Crystal’s Bookish Life Picks My TBR | Reading Vlog

greetings and salutations my dearest friends my name is samantha and today i'm going to do a video where one of my favorite booktubers ever picks out my tbr i'm really excited to film this video as you can tell i'm grinning ear from ear one of my favorite booktubers on this platform is crystal from crystal bookish life she is fantastic like i don't know what else to say about her oh i have lipstick on my teeth i'm sorry is that there the whole time i'm so sorry still has such a beautiful soul she's one of the most positive and supportive booktubers on this platform and in this bookstagram space i just love her so much she's also so consistent with her uplift her reading vlogs are like my absolute favorite thing in the entire world her reading vlogs are just so personable and her recommendations are always amazing we have very very similar reading tastes which is why i wanted to do this video typically if crystal recommends a book and i read it i almost always like it and a lot of her favorite books are a lot of my favorite books so i feel like we have very similar reading tastes so i just i knew that this video was going to be so much fun to film so we're doing this video is we told each other our favorite tropes and we recommended each other two to three books so crystal will be posting a video similar to this i will leave all of her information down below you probably already follow her because her content is much more amazing and consistent than mine is but i will link her video in her channel down below for your viewing pleasure go like her tell her i sent you tell her she's amazing tell her she's beautiful she is a dream of a woman her red flaming hair is gorgeous and yeah i told crystal that my favorite tropes were friends to lovers and love triangles because they are so here are the books that she recommended to me and here are the books that i'm going to be reading in this video the first one is sea of ruin by pam godwin this is a pirate romance that has a love triangle in it this is a darker romance crystal did let me know what the trigger warnings are so i know that going in i know that this is like a fan favorite so many people love this book it's a chunker and i'm excited to read it well i actually forgot to film my intro for this video so i've already read it and you will see my thoughts in the video second book that she picked for me was the dooku didn't it by courtney milan and this is a friends to lovers historical romance i feel like you don't get that trip a lot in historic romance so i'm excited to read this one they also recommended radiance by grace draven which is another friend to lovers romance but this is a fantasy romance and it also has the arranged marriage aspect to it very ice planet barbarians from this type of book so excited to read it i'm excited to read everything and then because i'm doing this video with crystal i also wanted to read a book that she raved about in one of her reading vlogs and that was birthday girl by penelope douglas she didn't specifically pick this one for this video but i was watching one of her videos and she raved about this book and i really want to read it this is a taboo romance it follows our heroine who ends up following for her boyfriend's dad scandalous super scandalous so we're gonna read that i heard it's really steamy i haven't read a ton of penelope douglas so yeah so that is what this video is going to be all about crystal picked some books for my tbr i picked some books for her tbr and yeah you're gonna follow me throughout the week and see my thoughts on these books greetings and salutations friends i'm about to head to bed excuse excuse my hair my hair looks wild but i got some bookmail and i'm really excited about it i got some hello lovely goodies i am a rep for hello lovely you guys know how much i adore their sweatshirts and their shirts and their mugs so freaking cute i'm a rep for them um you can use my code books with sam15 if you want to save money but i have some stuff to show you and then i also have some books the books came in the mail which means i can start the reading blog and i also bought myself some books for valentine's day which was last weekend so i will show you guys that as well both of the books that we're going to be reading in this vlog we have a sea of ruin by pam godwin is it godwin or goodwin there's not two o so i'm assuming it's godwin this is a chunker this is a hefty book like how many pages is this 455 pages but i think that this book is beautiful like i'm so happy i'm so happy to have this covered also got the dooku dinner by courtney milan and this is like a traditional paperback book which i didn't know it came in this size i was expecting a mass market that i got this and it's in perfect condition so i'm happy to have it so let me show you the rest of the books that i bought myself for valentine's day so the first one is fudge and jury by ellie alexander this is a cozy mystery series that i've talked about so many times on my channel i think this is like the fifth or sixth book in the series i love this series and i'm basically collecting the entire series as i read it picked up wild reign by beverly jenkins because beverly jenkins is one of my favorite authors of all time literally of all time and then the cream of the crop guys let me show you what i found look at this book love come to me by lisa klepis this was the last book i needed to complete my clapist collection well actually i am missing one book i'm missing prince of dreams with the setback you guys know which one i'm talking about is the only book i need to complete my lisa clippers collection but this is one of the classic og covers go for like 100 bucks on ebay and they're super expensive and super hard to find bam i found this baby and it was only like 12 bucks which is very expensive for mass market paperback typically i spend like one to two dollars on a mass market paperback at my used bookstore but i mean this is a classic and i have not seen it cheaper than this so i had to snatch it up and the reason i found this book was because one of you