my first big book haul, bookshelf tour, and finding a new favorite fantasy romance standalone

Very excited for that. But I didn't know quite  how beautiful it would be in person. I bought a Raven Cycle shirt. Hi everyone, welcome to another  video, my name is Cari, thank you for being here. I'm doing a kind of out of character video. I'm  doing a little bit of a bookish haul because it is not only books. And I'm also in a different  setting, I'm in America! I feel like most people know this but I get some people who are like  "what you live in Korea?!" I do normally live in Korea. my hom

e is in Korea, I live in Seoul but I am visiting my parents out here in Pennsylvania and I will show you the room  I'm in in a second. So throughout the past couple of months I have collected a few things that I  just really would like to share with you I feel like you guys would really appreciate it so  I'm going to share those in a moment but first a shout out to the sponsor of this video which is  Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning platform that I actually have not only been a  stud

ent with but I'm also a teacher. They have classes ranging from ui/ux design, to how  to organize your closet. Literally anything you can think of, any skill, they will have a course  on it. I always hype up their creative writing classes because they have an incredible wealth of  knowledge. Like the group of instructors available on Skillshare is mindboggling so I always say  go check out the creative writing. However if you are interested in starting YouTube, I have a  class that is literally

just an introduction, what stuff you need to buy, and then just kind of  what mindset you want to be in. How to stop telling yourself that you are not ready to start because  you are ready - you literally need a phone that has a camera. Yeah I will link my class down below but  also there will be a link in the description box and the first 500 people to use that link will  get access to one of Skillshare's best offers, you will get a month free plus 40% off of  your first year of Skillshare memb

ership. Highly recommend. I've been using them for years and so  thank you as always to Skillshare for sponsoring this. Truly I feel like as we enter autumn and  winter for most of us that is like when we start to burrow into our homes and pick up a new craft...  Skillshare, okay? So anyway how do I start this? I'm so excited to talk about this. First of all,  you can't really see it so I feel like you guys, I haven't spoiled anything but let me back up, let me  back up, let me stand up. I am so

not embarrassed. I purchased - can you, if you can read it, I'm sorry  it's a little wrinkled I have been wearing it as pajamas for like this whole trip. I bought a  Raven Cycle shirt. I just found it on Etsy and this girl designed it and I liked it and yeah I was  hoping to get it in time for finishing my video but it's not, so now this is my new honestly  I'm not even going to wear it just as pajamas I feel like it's a cute little oversized tee moment.  I like it. I normally roll up the sleev

es a little bit just to give it a little you know a little  more tailored look lol. Anyway so yeah I've joined the club. I wish someone would make a better - I  still call it Agly because I can't pronounce the school's name but like a better sweater like  an academic sweater for that school because I would wear the heck out of it. Anyway so yeah I'll  link that down below. That was such such a good find but what I initially - the book part of the  book haul, oh my gosh, I'm so excited also wait

look at the light - doesn't this look magical? I  mean oh spoiler I bought a book but look at how it's shimmering. Oh my gosh so yeah your girl  bought it. I, as you guys might know, have a main channel. It's a vlogging channel where I share  my travels in my life and I recently went to the UK for a couple weeks in summer and we were in  Bath for quite a few days and every single day we went into Toppings which is a absolutely  marvelous bookstore. Shout out to Joel from Fictional Fates for reco

mmending it to me. I want  to live there. This bookstore is just gorgeous and they give you complimentary coffee and tea  like if you're there browsing, someone will walk up to you and be like 'hey do you want a coffee?' Stunning. We love it. That is where I stumbled upon a book event that Samantha Shannon was at and she  did a whole talk about the re-release of the Bone Season. It was just truly a magical magical bookstore. And I was traveling, I had been in Iceland prior to that trip and then

