it's going to be ruthless rivals for april and every box will include an exclusive bag of coffee from fable grounds coffee which is really cool and as you guys probably know i'm a huge coffee fan so very excited okay and the book of the month is sweet and bitter magic by adriana tully and this is an owlcrate sign edition and i think the cover has some like extra elements in the background but honestly i've never heard anything about this book so i'm very interested i'm gonna read you the little letter on the back so dear owlcrate reader i always wanted to be a writer but for so long i was afraid to dig deep enough to give my stories what they needed my unfiltered honest heart in sweet and bitter magic both tamarin and ren grapple with their hearts and how they work throughout the book they both come face to face with their grief and their ghosts but also with their love and their hope i hope you find something in the heart of this book that speaks to your soul i hope you learned how to trust your own heart even when you might be afraid of or unsure who knows what you might find there x adrian that's adorable and this also has sprayed edges which i'm so excited about they're purple which i just love because if you didn't know purple is my favorite color i think i've mentioned that before but i'm very excited now oh my god it's so pretty okay so that's like the letter adorable oh my god the back is really pretty too of this book look at that oh my god i love the artwork so this is the book we're gonna open it up oh it's signed to look at that and we're gonna take off the dust jacket oh that's so cute look at that little bow i'm so curious about how this book is gonna be i'm also curious if it's like queer in any way or if they're just like friends throughout but still either way very cool let me know if anyone has picked up sweet and bitter magic and what you thought of it if you did because i'm super curious about it okay so we're done our unboxing we're done our book shopping i have two more polls that i put up so one was if i should finish reading the gilded ones or if i should start reading clara and the sun so i put this up and i honestly thought it would be kind of equal but gilded ones actually totally smashed car in the sun out of the park 84 of you voted for the gilded ones which i thought was just super interesting i did start this in a vlog a few weeks ago or maybe like a month ago i haven't made much progress to be honest i think i read the first 50 pages in that vlog and i'm only at 118 pages now i just haven't gotten around to continuing with this one but i'm very excited to continue so far it's been like really kind of dark darker than i expected it to be which i sort of mentioned in that last vlog where i talked about this the first few chapters has like a lot of death um and like kind of gruesome things going on but it's not described in detail but some of the later things that i've recently read in like the next 50 pages have been described in detail so i'm kind of like this is a lot but i'm also really enjoying it and i'm very curious to see where it's going to go so yeah i'm kind of happy that you guys decided to make me finish this one because i do want to finish another book this month i think i've finished two so far which was shadow and bone and charming as a verb so yeah i really need to get on it to finish some more books this month and i'm excited to find out what happens in this one so i will be reading this and i'll let you know more of my thoughts later on in the day and then the last story that i put up or pulled that i put up was should i film a tick tock or video of books that make me cry or happy and so i thought that most of you would pick cry because you know you love the angst or whatever but most of you actually voted for happy so it was 42 cry and 58 happy so that's what i'm gonna try to do i have a few tick tocks that i like kind of want to try filming today we'll see how they go the sunlight is not really on my side so i might just end up doing them tomorrow when it's sunnier but yes i will definitely be doing a tick tock on books that make me happy or potentially a full video but i probably won't film that until like next week i will also probably at some point film one of books that make me cry so you can look forward to that as well okay but that's all i got for right now i'm gonna go probably grab some lunch maybe film some of those tick tocks and then read more of the guilted ones and update you i think i'll update you when i like read maybe 100 more pages we'll see how it goes [Music] [Music] so [Music] hello friends so it's a lot later i'm very tired i took a little nap as you may be able to tell but i got a little bit further in the golden ones and i'm finding it kind of a little bit slow i feel like it's being a bit repetitive um and not really moving along but the i what i assume to be the male love interest has entered um and there's been a little bit more interaction so that's good but yeah i'm just hoping it like picks up very very soon or else i'm going to be a little bit annoyed but so far like it's still interesting and i want to find out what's going to happen our main character is very sweet and like sort of naive i would say along with the other girls because they've been kind of conditioned in their society but yeah so i'm interested to see like how this is gonna end and like what the like development's gonna be by the end of this book because i know it is a series or i'm assuming it's a series so like with a series sometimes like they leave some of the character development for later on so yeah i'm interested to see um where it goes by the end but i think that's about all i have for this vlog so thank you so so much for watching and kind of coming book shopping with me this morning i had a lot of fun and i can't wait to i can do that again i think it'll be a fun thing to do later on again but yeah if you haven't checked out my instagram twitter goodreads or tic tac i guess go check them out down below i have them all linked and i will see you in my next video so please remember that the story ain't over bye

Channel: thisstoryaintover

Views: 11,505

Rating: 4.9594936 out of 5

Keywords: books, booktube, booktuber, read, reading, book haul, books to read, thisstoryaintover, this story ain't over, jananie, come book shopping with me, book shopping, online book shopping, shoptagr, reading vlog, weekly reading vlog, books i want to read, book shopping vlog, bookstore vlog, book recommendations, instagram controls my life, ig controls my life, instagram controls my day, ig controls, ig controls my day, book shopping with me, book shopping spree, book shop with me

Id: GBJj9vX77QQ

Length: 29min 9sec (1749 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021