guys messaged me that it was on sale so good looking out guys you really have my back i really appreciate it i want to be able to find my books if it wasn't for you guys let me show you my hello lovely stuff so the first one i literally just took this off the package this one is another pink shirt i guess i really like the color pink this says historical romance readers club it is freaking stunning like look at this design this is probably my favorite design that they make i got this shirt it says read more books and it's just like the super soft cozy shirt i got in a size medium so it can be a little baggy and this one look at this color is it not stunning like how freaking cute this one says canceling all my plans to read another book and it's just so me i am the queen of canceling plans which i shouldn't be proud about but i kind of am that was my little book mail some clothes some books really excited for this reading vlog to get started on these books i think i'm gonna start with sea of ruin because it's a trunker and it's like the biggest book that we're gonna read this week so probably start with this one and let you guys know i am super duper tired i have to be at work early tomorrow morning so i'm going to take a nice warm bath read a book and i'll talk to you guys later bye [Music] hello hello my friends another day another hello lovely sweater back with some reading update so i totally forgot to tell you guys because i'm doing this video with crystal and she's picking my tbr i thought it'd be fun to read some of her favorite books as well just like throw in some little extra books as we do this blog recently posted a reading vlog and i will link it down below where she read birthday girl by penalty douglas now penelope dug penelope douglas i don't know why i like tripped over her name for a second it is not a samantha video if i don't mispronounce something a lot of people love her books and i mean she's super super popular and i i haven't read anything from her i've only read credence precedence whatever however you pronounce it and that book is wild and i'm not sure if it's like a good wild or a crazy wild or a bad wild like i don't know i don't know i don't know it's just wild since i read that book i was kind of apprehensive to read any more books from her i also have this really weird thing and let me know if you guys do this that if a book is hyped up like if a lot of booktubers a lot of people are like oh my god this book is so amazing it's my favorite book it makes me want to read it less does that even does that make sense starters if someone i know reads a book and they really love it and then i also read it and i hated it i almost feel bad even though like everyone is entitled to their own opinions and it's really not that deep but i almost feel bad and then also i have this like really weird part of my brain where if something is super hyped up my brain is like is it really that good though is it really that good like why do i do this but birthday girl i was always like interested in it's an age gap romance it's a little bit of a forbidden romance it sounded interesting right crystal reddit she adored it i think she gave it five stars she was talking about how sweet the relationship was and i was like okay crystal okay crystal so she convinced me to read birthday girl and guys why was i waiting so long to read this so many people told me how amazing this book was and it is i gave it a 5 out of 5 stars probably one of my favorite reads of the entire year and i'm like super late to the train but i'm on the train i'm leading the train i got a first class ticket like i love this book so much you are living under a rock like i was this is birthday girl it is an age gap romance it is a boyfriend's dad romance so very taboo has a boyfriend in this book but but i will say there's not really cheating in this book at least are two main characters there is cheating but not from our two main characters i don't want to spoil anything but for me cheating like absolutely ruins a book and so i just wanted to let you guys know that going in that save some money her and her boyfriend end up moving into her boyfriend's dad's place that's how the forbidden aspect comes in because she's in a relationship and not only is she in a relationship but he is her boyfriend's dad like it doesn't get more taboo than that but honestly this book although it was very very high angst and like you just felt like emotionally felt so connected to these characters it wasn't that taboo like if that makes sense like these characters were just so good for each other like this book to me was like the definition of soul mates of two characters being just in the wrong place at the wrong time being perfect for each other but just in the wrong time this book was freaking amazing like our characters didn't even kiss until like halfway through the book and i was totally okay with that just like the way they pined for each other no crystal mentioned this in her video when she was talking about it but our main character was talking to our hero and she had said that she doesn't care what other people think she doesn't care about a big wedding she doesn't care about fancy things those things have never mattered to her that's the life she just wants like the daily coming home and watching movies and having pizza with someone and knowing that you could rely on someone and like to me that was just so beautiful their relationship was so beautiful and they were honest to god like soul mates like this book was just two soul mates and i loved their chemistry so freaking much it was five out of five stars and i read it because of crystal and it was fantastic i don't know what that hand motion was but it was really good and i can't stop smiling i downloaded it on kindle like a long time ago because the book was free on kindle a while back i think it's on kindle unlimited so if you guys haven't read this book check it out i decided i was gonna read it and it was like nine ten o'clock at night and i just wanted to read a few chapters before going to bed it was so good that i stayed up until four in the morning