i read the 10 best romances of 2020

hello welcome back to my channel in this video i'm going to be reading the top 10 romance finalists in the 2020 goodreads choice awards the goal for this video is to read all the nominees rank them as i read them and then at the end hopefully select a winner for the goodreads choice awards and also the very end compare what my choice was to what the actual winner is i did this challenge last year and i had a lot of fun doing it but the circumstances surrounding this year's goodreads choice awards are a little different than last year's and it's leaving me a little bit nervous so first off a lot of readers i know because i've seen videos were pretty unhappy with the selections for this year's goodreads choice awards and it's kind of surprising just looking at the list some of these are books that i think are completely overhyped and were really pushed at us by the big publishing houses but that didn't really get a lot of attention on youtube or on instagram and it's irritating because last year we could definitely brush aside some of those choices as oh they were just popular but a lot of the books on this list like even if they were really hyped by publishers they're really not hyped by people in the community so it's like how do they make it on this list it's a little weird secondly on a more personal level i read four of the ten selections last year before the goodreads choice words had even started which in my opinion kind of means something i am definitely not someone who reads every single romance that comes out but reading four of the ten means that the ones that i did read were probably pretty popular right this year i've only read two of the ten selections and i gotta be honest with you most of the other books that were nominated this year the other eight books are not really books that i am super excited about there is one that i haven't read yet that i'm kind of excited about but the other seven i guess books i probably wouldn't have picked up on my own and i'm kind of nervous to get into them and then lastly i think the most like obvious glaring issue this year is that there are virtually no indie published romances on this list and this year especially i've noticed how much attention indie romance gets in the book community whether it's on instagram youtube tick tock indie romances are king everybody's talking about vicious by l.j shen years later or books by penelope douglas kennedy ryan names that you've probably heard before if you've read any romance none of these authors were on this list even though they all put books out this year and it's just kind of surprising to me that not a single indie romance got on this list i guess you could consider something like regretting you by colleen hoover or from blood nash by jla but they still were not technically indie published i mean i guess it depends on where you draw the line but they didn't self-publish these books and these are books that i think probably would have gotten a lot of hype anyway colleen hoover and jla are like really big authors who have been traditionally published before so i don't know i just am not impressed by the selection of books on this list for a multitude of reasons but especially because there are really no indies on this list and indies have such a big share of the romance market it just surprises me i guess all that being said i'm a little bit scared going into this video but let's go ahead and talk about the books that i've already read so first off we have beach read by emily henry this is easily one of the most hyped romances of the year and in my opinion was probably one of the most overhyped romances as well it's about a romance writer named january who is going through kind of a rough time she's in a romance writing slump and she decides that she's going to go to an old summer home that she went to with her family and she's going to try to find some inspiration there while she's there she runs into a guy that she was in her i think writing masters program with a guy named gus and gus is also going through a hard time also in a writing slump and i think he writes general fiction and they decide after a lot of banter and like quirky moments that they're gonna switch genres for the summer and hopefully find some inspiration to do this they are going to kind of team up and show each other different things i guess in life to kind of inspire them gus takes january and shows her some kind of creepy hardcore stuff to write for literary fiction and she shows him a good time like romantic time i didn't hate this book but it felt just a little bit empty to me do you ever just pick up a book and you're reading it and you can totally understand why other people like it but it's just not really doing anything for you that's how i felt about this book i think the main issue that i had with this book was the tone i just feel like this book didn't really know what it wanted to be it had quirky generic characters that you see in a lot of rom-coms and it had that like silly premise of let's swap genres but the actual feeling and the actual things that are discussed in this book are definitely not what i would consider lighthearted on top of that i just feel like the romance ultimately took a backseat to a lot of the things that happened in this book january is dealing with a lot gus is also dealing with a lot overall the book is just a lot but it is not a lot of romance it's just a lot of other stuff that i personally just didn't care much about i like when a romance can strike the balance between plot and romance but this book i think just kind of fell short for me because it didn't develop the romance in a way that i felt was adequate i do think that gus in january's relationship was healthy and it was cute and i do think it had that whole guy secretly pines for you for years thing that a lot of people can relate to and enjoy but it just wasn't enough ultimately to overcome some of the other issues that i had with the book so i gave this one three stars so the next book that i've already read is from blood nash by jennifer l armentrout and this is another one that if you asked me which books do i think most people have read if they read romance this year it would be these two books speech read and from blood and ash this one i literally cannot escape i'm not on social media right now except for tik tok and for some reason i am on from blood and ash tick tock i cannot escape poppy and hawk anyway this book is about a girl named poppy who is a maiden and a maiden in the society is one person and she is supposed to be this kind of like holy figure and preside over different ceremonies and things that are happening and poppy of course doesn't really like her role in society because she would rather just kill men and have sex with them well not the same men that she kills but you get the point so in the opening scene of this book poppy escapes the palace where she lives with the duke and duchess of this kingdom and she goes to this den of iniquity where she meets this guy named talk hawk is this kind of notorious guy i don't know he like kills people and does stuff and anyway poppy knows who this guy is and she's trying to kind of avoid him she crossed paths with him at the stand of iniquity and then lo and behold a couple of days later he ends up being her new bodyguard and then of course plot stuff happens yadda yadda i'm not gonna get into the details though because you know it's it's a fantasy and i don't want to ruin the plot so this is another one of those books that i totally understand why people enjoy it's definitely kind of a sarah j maas ripoff but with a lot more sex i vlogged my experience reading this book in a video where i read some fantasy romances and i correctly predicted almost all of the plot twists that occurred in this book which is not necessarily a sign that the book is bad but i mean it wasn't anything super special it had been touted as this like remarkable fantasy romance and while i thought the romance was perfectly fine and actually kind of hot i didn't feel like the fantasy aspect was really that great i think there was a lot a lot of info dumping and ultimately the story was just nothing super special or new or unique it just kind of felt like another sarah j maas book that coupled with the fact that this book was i think nearly 600 pages definitely too long this book was just a three star read for me am i excited to read the sequel kind of but again just not necessarily the best book that i've read this year so we're not off to a strong start i've already read two of these books and i thought they were just kind of okay hopefully i can find another book in these next date that really wows me so let me quickly run through those and then we can get into the vlog portion of this video so the first book is you have me at ola by alexis daria this is a book that i believe is centered around two telenovela stars who are together in this show and then hate