I immediately  went to the UK and then I was going home so I was traveling with I do carry-on luggage and I was at  the limit. I could not purchase anything else and so luckily my mom is also a book a bookworm  and we figured together it would make sense if, you know, if we're buying a couple of books, we might as  well just ship them home? So I bought a few books and I shipped them to the US and so now that I  have them, I can share them with you and they are better than I expected. I kind of b

ought books  that I knew I wanted to have. So if you wonder why I don't do book hauls, I mostly utilize the  library. I use Libby which is an incredible app you should absolutely check if your local library  uses it. There are a lot, also like definitely look up available digital libraries because you would  be surprised what your hometown might have so my home library, I have a library card still in the US  and so I use Libby and through that. I can borrow and also request books in case my libr

ary doesn't  happen to have it. You can also pre-put books on hold like there are so many books that are coming out  this autumn and I have put myself on the holds list before it's even out yet so check that out.  But anyway so these two were books that I already knew I really wanted and so I actually didn't  even really look at them. I kind of just grabbed them off the shelves and I was like yes, these  two please put them in the box send them away before I look at anything else and I try to bu

y  anything else. So when I got home on this trip to actually see them I was pleasantly surprised I  was already going to be excited either way but these had, these were both Illustrated. I knew I  knew that the Holly Black one was illustrated but I didn't know quite how beautiful it would  be in person and then ditto for the One for My Enemy. I saw the illustrations when I read it  on my Kindle edition but I kind of was like whatever - in person they are gorgeous. So let me  show you. I got One

for My Enemy by Olivie Blake. As you guys know, I've talked about this, I did  not love - I did not love the Atlas Six. I was okay with Alone with You in The Ether. So for her, she  is a hit or miss, but this it just came to me at the right time and it was just I, for some reason  it hooked its little claws into me and I really really love this book. I've said it before and I'll  say it again, I know this would not be a book for everybody. So definitely I would say utilize the  library, try rea

ding it first before purchasing it because this is a hefty book but I did happen to  find a signed first edition. I normally don't care but I figured if I had the option of getting  the regular one or the signed one and they were the same price, why not get a signed one? So I'll  show you some close-ups but it does have full page illustrations. I won't show you the later  ones cuz they get a little spoilery but just so good. Oh my God also no, oh okay, oh so when  I was reading the Kindle versio

n, I obviously saw those full page illustrations right? What I  didn't see was the inside cover. Look at this. It's the family - this is the, now I forget their  names but this is the daughters. The sons. Isn't that -? When I opened the book I was just like oh  my God. So yeah I am going to take off this. But then after that I did finally get How  the King of Elflame Learned to Hate Stories. You guys, if you aren't new you might know  that I have a kind of Love/Hate relationship with Cardan - do

n't we all - from the Cruel Prince  but after reading the series a couple of times I have learned to live with early days Cardan  and you know, it's fine. I love the series but so many people told me to actually read this  book because it gives a lot of background that I felt like the Cruel Prince was missing so  these are all stories that include Cardan and I'm pretty sure Jude's in here as well but it  just kind of gives you a understanding of our dear Prince and I'll show you - I'll do a  fli

p through of the illustrations but oh so good. And now to continue my bookish, my bookish  theme, I will show you the library. The room I'm in currently. So my parents, like I said, moved  here pretty recently and I was with them - we drove cross country (if you want to see that Vlog  I will put it up here) we drove cross country and we started house hunting and we looked at this  house and the second we saw this room we were like sold, sold. I will show you. We've got this  nice little setup. T

hat's my Grammy's old chair so it is very comfortable. Got some bookshelves and  then oh and then a nice little fireplace here. Those are pictures waiting to be hung, don't  mind them. Ee've got a little mini bookshelf going on, more books, just books everywhere you look but then this is what got us. It's so pretty! Like look at the, look at the light that comes in  here through the trees, constantly flickering, just so so good. It is October 2nd, they haven't quite  started, they like just star