four in the morning and finished the book like i could not stop reading it i was so addicted i was so in love and i had to work the next morning i had to wake up at like eight o'clock so i only got like four hours of sleep because i was so addicted to this book but it was worth it move on to the rest of the reading updates i was reading see everyone in the bath but um i dropped the book in the bath no i'm just kidding i'm just kidding so funny because i take a lot of bubble baths and i constantly read in the bath and so many people ask me like aren't you afraid you're gonna drop the book in the bath and that's never happened knock on wood don't jinx it i have like a tray like a caddy a bath caddy that i just like prop the book on so i've yet to drop the book in the bath my brain just like totally took a detour i started like the first chapter of sierra ruin but i was really tired and i didn't finish that much i was going to read a little bit but i was babysitting my nephew and he was just like not taking a nap it was not happening so i was like no little boy you need to take a nap so i was like holding him and he would only fall asleep while i was holding him so i was like stuck on the couch for a couple of hours he decided how our date was gonna go and i was just reading while he took a nap it was kind of awkward to hold him and the book so i ended up reading an e-book on my phone and i read radiance a lot of people have liked this book and for some reason for some reason i've always associated this book with potatoes because everyone who reads this book talks about a scene with potatoes i went into this book and i was like i don't know anything about this other than there's potatoes in the book like what basically they're both royalty and they're not like direct descendants of the throne but they're high enough that they get roped into this arranged marriage for like business and treaties kingdoms want peace with each other so in a show of peace and unity they end up getting involved in this arranged marriage they really don't want to get married to each other because they one are come from like completely different cultures and two they find each other incredibly unattractive which is so bizarre like i've never read a romance where the characters aren't attracted to each other but these characters because one is human and one is like this warrior alien-like species they find each other hideous and i think that's the funniest thing so they end up you know getting this arranged marriage and they're pleasantly surprised because they form a friendship immediately and they have a lot of respect for each other compatibility wise they end up getting along very very quickly so the relationship is more more so built on friendship and respect and less on like an attraction with each other and you know what i really really like that i read this book for like the two and a half hours that my nephew took an app and i ended up getting like 40 in i'm really enjoying it i will probably take another bubble bath tonight and finish this book my face is super greasy because i just put some moisturizer on i tried you want to try yeah okay i'm scared because you told me it tastes like apple cider vinegar it does taste like apple cider okay that's right okay i'm only taking only a little bit uh um girl you have a little scent no it's no i don't like it you don't like it at all no um more for me you can hear my dog's nails clicking on the floor come here my love come here say hi to the people hi [Applause] you never oh yes he never says hi to the camera he's done with me okay stop he wants a treat today do you like my shirts do you like my shirts i'm wearing another hello lovely shirt i swear i just love their clothing so much this one says pizza is my favorite love triangle why are the kids so loud right now i'm filming can you not scream please thank you thank you thank you not the reason i came on here i came on here because my kitchen is a mess oh my god i came on here because it is time for kombucha i saw this kombucha at where was i i don't remember oh this kombucha it's blue why is it blue this is the gt synergy raw kombucha sacred life what does that mean why is it blue tell me like the flavors it literally says revitalize re-inspire relive a sacred life that doesn't explain much to me i don't know what that means okay so we're gonna try it and i'm kind of nervous because i don't know why it's blue i googled this and now i'm nervous so it says it's raw coconut water kombucha and fresh pressed ginger i don't like ginger i still don't know what makes it blue oh gosh okay let's just go for it cheers bottoms up let's give it a smell it smells awful okay here we go cheers to good health salute i don't know how i feel [Music] why blue liquid so okay i don't know it's a very very very very very weird taste like unlike any kombucha i've tried before it has a weird aftertaste a very earthy aftertaste that is not good why is it blue are you going to be in the video where are you going come on hey i took a camel hi it has been a minute since i filmed anything all of the footage that you guys have seen so far was pre-filmed i filmed that like a week and a half ago i was feeling super burnt out from everything from like my real job from filming videos from editing even reading i was just feeling like extremely burnt out so i took like an entire week of rest and relaxation and a break and it was oh my goodness it was exactly what i needed uh tomorrow i have to go back to work i'm like torn between feeling super relaxed and super refreshed but also feeling like i need another week you know you know i also went to like this swedish bakery and they have chocolate covered honeycombs so good so yeah i'm just super grateful that i was even able to take a little break just because i was feeling very very very burnt out i can't even remember the last time i took a break from work work half from home half in the office and i think because i work from home like you have this mentality like oh i'm working from home i don't need a vacation or why i have a vacation if i'm not going anywhere no you you need to take