each other off screen or something i don't really know i don't want to know the details i'll figure it out when i read it the next book is boyfriend material by alexis hall this is one that seems kind of like a red white and royal blue ripoff just from the cover and the kind of the premise i know it's probably a little different and i know a lot of people i am friends with on goodreads really enjoyed this book so hopefully this is one that i end up enjoying the happy ever after playlist by abby jimenez this is one where i believe our heroines fiance died in her grief she ends up finding this lost dog apparently the dog actually belongs to someone and she ends up getting with the guy whose dog it is i think next is take a hint danny brown by talia hibbert this is one that i was kind of hinting at that i was excited to read and this is about a fake dating kind of relationship opposites attract between a security guard and one of the brown sisters from the previous books next is one to watch by kate steven london this is one with a kind of bachelorette type premise and a plus-sized heroine next is the switch by beth o'leary this is a grandma and granddaughter switch places kind of romance i don't think they end up like dating the respective age group of their person they're switching with basically i don't think that the granddaughter is gonna get with an old man however they're switching places to kind of like i don't know revitalize their life and whatever next up regretting you by colleen hoover this is one again i think it's like a mother and daughter they don't switch places but it's told from both of their points of view as they kind of fall in love and then lastly in five years by rebecca searle this is one of those classic what if she ended up with a different man than she's married to kind of romances kind of given me outlander or maybe in another life by taylor jenkins read vibes so those are the eight books that i'm going to be reading in this video just looking at the list personally i think the winner will probably be either take a hint danny brown or from blood and ash by jennifer l armentrout i will be interested to see if there are books on this list that i end up really really liking if they're five star reads but to do that i have to get into the video i have to get into the vlog portion of the video so uh let's go i'm trying really hard to withhold my judgment and to go into these books with an open mind but it's challenging when the description of this book has it hailed or this author hailed as the new jojo moyes i read the flat share last year and i ended up giving it i wanna say two stars maybe three stars i didn't hate it i didn't think it was terrible but definitely was not what i would consider a romance so i knew that going into this book that it would likely not be a traditional romance understatement of the century 50 into this 54 actually into this and while the audiobook narration is fantastic the story is just not a romance never really find myself thinking this way but when i started reading this book i was like who's the intended audience for this because here's the thing there are beach reads books that i think are kind of written to read on a beach and then completely forget about after reading but this one doesn't even have like the levity that one expects with that kind of book this is not a beach read it's also not a steamy romance that you want to read at home it's not really anything i don't know what this is i don't i don't the characters are perfectly fine the story is perfectly fine if a little bit derivative and boring it's just not a romance and to have to read it for this video is like upsetting me and i'm just hoping that i picked the least romantic book first like i'm hoping that this is the one that is going to be the most definitively not a romance on this list because like i said i knew this list was going to be bad but anyway okay let me just tell you what the book's about so we can carry on and i can finish it and just never ever ever ever ever think about this book ever again so this book is about lena who is a high-powered executive living in london and her sister recently passed away which is a very very heavy theme in this book so if you don't want to read about the death of a loved one don't read this book her sister recently died and ever since then she has been having panic attacks at work and not performing to the best of her abilities she is a very high-powered career woman and has a really hard time making time for anyone else in her life her relationship with her boyfriend is like fine but they don't spend a lot of time together and she's been neglecting the relationship with her mother so she goes to visit her grandmother eileen who's recently divorced because her husband cheated on her and they decide eileen and lena decide they're going to switch places because lena is being asked to take two months off of work so she's gonna live in this like small little town and take over eileen's like projects in town it's a very star's hollow-esque town situation so she said she'll take over that and in the meantime eileen can go to london and live in lena's flat and find herself a man and they have adventures from there on the surface it's like not a bad story honestly like this has not been the worst listening experience ever i was probably being a bit dramatic but it's just so patently unromantic and it's funny because the description of this story says something about this being a romantic novel a charming romantic novel there's nothing romantic about it though it's more about these two kind of like figuring out their own lives and figuring out how to cope with grief and the other kind of challenges in their life rather than the actual romantic component and i know that for a fact because i'm 54 into this book we're only now getting lena's interaction with her current boyfriend and it's like okay well if this is her first real interaction with him and she's going to get with another man how is that going to be convincing when you're going to do that like after the 50 mark in a book and then eileen has a guy that she's banging but i know she wanted to find someone to like have a relationship with so what's that anyway i'm not hating it it's really not the worst thing ever i think i'm just frustrated i'm gonna go ahead and try to finish this up and then i'll try to give you my final thoughts but it's looking like this is going to be behind both beet free and blood and ash from blood nash unsurprisingly but also it's just like damn all right hopefully the lighting's not too bad i don't have my ring light on today but i just finished the switch by beth o'leary i don't know what else to say really beyond what i said in the last clip because this book is just exactly what i thought it would be not a romance and just kind of boring there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy about this book the only thing really positive i can say is that it was considerably less depressing than the flat share by beth o'leary which was on the goodreads choice award list last year and i think if i'm correct was the least voted for book or one of the least voted for books on that list again it just kind of boggles the mind that this book was put on this list in the first place i've heard little to nothing about it at least the flat share last year like i heard some buzz about this i'm just like but ultimately i just don't feel like the story was that compelling and i don't feel like any of the relationships that were present in the story were enough to be really like categorized as romance or a romantic relationship there were two i guess you could consider them romantic outcomes in this book but since the story focused very little on romantic relationship development i just don't feel like this could really be categorized as a romance i mean i guess you could call it chick lit which i hate that term but i i'd say that's a more accurate kind of category for this book just not not my taste not something that i would recommend to people and definitely not something that i think deserves to belong on this list that sounds bad but the category is romance the category is not chiclet there's just so many other good books that came out this year that i am just sad got snubbed so anyway i am going to put this book at dead last on my rankings i'm going to pull up the little sheet right now and you can see where where it lies i guess pretty obvious there's just three books right now from blood nash obviously is the one i've enjoyed the most even though it was just a three star read for me to read after that at three stars honestly i'm kind of considering changing that one to two stars as well it was fine but just not a favorite and then two stars again for the switch i feel like it can only go up from here surely there's going to be some really awesome romances in here and i'm going to get a good five-star read i need a five-star reading here because i got