ted changing but you can't really see. I'm just so so excited. But so  anyway that is really what I wanted to show you. We're going to hit a couple - we're actually going  to Boston tomorrow and and when I asked you guys for recommendations you guys showed up, you sent  me many many many many bookstores to go to so I am going to be including that in a vlog on my main  channel if you want to see what we get up to in Boston but I'm thinking of catching up with you  a little bit later once I get ba

ck to Seoul and I will do potentially another book haul and then I  also want to talk to you about what I read on the airplane. I tend to read my most unhinged books  on the airplane and I know that the next Married to Magic book came out - I made a video reading  all of the Married to Magic books and there is the maybe final one I don't know, but it is  about a Siren Duke. We've had a fairy, a vampire, what was the other guy? What was the other guy? But anyway now we have a merman, a siren so I

'm going to read that on the airplane and I will  catch up with you in my very jetlagged messed up state to talk to you about it and I'm very excited.  So I'm actually going to end this section of the video here and there will be a time jump, but yeah thank you so much to Toppings for sending these so nicely to me. So all right I'm going to  catch you guys in a bit. I will also link this down below because once again just so so good.  I haven't seen, where was I? I think I was in the - oh oh I w

as in Bath! I saw ACOTAR merch in the wild.  You usually don't see that much like in Korea or at least I don't see it, people wearing bookish  merch. A little bit. You see a ton of the tote bags  - that is a fashion trend that is international,  universal. The, you know, the Shakespeare and Co the Daunt Books - I see those all the time and that's  very exciting but I've never seen like someone wear a t-shirt shirt or have a keychain or have,  you know, some kind of custom thing that is a bookish

reference other than like Classics maybe.  Yeah I saw a girl walking around with I forget what it even was but it was so clearly an ACOTAR  shirt and I was just like oh my God they exist! People who wear those exist in the open! So now I have one, so if you see me around say hey. Anyway, okay I'm going to, end this here. I'm going to go get coffee, I just woke up. I'll see you after I have consumed the Siren Duke. Bye. Hi everyone wow welcome back to Korea. Got home about 12 hours ago. Went to

sleep, woke up at 3:00 a.m. which is so  ridiculous because Kurt and I, both of us, neither of us recovered from jet lag the entire 10 days  that we were in the US so why are we back here, allegedly back in the time zone that our bodies  were still in, and I have jet lag again?! Like what - what does my body want? But it was very nice, I went to Starbucks right when they opened cuz they're the only cafe in Korea that opens like before nine.  I read a little bit and I got some packages. I'm excit

ed to finish off the October book haul. This is just, what a month it has been. What do you want first? Do you want some updates on what I read? No I'll show you the packages first. As you saw, they got home safely. The two books that I bought in  the UK that made it finally safely home, so thank you to Toppings. One for My Enemy got a little  little bump right up here just because I was traveling with carry on only luggage and they were  going to get squished regardless but I'll take it. And th

en I went to Boston with my family and  we were only there for one full day but the day that we were leaving, my mom and I woke up early  to make one last pit stop and we went to Brattle Bookshop which is a used bookstore. Their selection was like not 100% my favorite. They had some weird shelving going on. They had multiple copies of - what's the book that I hated? - The Cartographers They had multiple copies of The Cartographers but  they were in YA but also like not alphabetized like one - I

don't know so I was confused but I was  lucky enough to stumble upon a used paperback of a Swiftly Tilting Planet. A Wrinkle in Time. Wind  in the Door, like that whole series was very much my childhood. But I don't think I actually have the  physical of a Swiftly Tilting Planet and just this cover is so good. So I got that for like $4 maybe - I  think it was $4 and then it was 50% off so. Also in Boston I stopped in Beacon Hill Books and Cafe  and I didn't know this ahead of time but their masc

ot, their logo for their bookshop is a squirrel  so everything they had had a squirrel on it and I bought some tea. I couldn't buy another book, I just  I physically had no room so I bought a Gardener's Mint which I haven't even opened yet. It's light  bright and refreshing - you won't get a better start to the day or an end to the evening. Wonderful. And that was a beautiful bookstore - two three stories and a basement cafe. Incredible. I also got a button from - my mom did some book event and