the time for yourself because i was starting to feel not like myself i was starting to feel just super stressed i was having breakdowns and crying over like the littlest things just because i had gone so long without taking any time to just rest i didn't go anywhere i didn't do anything i literally rested i slept in i read the books i wanted to read i love these very mundane things but like it was so refreshing so i'm back and i'm better i feel like i'm back and i'm better so i don't know i just wanted to kind of talk to you guys about that for a little bit because we need to normalize that a little bit more that it's okay to not be okay and it's okay to take breaks even if you're not doing anything that was the mentality i felt like i couldn't take a break from work because i wasn't going anywhere it's a pandemic i'm not gonna be traveling i'm not going on a vacation so i was like why do i need a break but i needed a break just to take care of myself simple as that sleep in take a bubble bath read some books and come back refreshed i was burning myself out i wasn't 100 myself at work so youtube doesn't stress me out at all i do this because it's a passion project and because i love it i'm mainly talking about like my actual my actual job rambling rambling this is going to be one of my longest reading vlogs ever read a couple books and i will give you guys my reading updates right now i went to a really cute little bookstore i had never been to this bookstore before i only picked up like two or three books but it was just super quaint they had like stacks and stacks and stacks of books especially sci-fi there was a lot of uh science fiction in that store go ahead and talk about the books that i read i realized i didn't really talk about radiance in my last update and i finished the book and i gave it 5 out of 5 stars y'all it was so good it was so good attracted to each other they're not even like the same species but they form this beautiful friendship and respect for each other and that then leads to a romance and a chemistry and a sexual attraction to one another and it is beautiful grace draven is a master at her craft the way she described this world this way i could describe this book is this is everything i wanted ice planet barbarians to be by ruby dixon i i don't like that series don't come for me don't come for me i don't love that series i've only read the first and second book and i just it wasn't my it wasn't my vibe i might continue with the series because i know it's very very well loved but radiance to me was like everything i wanted in that series to be very similar to how like an ice planet barbarians they are two different species and they're kind of figuring out each other their bodies and their culture of their friendship i love their respect for each other i also loved how the book like a large part of the book was them immersing themselves into each other's culture and a lot of this book was about food how they eat different food how they dress differently and it was really interesting to see the two of them form a relationship and make sacrifices for each other our heroine was just a absolute gem i loved reading about her she was so pragmatic so thoughtful i loved their relationship now i did not know that this kind of ended on the cliffhanger okay the ending to this book the ending to this book i was intrigued and i need to know where they're going with this i did not expect it to go in that direction but i'm intrigued so i felt like this book didn't have a lot of conflict like a lot of it really was the relationship between our two characters but there was a conflict that happened in the end and it's a little bit of a cliffhanger and i'm interesting to see how it goes in the series so i already started the second book i'm about 20 of the way through and i really really enjoy it i can totally see myself reading this entire series which speaks volumes to grace straven's driving because i'm not someone who reads a lot of series i tend to like stop at bitcoin so especially fantasy i'm not a huge fan i see romance reader but this is so good so i have started on the second book then i also read sea of ruin i got through this big book and honestly it didn't feel that big like i think i finished it in two days i finished it last night i stayed up until two o'clock in the morning finishing it because i was so addicted i was so addicted to this book so basically this is a dark romance and it does have a few trigger warnings i want to say that off the gate because i'm not usually someone who needs trigger warnings i tend to give them to you guys because i never want to recommend a book that could be potentially triggering to people but me personally i don't need a ton of trigger warnings but there were parts in this book that were pretty rough so it is a dark romance there's trigger warnings for sexual assault abuse torture loss of a loved one and infertility so if any of those things bother you just read the goodreads reviews so you know going in now this is a pirate romance and it has a love triangle so it follows our main character bennett she's married to a notorious pirate and his name is priest and their marriage is kind of strange they are having some difficulties because she feels like he betrayed her which you will see in the book the love triangle and the other hero is actually a pirate hunter who is hunting her and is wanting to capture her so that she can stand trial for her piracy all the crimes she's committed so yeah you can definitely see how it is a little bit of an enemies to lovers love triangle dark romance this book is super intense but like our heroine went through it she went through it like i was actually kind of shocked like there was a lot of conflict in this book so very different from radiance i felt like so much happened in this book it was like conflict after conflict and i was like dang how much more is our heroine going to go through like she's just one of the strongest heroines i've ever read about and i really enjoyed reading about her inner strength and just her passion like she's just one of those heroines that i really i