one last year it was fantastic one of my favorite romances of the year and i'm just hoping that i will strike gold twice maybe fingers crossed next book i'm gonna be reading though is boyfriend material so i'm gonna get started on that and i will get back to you once i'm like i don't know fifty percent in okay so i know i said it was gonna up to you guys at the 50 mark but i finished this book and i think that's probably for the best because this video is gonna be too long anyway so i finished boyfriend material by lexus hall and i'm not gonna lie to you guys i ended up enjoying this book so much more than i thought that i would i don't know it was it was partially the cover that was really giving me rip off red white and royal blue vibes and partially just the beginning of the story i just wasn't convinced that this was going to be something that i enjoyed despite the like fun tone i didn't like the setup for the story but that was overcome by the characters and i was just like honestly surprised at this whole journey the story is about a guy named luke and he is the son of a famous rock star he has no relationship with the rock star but luke is sometimes chased by paparazzi and occasionally is in the news for various things and one day he ends up in the gutter face down super super drunk and his job sees this and like the tabloids essentially and is like hey you need to clean up your act we don't like this and you need to be a model gay and get a boyfriend so he finds someone to fake date and that's sort of the story the setup for the story i'm sure you can tell maybe hopefully that this setup is not something that i like i just leaves me very uncomfortable and the whole model gay thing while it is called out by everybody in the story by luke his friends and honestly some of the people he works with as like not being okay it's never super super questioned i feel like i can't imagine being okay with this in real life if it happened to me i don't think i would allow that to happen i don't know it's hard to say since i'm not in that situation but it just it felt wrong right so that was very off-putting to me and then the whole fake dating situation also was sort of sketch because luke is such an unlikable character and his reasons for like wanting to stay at his job aren't very convincing either because he's kind of just a and he has this job that he doesn't seem to care much about and you're like why bother with the fake dating also who would want to fake date you you're kind of awful so i was just like really not into the story at the beginning but as soon as oliver came into the story everything got better and that's not to say that he is like the most exciting of characters i really like oliver because he's a really good foil to luke but i just liked their relationship dynamic i don't know how i can really get into like super gritty detail without spoiling different parts of the story but i love the way that the situations that pop up in the book help to ground their relationship and make it make sense there's so much time spent between the two of them it just worked it was it was a really well crafted romance i will say the story was really really strong and well like i said i didn't love the setup for the romance if you kind of just don't think about it that sounds bad but if you are willing to overlook that i think you'll find that the romance between the two characters is really nice they really do play off of each other well i think the author whenever they were crafting the story you can tell that they did the practice of sitting down and thinking what will this character get from the other person you know in terms of how will they complement each other and how will they work well together and it was just so evident in their interactions how well they complemented each other and i liked that it was kind of messy too there were a couple of like breakups and other things that occurred that made this a very realistic story and each character had their own flaws obviously i didn't think luke was a great character in the beginning but by the end i realized he had grown a lot with someone that i actually kind of rooted for so overall i think this was a fun romance the only real criticism i have of it and the reason this is not gonna get five stars for me is because you know i hate to be that but it was a fade to black romance and that's just not my personal preference i like graphic sex scenes i guess you can say and to me that is kind of a hallmark of a traditional romance and to not have that it felt a little bit strange i wouldn't classify this book as chiclet but it also didn't really fit the full romance category i don't know i mean there are clean romances so i guess that's just sort of a me thing but just just my own personal hang up and then again like i said i was sort of uncomfortable with the setup of this book but overall i think it was a really good romance and i have to say compared to the other ones that i've read for this video this one's gonna be my top so i'm gonna pull up my graphic right now and i'm gonna go ahead and slide boyfriend material ahead of all of these books shocking i know but liked this book and i am excited to see if there's anything else on this list that surprises me because going into this really hesitant the switch really did not work for me but this one did and i'm hoping that the next one does too i'm actually going to be reading one to watch by kate stayman london i didn't really know what i was going to read next but i saw this at target and i realized i didn't have a copy of this book this is one of the only books that i don't have like an arc or an audiobook of so now that it's like top of mind i figured this is what i'll pick up next yeah curious to see if i enjoy this one i've heard that this one is not super romance focused so i'm hoping that it proves me wrong that there is some kind of romance at the center of this but i know that our main character is plus size and she is constantly irritated by the fact that this kind of bachelorette type show has never had a plus-sized heroine and she ends up getting a chance to be on the show so i'm curious to see how that goes i kind of like books sometimes about reality television so i'm hoping that this one hits spot even if it isn't super like romance centered so i'm gonna start this and i will update you guys probably at 50 mark all right hopefully you can't hear the fan noise or see the pores in my face but i had to switch cameras because the lighting was super bad and honestly i think this was a great decision all of that aside i am about 150 pages from the end of this book i was going to try to update you 50 but my camera battery was dead anyway one to watch by kate stayman london i have lots of feelings about this i i didn't at the 50 mark so i think it's for the best that i read on this story is quite interesting it's about our main character b who is a plus-sized fashion blogger and one night after getting a little tipsy with her friend and watching this sort of like bachelor-esque show called main squeeze she writes this blog post on her fashion blog talking about how there's a big lack of diversity on this television show there's never been anyone plus size and the racial diversity is sincerely lacking as well after a series of events there's a new show runner and that showrunner asked me if she would like to be on this show and kind of change the face of television essentially everything kind of happens from there there is something that i think is like kind of important to note she ends up sleeping with a friend of hers that she's had a thing for for like a really really long time in the beginning of this book and it kind of wrecks her emotionally because after she sleeps with this person he goes back to his fiance afterwards and doesn't talk to her again now that she's on the show he tries to get in contact with her and i think that'll come up later in the book but hasn't yet i'm actually enjoying this i wasn't sure how to feel at the 50 mark because b was a character that i couldn't personally relate to and that like doesn't have a ton of bearing on whether a book is good or not but it does have bearing on whether i can relate and like feel a lot emotionally for a book i just wasn't sure how i felt about b but i'm actually really liking her and i can definitely understand her perspective a lot more now that i am into the story i'm liking what this story is doing now i'm not plus-sized so i obviously don't know if the representation in here is like fantastic or not but i think that this is a book that people of all sizes could relate to because bee is in a place with her self-confidence and body acceptance that she feels good but she still has days where she feels like and people do unfortunately treat her shitty because of the body that she is in and that's something that is touched on in the book but is not the sole focus of the story it's having b break down some of the things that have