I went and I got this great button, very excited for  that find. But now I have books, I have things that I haven't opened. This is not book related - I'm  going to open it for you anyway because you were here when I unboxed my candle warmer and my candle warmer is now my personality at this point. It's so great guys, I've been completely converted.  What did I buy? What was my choice? Someone I know has a candle company here in Korea and I  tried to limit myself to just one of her Autumn scents

- this is Autumn Breeze. A relaxing blend of apple, cinnamon, and cedar wood. Oh that's good. That's going to be really good to transition into winter. That cedar makes it feel almost Chritstmas-y. Oh excellent. Big fan. I'll link her down below if  you're in Korea - she doesn't ship internationally yet. But now, but now, I do have another bookish  thing. My last thing. I promise. I did a bad thing. I've already said this in the video but you guys  know that I'm not - I don't buy physical books

for so many reasons. The library is wonderful, I  live in a very small apartment that is already filled with books, etc. However I really loved - not  only loved the books themselves - but the covers, the UK covers of Once Upon A Broken Heart. The entire  trilogy. And I bought them in paperback. I don't know why I got them - I think I enjoy the reading  experience of reading a paperback more but then I realized I just wanted the hard cover and so  I bought them again in hard cover and I have no

regrets but I feel kind of embarrassed about it.  So like, I'm going to use the paperbacks to be the ones that I like read and just devour and make a  mess of and then the hard covers are going to be my like beautiful on the shelf books because look  at these covers - this is Once Upon A Broken Heart. Stunning. I don't think I got any that have like  extra stuff, oh I guess I do. And then the actual book like what?! So yeah I just got this,  I've been waiting for this to arrive because I have h

ad this one for about a month. I got it  like a month prior. Look at that! How beautiful. The Ballad of Never After. Look at these books! They're just so pretty - the details! Here I have like these have mushrooms and rabbits. The mushrooms on the  back. And then this one I have there's foxes - like it's just so good, it's so good. So yeah  I have these now in hardcover and I'm just waiting for A Curse of True Love. I'm so happy. So that is  my official book haul. Truly how great. And so anyway

I also promised you that I was going to  tell you about what I read on the airplane and why was that the longest flight I've ever been  on in my life? Normally if a flight is less than 10 hours - easy like that's a short flight for me. The flight to Atlanta on the way there to visit my family was 13 hours. I think we actually  made like incredible time I think it was like 12 hours and something minutes - that seemed to  go by really quickly. I read, I think I only read one book but it was fine,

it worked out. Going  home it's 16 hours. It's okay, I can survive. It's not my first time flying that, I've flown that  many many times but for some reason yesterday that flight felt like an eternity. I had finished  a book, I had already slept a ton (so I thought) and we had only flown for 4 hours and I just looked  at Kurt like what like what is happening with time?! And even he was just like I don't know, this  is the longest flight. Like it was as if time, we like just were flying in circle

s, I don't know it  was so long. So what made it, I think what made the flight feel even longer is that the book that  I read wasn't good. So let me preface this - I had a book that I had read 50% of, I finished that on the  flight, loved it. I will talk about it in a second but I promised you that I was going to read a Duet  with a Siren - A duet with a Siren Duke. This is what I thought was the final book in the Married to  Magic series which is a collection of standalones that are loosely tie

d together. Actually this one  is really tied in with the other romance stories that are happening within this world called Miscape, which is the like fantasy world that is separated from the human realm by something called the Fade  or the Veil depending, right? So they had the fairy prince, the elf king, the vampire lord and now they  have a siren duke. That was it. It was supposed to be four and I was going to read this and be done  with it just to like let you know how the series concludes.