really loved reading about to be completely honest um i'm kind of torn between the rating because the ending to this book was fan freaking tastic it was the perfect ending i couldn't have asked for a better ending you guys know i love love triangles it's one of my favorite tropes in books i don't want to do any spoilers but what i will say is that i didn't expect the ending i was hoping that that was going to happen like as we were going through the book i was kind of hoping it would go in a certain direction and it did and i was very glad for it um but i didn't expect it i didn't think that was what was going to happen so i'm very very pleased with the ending i feel like it couldn't have been more perfect so for the ending alone i want to give it five stars but then i'm also like maybe a four star because there was almost too much conflict like our heroine honestly could not catch a break and i almost feel like some of the conflict was just a little unnecessary but then again the ending was perfect you know i'm gonna give it five stars i'm gonna give it a five stars because it was addicting it was amazing i couldn't put the book down the ending was fantastic our heroine was perfect the only thing i probably could have wanted is i would have loved a couple chapters in the heroes point of view i would have loved to see the two guys perspective and yeah that's probably the only thing that i would have wanted but five freaking stars read this book man that book was fantastic five stars crystal crystal you are you are coming through with the recommendations my friend i love that book so much there is a novella to this book it's a prequel but it says you can read it as a standalone but i would definitely recommend reading it after you read sv of ruin and it is called king of libertines and it is just like a very short novella of bennet our heroine meeting her husband priest and kind of how they fell in love very short very quick very cute and steamy i gave it a 5 out of 5 stars so we have four five stars under our belt right now that's crazy i read birthday girl five stars i read radiance five stars i read sea of ruin five stars i read king of liberty's five stars crystal is doing the dang thing so the only book that we have left is the duke who didn't i don't know if we're gonna finish this book today like i said i have to go back to work tomorrow and i need to wrap up this blog so we might not finish this book but i'm going to read a couple chapters and see what i think i want to read this but you guys know i'm such a mood reader and i really want to read the second book in that grace draven series i forgot what it's called i'll put it right here i really really really want to read that book because i just loved radiance so much like that's probably one of my favorite books of the year oh i want to read that book so much so i don't know i don't know i'm a mood reader i might finish i might finish the grace dreaming series and get to this one later but i will let you guys know okay those are my updates i've talked a ton i hope you guys don't mind and i'll update you guys greetings and salutations so normally i do taste testing for kombucha but i went to a soda shop kind of was like a soda store that they just had like a bunch of different flavors and things like that i'll show you on the screen of what the store looked like and i found this thing i think it's popular in japan i'm not even going to attempt to pronounce that but i know it's really popular like on tick tock and asmr videos funny because it reminds me of that one be more chill song have you guys ever seen that musical uh when he's like so it's drugs no it's better than drugs jeremy it's from if you don't know what the song is you probably think i'm crazy but we're going to try it so i just i keep dropping it we just press it down okay so i think this little marble thing is what makes it fizzy and we just drink it i got the original flavor i also got a strawberry flavor but i thought we'll try the original one it kind of smells like sprite okay okay it's not bad it tastes like sprite so do you want to try it yeah i like hello hello go ahead adam's up cheers it tastes like spring yeah she's like medicine medicine yeah really yeah it tastes like medicine to me tastes like sprite that was that drink let me know if you guys have ever tried one of these oh my gosh the kitchen looks like okay hello hello it is the end of the video i've spent pretty much the entire day reading which was so so nice i am reading the second book in the grace draven series just because i am loving this series so much i feel like the second book is also gonna get a five stars and i've already bought the third book so who would have known i would find one of my favorite series unfortunately i didn't get to which book was it let me grab it unfortunately i didn't get to the duke who dinner by courtney milan i will read this i will put updates on my instagram and on my february wrap-up video if i film that video i don't know a couple chapters in and there's nothing wrong with this book i can definitely see myself liking it but i'm a mood reader and i'm just really wanting to finish this series right now so that is it this has been an amazing video to film this video i have found the most five stars we have four or five stars we have birthday girl five stars radiance five stars sea of ruin five stars king of liver teens five stars and then the second book in the grace draven series which is looking to be a five stars as well so crystal you did great and all these recommendations please go follow her i will link all of her socials down below thank you guys so so much for taking time out of your day to spend time with me it means the absolute world to me i hope you guys are all staying happy and healthy and i'll see you next time bye

Channel: bookswithsamantha

Views: 654

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: bookswithsamantha, books with samantha, bookswithsam, romance reader, reading vlog, booktuber picks my TBR, romance booktuber

Id: Xfs70_8TGL0

Length: 31min 36sec (1896 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021