gone on in her life that makes her feel unlovable and makes her untrusting of this process i mean she's on reality television but she is genuinely falling for these guys and she's wondering if this is real and if she can you know trust these people because she already has reasons to not trust people in the first place there's events in the show that happen that make her untrusting of men as well so it's just it's an interesting exploration into the vulnerability of love which i'm actually quite enjoying i wasn't sure if i was going to like that because i was feeling at some points like this was just another story about a plus-size main character not loving themselves but that's not really what this is and i think some of the reviews that i read that said that it's a little reductionist to to say that because there's a lot more to it and b is not saying that she doesn't accept herself and her body it's just saying that she is fearful of the people who don't accept her for who she is i am liking the story i think it is really well told the only thing i'm a little hesitant about is the fact that i don't know that this is 100 romance that's not like the worst thing in the world i guess i don't know i said that when i was reading another book and it was the worst thing in the world this one i guess is just such a compelling read that i'm not upset about it and the fact that there is so much focus on self-acceptance when it comes to love it kind of makes it feel more romantic if that makes sense and it's set on a reality television show where she's supposed to be falling for guys so to me i could understand why this is a book that was on the list as opposed to like other things it is romantic and it was definitely very hyped up i haven't heard much about it since but it was very hyped up so that's my two cents i'm going to go ahead and finish this let you guys know what i think but so far i mean so good i just finished one to watch by kate stayman london and i ended up really enjoying this book i feel like this was definitely a lot more romantic than the switch and while it wasn't a traditional romance in the sense that it's super steamy and you get to see a lot of like graphic scenes i definitely think that this could still be categorized as a romance bee goes on a journey with a few different men and ends up finding herself more emotionally open and vulnerable and at the end she does end up with someone so i do think this could be considered a romance in that regard and i ended up really liking who she ended up with so i just liked the story in general i feel like there was a level of realism to this that i really wasn't expecting going in i expected this book to just be pure fluff and pure positivity all the time and it's certainly not that and i think that kind of is something that i want to touch on briefly i was reading goodreads reviews and was watching youtube videos of people talking about this book and a lot of people didn't like it and i think that that is because this book is not escapism if you're looking for a purely body positive escapist story this is not that our main character is body positive but like anyone she does still kind of struggle with certain things she doesn't want to be in a bikini on live television some people are reading that as uh not body positive and i mean you can read that however you want i personally felt like i wouldn't want to be in a bikini on live television either and everybody's got their hang ups right and on top of that b does face some really harsh critics and harsh backlash and while it's really hard to read about it is unfortunately realistic and so i feel like this was a very realistic look at what it would be like to have a plus-sized heroine on one of these bachelorette franchise shows so if you were looking for escapism definitely not the book for you if you're looking for a fun romance with some grit and some realism to it i think this is really cool and i think a lot of people can take something away from the message in this book that everybody is capable of vulnerability everybody can find love you just have to put yourself out there and trust i don't know i just thought it was a really cute book and again this is not one that i'm going to lightly i think there's some kind of harmful content in here it's always questioned obviously but this is kind of a mixed media format which i didn't i don't think say previously and there are like comments on different blog posts and different articles and stuff on here and some of those are from fatphobic people so i think that's important to know if you want to go into this book definitely i wouldn't recommend this to people who are struggling in their own like body positivity journey so just something i thought i would put out there i thought this was really good it's hard though because i feel like while this was romantic i don't i don't know where i would put this if i was comparing it to other romances on the list this definitely is not nearly as romantic as something like from blood and ash but i did ultimately enjoy this more than that book so it's kind of hard to know where to place it i think i'm going to place it after boyfriend material i think i liked them both a lot i think this one is probably objectively less romance centric but i think i ultimately want to make my rankings on enjoyment and romance like i don't want it to just be well these books weren't romance so i'm not even going to rank them i mean they're on the list so i'd rather just rank them all and i do want to consider you know whether a book was truly romance when i am ranking them but also this was just good so i'm gonna put this one after boyfriend material but it's still up there this is definitely like second on my list so so i really enjoyed this next however i'm going to be listening to the happy ever after playlist by abby jimenez i got this as a audio arc i can never remember what to call those this is about our main character whose fiance died a couple of years ago she's still kind of struggling with degree from that i think she finds a dog and she ends up finding the dog's owner who happens to be i believe a famous musician and it's about their romance so i'm excited to see what this book is all about i'm assuming the topic of grief is going to be very heavy and prevalent in this book but i'm excited to give it a go i'm going to be listening to this probably later today probably won't be in a cute outfit like this later today but i will get back to you guys once i am 50 into this book all right i really need to stop telling you guys that i'm gonna update you at a certain percentage because i really never know how these books are gonna go and i ended up just completely reading through slash listening through happy ever after playlist by abby jimenez i just didn't feel the need to update you guys because this book from the start was i don't want to say predictable but i definitely knew the kind of story it was going to be from the first i don't know five minutes of listening while that isn't a bad thing it's just not something that i felt like i really needed to give my thoughts on as i listened or read the story is basically exactly what i said in the intro to this video or even the last clip basically it is about our main character who i literally can't remember the name of even though i just finished this book two minutes ago which doesn't like bode well for this review but it is about our heroine who was dealing with the grief of losing her fiance a couple of years ago she's not dealing with it necessarily in the most healthy way but in finding this lost dog and reuniting the dog with its owner she finds a new companion someone new to love not the dog but the guy i mean she loves the dog but she's with the guy right and it's really just about their romance and he is one of her favorite musicians and he is on the come up he is on the rise and he is going on tour for like months and years at a time and that sort of is the main conflict in this book and i say that because this book from the very beginning is really all about their relationship and that's not a bad thing i like that this is a true romance the focus is really on their romantic relationship however i felt like from day one it was romance and that's not a bad thing i just personally prefer a little bit more build up in my romantic relationships and from day one pretty much they're flirting they're texting they have phone call conversations while she's taking care of his dog while he's like on the last part of this little like tour he's doing for two weeks this is before they initially meet so even before they've met they've had some romantic encounters so when they do meet it's like it's nice and it's cute but it didn't feel like there were any stakes there and that's kind of how the story continued not a bad thing i really enjoyed their banter and their relationship i especially liked our hero jason i think his name is jason jackson is his persona i thought