Tell me why there is listed a fifth  book coming out next year - the wolf something? No. So I'm, no. This book solidified the fact that I am  done. I'm washing my hands of this [series] I don't need to know. I didn't mind - like the elf king was  just like an enemies to lovers book that we knew we were going to get right? It was fine. The fairy  prince or fae prince or whatever also wasn't that bad. It was a little confusing but like again if  you wanted to scratch that itch of like exactly what

this book markets itself as which is an  enemies to lovers forced marriage trope, it did the thing, it did the thing. The vampire lord was so  not great. It was so long - it's like 500 something pages. This book is 550 pages. I am 36%, let's call  it 40 - I'm 40% of the way through. I'm going to call it that this is potentially the worst book.  And I got a couple comments when I posted about it on Instagram that people agree that this is her worst book. So what do I have to say about it? As we

know, all the books in this series contain the  forced marriage trope which I don't like. I started it because I kept seeing the Elf King  book on Instagram and I'm just nosy and I just wanted to know what it was about and so I decided  to continue it just to like see and make a video about it, so just like a claimer forced marriage is  not my cup of tea. This one is about a girl who is in a abusive relationship. I don't think it's  physically abusive but it's definitely emotionally abusive. She

's very - is literally isolated. She  lives on an island with a lighthouse with a really emotionally abusive husband and that is  addressed. There's actually a note from the author in the beginning to give you a warning that that's  what she's dealing with and and that's what she's trying to talk about with this book, is how  you recover from emotional abuse. I just find it odd that she, the prologue the book starts  with her escaping, deciding - like she gets in a boat and she's like [ __ ] thi

s, I'm leaving. Tries to  get away from her husband when her tiny little boat capsizes and the waters around her lighthouse  are filled with sea monsters and sirens and so she gets taken by some of the sirens but one of them  weirdly rescues her and he's basically like "I'll let you live but I'm going to come and collect  your soul in 5 years is that okay with you?" and she's like yes, I just want to get home to see my  family and set things right and live a little bit and sure you can have my s

oul in 5 years, no biggy.  And so the story continues from there so I just find it a little strange that the whole point  of this woman's story is that she's trying to escape from a marriage that she was kind  of tricked and forced into only to be tricked and forced into another marriage and that marriage is  supposed to be like the good one? I don't know like it - just nothing has really been explained. Again  I'm 40% of the way through. The siren doesn't talk a lot. They don't really have any

relationship.  She is starting to be into him because she for the 5 years that she was free, was captain of  a ship and he is like the leader, he's a duke so he's like the leader of his troops when she  sees him like sacrificing himself and like, you know, trying to save all of his me,n it reminded her  of when she was a captain and so like that's why they're bonding? But it's like there are lots of  other captains of ships and like leaders of armies? There's nothing else other than he's a hot g

uy  with a tail. So yeah I'm not understanding it. I will say the thing that hurts me is that, like I  said, this is tied together with the other books so if you've read - this isn't a spoiler but like  in one of the books they talk about the Applegate Trading Company and like I think it's the dad of  the fae - the girl in the fae prince one - but the dad owns this Trading Company or something like that.  This girl works for him so he's in this book. The dad that we never see in the fae prince,

the dad is  in this book. It's very weird but overall yeah I'm not, I've read over 200 pages and  I'm getting nothing from this. So I had to stop. I read probably like 50 pages and then I fell  asleep on my flight and just kept going in and out of sleep. The girl in front of me was watching  Titanic and bless her heart fast forwarded through everything until she saw Jack and Rose in a scene  together. She was just like no, nothing else and I loved that. But anyway so that's what I didn't  read,

that's what I attempted to read and didn't read. What did I finish though? Let me tell you  about it. Shout out to - I'll put the comment here whoever recommended this to me, thank you so much.  I read Paladin's Grace. This is by T Kingfisher. I don't know how this author writes the amount that  she writes. There is so much T Kingfisher content for you and I'm so happy that I tried another one  of her books. Because I've said this before but I didn't love Nettle and Bone. I will stand by that  I

think that she, the pacing, something about Nettle and Bone, I didn't love. But I gave other works a  try and I do love her. So Paladin's Grace, I thought it was a trilogy because there's Paladin's Grace, Paladin's Strength and Paladin's Hope or something like that in this series, but they're actually  three different standalones. So, good to know. This book was really cute. It was totally unexpected.  I started reading it the day before my flight thinking I would just kind of read a couple pag

es  and I read 50% in one day because I just couldn't stop. It takes place in a world where there are all  of these gods and all of the gods have people who work for them so they have either like, you know,  priests or acolytes, but they also have paladins which are soldiers that have given over their soul  or you know, whatever, to the gods and they are the God's soldiers. But for our main character Stephen,  his God died. And at least in this book we don't get any background of what happened.

He may or may  not have been murdered and people didn't know that that could happen to Gods. And basically because  of that, he feels completely empty. Like his reason to live is gone and it's not just like a broken  heart, it's like he feels a physical pain, something missing in his body because the God is gone. And  they were trained soldiers - like his particular God was kind of a warrior God and so without the  god, there there's no one to regulate their Warrior instincts I guess so sometime

s the soldiers will  have the "tide" come over them and they will just kind of go berserk, as they say, and start attacking  things and they have no control over their body. We follow him as he is trying to navigate life after  his God has died and he's just constantly scared of losing control. He feels incredibly guilty  because the day that the God died, most of his fellow soldiers went so crazy that there was like  massacre. Some of them killed themselves, to the point where now there's only

really seven of  them left. And so he has kind of been adopted by this other God and they're allowed to work on  the premises as like bodyguards because that's literally all they're kind of capable of doing now.  And one day he runs across this girl who needs a little bit of help, a little bit of rescuing (but  she wouldn't like to call it rescuing) and he just can't get her out of his mind. And it's a dual POV  so we learned that the girl feels the same. She is a perfumer and they end up gettin

g wrapped up in  this very strange plot about a guy going around beheading people and like assassination attempts  and poisonings and I can't even explain - like the plot wasn't even, the plot was fine, the plot was  good but it wasn't even that important. I just really liked reading about these two awkward  adults. They were like both in their late 30s I think, just like being being so awkward. I really  enjoyed it so, it's kind of, it's mostly a romance honestly but like in a way that isn't  o

vertly a romance - or maybe it is I don't know. I feel like I'm not selling it well because I just  was taken by surprise by this book. It loses points for using the term "ample breasts" and for  using the word breasts so much and she also used one of my ick terms for the male reproductive organ so she lost a few points but overall I just thought the banter was so cute. It was just  really fun and like I said it was a standalone. I think it 300 something pages but it was, it was  great. It was a

fantasy but mostly romance but not toxic in any way. It was just really like two  adults that have not flirted in like over a decade and they just don't know how to go about it and  I thought it was great so that was Paladin's Grace. I recommend. I will be continuing the series  but I'm going to kind of keep that for a rainy day kind of thing because I know that I love her  writing so yes anyway I'm going to edit this up for you and unpack. I haven't even unpacked, I  literally just rolled out

of bed, took a shower, went to Starbucks, and now I'm talking to you so I'm going to sort my life out and I hope you guys are all doing well. Once once again, link  down below for Skillshare. Thank you so much for sponsoring this. The first 500 people to click that  link will not only get a free month of Skillshare but they'll also get 40% off of their first year  of Skillshare membership. I have missed the city, there is strange construction going on. Never a dull day in Seoul. Anyway so yeah I

look forward to chatting with you next - I'm so excited to  lose my mind. Curse for True Love is coming out on the 24th. I am prepared to start reading these  a few days before so that on the 24th I can devour this book and hopefully I will have a video up  to talk to you about it like within the next few days after that. I'm very excited for October  to take this journey with you. Yeah I will catch you guys later, thank you again to Skillshare  for sponsoring and I will link everything that I

can down below. Hope you had a great  October and see you next time bye!