he was really respectful and kind and i think if you're looking for a really safe romance this is it there is talk of cheating but there is really no infidelity in this book there is a lot of talk about grief and understanding grief and our hero definitely is very understanding of our heroine's grief but ultimately i just i can't even remember the name of the heroine that's how kind of forgettable this book was it definitely wasn't bad it was a very enjoyable read but i just don't know that this is something that sticks with me and again i hate to bring it up but i really feel like indie romeo's is where it's at for me it has all of the staples that i've come to love and i think if you're someone who kind of sticks to wattpad or you're really into fan fiction and you can't seem to find that sort of replication and regular romance or fiction i feel like you need to give india a try because it's got all of the tropes that you've come to know and love the pining the angst the enemies to lovers the i don't know the tension there the stakes that's what i really like and what i'm really into and i just i have not been able to really find a ton of that in traditionally published romance and this book just kind of i don't want to say proved that to me but just was another reminder of how sad i am that there's no india's on this list like i was looking at the other i think four books that i still have to read wow have i read six of these the other four books that i have to read and i'm just like are any of these going to be a true five-star read it's sad last year i did have a five-star traditionally published romance pick and it was one of my favorite books of the year but looking at what we've got left there's still only one book that i think could maybe potentially be a five star and that's kind of sad i just i was looking for something more anyway back to the book at hand this was definitely not terrible i did enjoy it but it was just ultimately a three-star read for me if i had to rank it i think i'm going to rank it between from blood and ash and beach read it's just okay i would recommend this if you want a good safe romance if you kind of want exploration of grief in a story i think this one did a pretty good job at handling that but again ultimately just kind of forgettable for me that reminds me of a lot of other books that i've read so anyway i am gonna go ahead and start in on in five years by rebecca searle god i'm lazy i can't believe i'm just throwing a graphic up right here i do own this book and i'm gonna be reading it physically but i'll left you guys whenever i feel like it because i don't know what feelings i'm going to have i'm assuming i'll probably have feelings about the 50 mark for this one because i know this one is not a traditional romance i've heard really mixed things so fingers crossed i enjoy it hopefully it's not too equity down here i decided nice change of scenery big christmas tree i am fifty percent in two in five years by rebecca searle and i have no clue how to feel about this book okay where to begin i really hated the first chapter and i really didn't know if i was gonna be able to get past it because our main character danny is kind of a lot and by that i mean she's really boring but she has a lot of not even opinions her life just seems to be a little bit too perfect it's hard to sympathize with her or care about anything that's happening because it seems like her life is all planned out and i'm assuming that that setup is supposed to get us to like sympathize with what's coming for her but even 50 into the book like i just don't care about her as a person so she is a high-powered corporate attorney she just got her dream job and she just got proposed to by her long-term boyfriend but after this proposal after their engagement she wakes up from a nap or not wakes up from now yeah she wakes up from a nap in an alternate reality five years in the future where she is engaged to a different man and she's in a very different apartment and her life seems to be very very different now she's only in this alternate reality for an hour and then she's transported back into present day she is left reeling because it didn't feel like a dream it really felt like an alternate reality for her and this is something that stuck with her four years later she ends up meeting that man who she was like engaged to in the future he keeps reappearing in her life and it is hard to not spoil this book but i don't like what the author is doing i don't appreciate it i know there's really only one way for our main character to be able to get with the hero of the story and i really really hate that that's how the story is playing out i really don't want to get too into detail about it but you are left with this anxiety as you're reading because you're like this guy keeps showing up in her life and you keep rooting for her to get with him all the while she is with this guy who she's planning a wedding with and also you're sort of like once you get to the kind of pivot point in the story where you're like oh this is a way that they could get together you're like are you kidding like it's it's the only way that they could be together and in my head i knew that going in but i'm just like insulted almost that this is the way the story is going i'm gonna put a spoiler mark right here so that i can kind of talk more in depth about like what i'm talking about but anyway the guy that danny saw in her dream was or is her best friend's boyfriend and the only way that she can be with her best friend's boyfriend is if her best friend dies i don't like i hate that this story is only 250 pages there's absolutely no way that in 250 pages you're going to get an actual romance out of this when there's no romance to speak of right now and her friends dying of cancer i really hate that i just don't like the setup of this book because you are led to believe that this guy who she is engaged to in the future like that should be the guy that she's with right and so you are like rooting for him this entire time even though you should not be and it leaves you with this uneasy feeling as you're reading it does not feel good and it feels even worse when the plot things that happen happened in this book i am really not doing this book justice but i'm not really like loving it i'm not hating it but it's um hard to hard to enjoy when i tell you i hated every single solitary second that i was reading this book i think that'd be actually pretty accurate i said that i didn't know how i felt about this book but i didn't like most of it and then the end came and i was like are you kidding me this was so pointless in so many ways like if you're trying to read this as a romance it's 100 pointless if you're trying to read this as heartwarming or inventive or really anything i don't think it accomplishes that at all i'm literal i'm just so upset that this exists in the world that's so mean and i feel so mean saying it i really really really hated it and i have no other way to really explain it besides spoiling it again so i'm gonna go ahead and put the spoiler warning up again and we can talk about why i hated this book so much i cannot believe that this got published and it was not poorly written let me tell you it was compulsively readable and i can understand why people would feel compelled to continue to read this book however what was the point so our main character danny she sees the into the future she sees this guy who's dating her best friend and she has sex with him in this dream it does come into fruition it does come to be but she doesn't even end up with that guy at least we're not led to believe that so this is really just a story about someone's life becoming immeasurably shitty having their best friend die and losing their fiance that's really all i got from this and it wasn't poignant it was not meaningful it did not do anything special or different that other books have not done i'm just kind of insulted that like all of the blurbs on the back make this sound like it is revolutionary and it is just so not that it is so not that it's pretty i will give it that it is a pretty book but this pissed me off so much and i'm angry that i read this i'm angry that i gave this book my time it wasn't it didn't even take that much of my time to read but like i'm very angry this will be all my worst books of the of the year list and i know a lot of people liked this and i think if you have a kinder gentler soul than i you could perhaps find enjoyment from this but i am not that kind to gentle soul and i really really hated this i don't know i really have something against tear jerkers to begin with so that could definitely i mean that's definitely a me thing but if you read this book critically i think you'll come to find that there really was no point and that's the thing i'm all for a good twist but when the twist has no point where to rank this dead last surprise surprise i'm giving this book one star i really am just like in awe of the fact that like i said this book got published that this was on the goodreads choice words in the category of romance it's like kind of insulting to me we're gonna put this at number seven after the switch i thought the switch was bad i didn't think it could get worse and yet here we are and i think people are going to think i'm dramatic if they've read this book but i'm sorry this was quite upsetting to me it's like life sucks then you die i don't hate it i hate it so much moving on to the next book let me pull up my handy dandy list and we can decide what we're gonna read next cause i haven't even thought about it let's go with you had me at ola i think i need something that's a little bit less try hard i was gonna try the colleen hoover next but i don't think i have the emotional and mental capacity for that right now so let's try had me at ola then we'll read regretting you and then we'll finish off with peace day resistance i can't talk today take care danny brown which i'm sure is going to be the best book of all of these but anyway first we got to start out with you had me at ola i'm going to be reading this physically i have an argument that i never got around to and um it's going to be a grand old time nothing can be worse than this book it's only up from here okay so i just finished you had me at ola i thought it was fine it was not anything to write home about but it definitely wasn't a terrible book i just didn't feel the need to update you guys because the plot was super linear there were no twists it was nothing mind-blowing basically the story is about our main character jasmine who was in a lot of soap operas and she finally landed the starring role in a show that's like a remake of a telenovela it is a show for netflix so all the episodes are filmed and then put you know online her co-star is named ashton and he is a little bit older than her he's like 40. he has been in a lot of telenovelas but he has not been able to break out into like mainstream hollywood and that is kind of his ultimate goal so the story is kind of just about them and their time on this show together falling for each other and learning to trust each other after some of the kind of baggage that they have it wasn't bad i just really felt a lack of chemistry between our two main characters even though the like steamier scenes were pretty solidly written i just didn't really care for the characters and i honestly was kind of irritated at both of them at multiple different points in the story so i made it kind of hard to care and root for the two of them together i think part of that also might have been me picking up the audio rather than just reading the arc that i have but i don't know if i would have been able to get through the book if i hadn't picked it up on audio so i think that was like the right decision for me part of i think my issue was that i could really pick up on the fact that the writing was this sort of like weird third person that i don't really love it's that really really close third person where it's kind of told from the main character's points of view but it's not like them saying i you know what i mean most of the indie romance that i read is written in a dual pov and it's first person and that makes sense to me having a dual pov but third person is very like odd to listen to yeah i don't know i'm not sure if like any of these thoughts are super coherent but i just was not super in love with the story i really really liked jasmine's family which i think kind of saved the story a little bit for me but beyond that i just didn't care that much and honestly like ashton's backstory was i don't know it was it was hard for me to care which sounds so bad because he obviously had like been through some things but i guess i didn't understand why his baggage made it harder for him to open up to jasmine it was just fine it was an okay book don't know if this would be like a best romance for me definitely and i don't think a lot of people who read this book were super like overwhelmingly impressed either so i don't know i feel pretty confident about giving this like two and a half or three stars and i think i'm gonna pull the graphic up right now i think i'm going to rank this in between the happy ever after playlist and beach read it's like number five out of eight right now not a bad spot it's just like not something that i absolutely adored it is romance so it's like decently still high on the list but it just it wasn't everything to me next though i am going to start in on regretting you by colleen hoover i am very nervous about this book i know it's got kind of like a mother-daughter duel pov thing since colleen hoover started in sort of like the indie realm her writing is really easy for me to get into and i feel like she usually uses first person povs in her stories so i think this is going to be something that is easier for me to read and get through than this book was but i guess we shall see all right probably a little bit premature and updating you guys but i am 26 into regretting you by colleen hoover and i'm actually not hating it and that's kind of why i wanted to come talk to you i hit the twist at the 20 mark and i can tell you i was not expecting it and even though i think a lot of people probably hated the twist i kind of liked it probably because i didn't see it coming but it's so messy and so drama filled and so over the top that i like it i don't know i'm sort of like hit or miss when it comes to messy plot twists sometimes i think they're overdone and can ruin the story sometimes i just like to lean into the cheese so this is actually doing it for me and i also kind of like the way the romances are playing out so far so let me try to explain what the story is about because i think it's a little convoluted and sort of hard to explain but this book is about our two main characters morgan and clara morgan starts out the story and she is the intro chapter she is in the car with her boyfriend her sister and her boyf and her sister's boyfriend and they are going to a party and in the car we're kind of just in morgan's mind and she's kind of telling us a little bit about her personality and her relationships with the people that are in the car then she winds up pregnant or she thinks she might be pregnant and we find out she's pregnant the next chapter because it is from the pov of her daughter clara it is an interesting story morgan was 17 when she had clara and so that adds kind of an interesting dynamic to the story because in the intro we find out that morgan doesn't necessarily love her boyfriend so much but we find out that she ends up marrying him and you know having clara so that's kind of a layer of interestingness on top of that the guy the other guy in the car her sister's boyfriend jonah is someone that she kind of had a crush on and uh they have sort of like miscommunication e trope situation going on you can tell that they both kind of liked each other back in the past they kind of like each other now in the present and things are complicated here's some more complication for you jenny is morgan's sister the one that was in the car with her jenny and jonah end up reuniting later on in life they don't stay you know high school sweethearts but they do reunite later on and they end up having a baby kind of like unexpectedly so jenny and jonah are together and morgan and chris i think is his name are together in this present day situation they're 30 years old there's a little baby named elijah that's jenny and jonas and then clara is obviously chris and morgan's so that's that but mess and drama ensues quickly and i have such uh specific tropes and specific relationship situations that i enjoy and this book is kind of doing that in a messy way but i'm enjoying it so i'm gonna have to put a spoiler warning to kind of explain what that means but i'm having a good time for those of you that don't want the spoilers so spoiler warning essentially what happens is we have jenny texting clara at one point and then she just kind of stops texting clara out of out of the blue and we find out that she jenny morgan's sister claire's aunt gets in a car accident with chris clara's dad and i think we're led to believe that jenny and chris have been having an affair and they might have been having an affair over like a 10-year 17-year period and i think that we're gonna find out like secrets unravel um after this car accident in which they both die i should mention jenny chris dead i guess what's gonna happen i could be wrong here i think what's going to happen is that there's going to be some sort of relationship between jonah and morgan and then clara is going to have a romance with kind of not the bad boy in town but misunderstood guy in town i think that's what the story story's gonna be but i think the way that the relationships are set up is something that i'm really really enjoying i really like the kind of it's not even a true miscommunication trope it's more of like a miscommunication unrequited love situation and unrequited love is absolutely my favorite uh romance trope i'm really figuring that out as i get older i love a good unrequited romance trope but when the love on it is unrequited on both sides like they both think it's unrequited but they both love each other it gets me every time so that's kind of what's happening i think between clara and herbo we don't know much about them yet but i definitely think we're going to find out more about them and then that's gonna probably happen i think between jonah and morgan which is good because morgan is in a situation where she's wanting her life to change she's devoted so much of her life to being a mother she never got to go to college and she never really got to explore any of her own interests so i think it's going to be her self-discovery and her kind of figuring out that maybe she can have love with someone who might i don't know be better for her i don't know i never really liked chris he was not a bad guy in the intro but i just like kind of didn't care about him so it's messy but i'm kind of here for it like i said the whole unrequited mutual pining that's another i should mutual painting there you go mutual pining unrequited miscommunication put it all together it's my so i'm liking this i'm also just remembering i'm gonna take the spoiler warning away and talk a little bit more about just like general things i'm enjoying i kind of forgot how much i liked colleen hoover's writing style it is i think indicative of a lot of what i love about indie writing and i think i sort of misspoke when i said that there weren't very many indie books on this list i mean it is true we really only have this and from blood and ash it's poignant without being too purple and it is it evokes emotion from me which i appreciate i don't necessarily always love colleen hoover's story lines but i do like her writing and it's something that is very compulsively readable so i'm not upset about this i am kind of enjoying it i don't know how this is gonna rank among the other stories that i've read but so far so good i'll bet you guys again once i know more about the story and have formed more concrete feelings on where the story is going but thus far it's good not me liking colleen hoover book let's chat i ended up actually really enjoying regretting you it was an enjoyable read i don't know what else to say about it i think i talked way too long in my first clip so i don't want to go too much more into detail but everything that i talked about liking and the first clip is stuff that continued on the only thing that i thought was a little frustrating was the lack of clarity about everything i wanted to know more about the drama and we didn't really get any answers which i guess is sort of realistic and like that is life right some of the plot things that happened weren't solved in a way that i personally like but that's because i'm messy and i really wanted the drama but other than that i liked the relationships enough in this book and since this is a video reading goodreads romances i can tell you that i enjoyed the romantic relationships in this book now was it really a romance that's kind of the question i don't really know how i would categorize this book it felt more like a romance than the switch and in five years because there were two romantic relationships they did play out but the story wasn't necessarily all about romance i mean it kind of was like i think this book does break down the walls of genre a little bit and i think colleen hoover says that the acknowledgments of this book she does kind of point out that it is not a pure like strict romance it is a little bit about the mother-daughter relationship but but i don't know i just i liked it and i'm not gonna apologize for it i think i'm just gonna go with my gut for these ratings i feel like i'm kind of hard on myself and trying to be very scientific but you know what enjoyment of fiction is not necessarily scientific so i don't really feel that bad so let me tell you i think i'm going to rank this one just below from blood and ash boyfriend material one to watch from blood and ash regretting you the happy ever after playlist you had me at ola beach read the switch and in five years now that i'm looking at it i feel like i might in my head switch one to watch and boyfriend material but i don't know i think honestly like the top four of these rankings are kind of interchangeable to me like i enjoyed them all for different reasons and kind of equally but i think i'm okay with how they are so far okay so i was just editing the clips for this video and i lost like the last half of what i was filming but i was just typing the hell out of this book i was so excited to pick it up happy that i saved it for last and upon actually starting the book i can definitely say with confidence that that was a really good decision to make because i'm glad to be finishing this video strong this book is fantastic only 100 pages in but it is easily the best book that i've read so far and i can't really see anything changing that so i don't really know how much i've talked about this book but it is about our main character danica danny brown and she is a phd student and she is friends with this guy named zafir or zaff they have this sort of like passing friendship kind of thing she is a teacher right now like she's getting her phd and she's teaching and the building that she teaches in she passes by the same security guard every day zaf and they've kind of struck up a friendship she will bring him a black coffee and he will give her a protein bar every morning after this sort of uh fire drill gone wrong he ends up rescuing her kind of from the building she gets trapped in an elevator during a fire drill he saves her and carries her out fireman style and someone takes a video and uh they kind of have to fake date from there zaf has his own sort of like charitable endeavor he's trying to bring like mental health awareness to rugby and like have it be a way to facilitate mental health discussions i guess so he coaches boys that are in their teens and after the like video of him saving danny goes viral they decide to fake date because it looks really good for zaf and gets more awareness onto his charity and danny has just kind of broken up with her most recent fling she's not really into relationships and she decides like hey this might be a good idea for me because i kind of want someone to hook up with don't want a relationship like i'll fake date you maybe you and it'll be a good time so i don't know if i'm doing a good job explaining this i feel like that was really all over the place but this is so so good absolutely adore danny's character i really liked chloe brown because of the plotline and i really liked red as a character the male love interest in the first book he was great but something about the instant chemistry that both of these characters have is so lovely i love the whole opposites attract thing going on uh zaf is definitely gruff but he's not as gruff as red was in the first book and him handling danny's sense of humor is just perfect i think that is what is setting this book apart from for me from all of the other books that i've read thus far there is so much chemistry and the banter is so well written i guess i take for granted how hard it is to write dialogue for books that is compelling and interesting and funny and i've laughed out loud multiple times reading this hayden has been like what are you laughing about in there it's this book and i'm only 100 pages in so i'm sure that it's going to get even funnier from here but this is so good and i knew it was going to be good and i kind of am kicking myself for not picking this up earlier my cats are making a ruckus outside of my office but um i don't know i'm loving that thank you for the present do you want to come say hi nugget likes to bring me um gifts and he screams when he does it anyway i am going to continue reading this i don't know how often i'll update you guys um but i'm hoping that i can finish this today and then finish this video today and then look at what uh actually won the goodreads choice awards and the category of romance that was uh that was a lot now i'm out of breath okay i'm gonna go okay nuggets purring in the background so i'm sorry if you can hear that but i'm halfway done with take a hint danny brown and i just head up to you guys because this is so so good and i think i am realizing that the relationship dynamic between zaff and danny is kind of similar to myself and my fiance like he is very staff-like just very like thoughtful and romantic and sweet and i'm just like kind of neither of those things but i'm just they're so cute together i love this there's so much that i'm appreciating that i keep forgetting to tell you guys i think the mental health representation is super fantastic in this i think it's very realistic and it's just an added layer to the story it doesn't feel like that is the sole focus of the story i don't love super like topical romances if you will i like when the characters feel real and they have issues but it's not like the story is not about their issues do you know what i mean like people people have problems and things to work through and having that included in a romance i think just adds depth to it and i like that a lot i like that he has anxiety and panic attacks and that's just something he deals with what else do i like oh my god i was just thinking about this i love how casual everything is in this book like there's so much casual queerness which is awesome danny is bi and i think her grandma might like women as well i think i think that's what i got from this i think her grandmother has a girlfriend so that's really really awesome and her grandma was like you know i hope one day you have a wedding to like a man or a woman or whoever you're interested in and i thought that was awesome i also love the casual body diversity i'm pretty sure that both danny and staff are like plus-sized it's not like dated explicitly on paper but the way that both of them are described it feels like that and the cover images kind of lead you to believe that i just like it i love that it's again it's not like this is a story about body positivity but you have two characters who aren't super tiny i am so sick of the heroines of stories being like teacup chihuahuas they're like oh my god i can like i'm just so small i've always been so small and i can fit in the palm of his hand like i hate that so much like i know small people exist but can we get some more like casual body diversity in books please thank you okay uh that's all i have to say they haven't even boned yet but i think it's gonna be hot when they do and i like this and i will update you probably when i'm finished so i had my fancy camera out for another video so i figured you know who wouldn't appreciate the increased camera quality at the end of this video i just finished taking it danny brown i adored this and this was in a word perfect i gave this book five stars this is obviously the winner for me of the goodreads choice award in the category of romance it was so so good i knew that it was gonna be good i had a feeling that i would like this especially when this was pitched to me as something that was going to be slightly smuttier than get a life chloe round and it was it was smuttier it was just everything that i really really wanted and it was so good i cried i swooned i laughed just all the things this was amazing um i don't know that i have much else to say beyond what i said in the previous clips but i think the conclusion to this was also really satisfying and not too drawn out i really don't like that like third act breakup that always happens in romance or like that horrible conflict that always comes up in this book i feel like it was very reasonable and it was not too drawn out that was one of the complaints that i had when i read chloe brown i feel like there were a couple of times when there were conflict and i just i felt like it was one conflict too many and here perfect amount of conflict that's not to say that this was just some like easy breezy ride there were some serious topics dealt with like severe's anxiety and danny's fear of abandonment but her like past relationship struggles and just seeing them come together and kind of fight through the issues that they had to form a successful relationship was just beautiful loved this book could not recommend this book more like it was fantastic so obviously this is getting the number one slot i'm gonna go ahead and put up my rankings again on the screen and we can kind of talk through them before i go and look at what the winner is of the goodreads twist awards ooh i'm excited so pulling up my rankings right now i ended up switching a couple of books around just because i feel like some books were more memorable than others right so in the first place spot we obviously have taken danny brown but i ended up switching boyfriend material and one to watch for me i just feel like one to watch was a little bit more impactful and i haven't read a story like this before so i just i don't know i really i liked it i know that this one's kind of controversial and i know some people really didn't like it but i don't know i just felt it was really realistic even though it wasn't a completely fluffy read i just i really really liked this book uh next up we have boyfriend material i really liked this i think if i'm going based on enjoyment i think boyfriend material from blood and ash and regretting you i think we're all kind of on the same level i like them all for different reasons so i think they're kind of arbitrary rankings but i have boyfriend material then from blood nash then regretting you and then we get down to the books that i kind of just felt meh about the happy ever after playlist and you had me at ola neither were bad books um but neither were like all-out favorites for me beach read same honestly i think those three down there kind of all the same to me i don't know they were fine but just not like standouts and then we have the switch and in five years both of which i really really didn't enjoy and i'll be interested to see where they end up on the winners list because i don't think they should be on the list at all okay so without further ado let's go ahead and look at the winners of the goodreads choice board i have my laptop in front of me that's why i'm like looking down um okay whoo all right not surprised i think i could be wrong but i think my predictions were either from blood nash or beach read would win and as you can see from blood nash one i feel like that makes a lot of sense i think this book was highly buzzed about and i actually like that as much as i complained that there were any indies on this list that the winner was an indie-ish romance because i think it's getting a lot more attention now i think indie is something that is really making a splash and i just love to see it so i'm glad that this book won i guess i don't know i don't think it's it should have been the winner but like i'm not mad at it it makes sense okay moving on i'm gonna pull up the full rankings for you guys be treated number two i feel okay about that i mean i knew people would really enjoy that book but it was just kind of whatever for me what is atrocious is in five years being in the number three slot the fact i mean i got nearly half of the votes that bcreed got but also it was horrible and i hated it i hated every second of it i don't really understand how this could be even nominated for romance like it's just why regretting you at number four i'm not super upset about because i actually did enjoy that one boyfriend material at five i understand take a hit danny brown being at number six like i just i don't understand that i don't understand it i think i said this last year but if you could take anything away from this video it is to pick up take a hint danny brown because i think it's severely underrated this got what i i can't do the math but it only got 26 000 votes in comparison to from blood and ashes 70 000 votes which means not that many people read this book and you need to read this book it's so good then we have one to watch the happy ever after playlist the switch and you have me and ola i think you had me at ola is a little bit too low on the list i think the switch and in five years should be at the bottom but you know that's just me um i'm gonna go ahead and put up the rankings like my rankings versus the goodreads choice award rankings some of them are in similar spots the switch is in the exact same spot in my rankings and in goodreads rankings but everything else is sort of like switched around kind of so i don't know that i have super profound thoughts after doing this little reading challenge i will say there were not as many books that i was excited about this time around primarily because most or a lot of these books just weren't uh romance or they weren't romances that i personally would have picked up on my own so i don't know if i'll do this next year i think i might i don't know you guys let me know if you want to see me do this again maybe especially if the nominees are just incredible next year i'll probably have to do it but i don't know this was not as exciting i feel like this time around as it was last year but i guess i'm kind of glad to see what is popular or i'm glad i got to see what is popular and why it's popular i guess that's fun i don't know i'm trying to find some sort of like profound meaning in this and there really isn't it's just me reading books anyway thanks so much for watching i know this video was obscenely long but i appreciate you guys watching love you guys so much and until next sunday you

Channel: chandler ainsley

Views: 141,980

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Id: HGz36a7nmYE

Length: 56min 58sec (3418 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021