the worst book I've ever read 🥴 and trying to rediscover my love of thrillers 😱 reading vlog [CC]

This took a turn and I didn't like it. It was  interesting let's just leave it at that. The further that I get into this the more confused  I am. And I enjoyed my time reading them. [Click] So over the past couple of years I've noticed  that I have not been enjoying thrillers as much as I used to and I want to put a focus this year  on rediscovering my love of thrillers but also trying to work out what my taste in thrillers  is now because my taste has changed quite a lot and I think it's a natu

ral process that we  all go through. I have been reading thrillers for around 10 years. The first adult thriller  that I can remember reading was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and I read that around the time  that the movie came out in it was 2013 or 2014 basically a decade ago so it's not really  surprising that my taste has changed since then. I know that if I were to read Gone Girl  for the first time today I would not enjoy it as much as I did back then so yeah in this video  and in possibly fu

ture videos I might turn this into a vlog series depending on how this first  video goes but in this video I am going to be reading three thrillers across different subgenres  and I'm going to be analyzing what works for me, what doesn't work for me and hopefully we'll  also find a five stars. I'm not going to put pressure on myself to find a five star thriller.  I just want to go through different sub genres and try and pinpoint what I want to be reading  in thrillers at this time in my life so

the first thriller that I'm going to be picking up  is actually a popular new release. I thought it might be quite interesting to read this first  and then from there read more um or less popular thrillers but the first thriller that I'm going  to be reading is The Teacher by Frieda McFadden. Frieda McFadden is a very popular thriller author  at the moment and I have read two of her books. I read The Housemaid and The Housemaid’s Secret  and they were okay. I gave them both I think around three

stars. I thought they were really  fast-paced and entertaining and exactly what I wanted to be reading at the time but nothing that  really stood out to me. The Teacher is a domestic thriller about a teacher - surprisingly - who  is married to another teacher and you also get the perspective of a student who goes to their  school and she is a student of both of theirs. This is also quite a new release it only came  out in February so I haven't really heard many reviews for it and I'm going in w

ith an open  mind. I have the audio book for this because it's available through Everand - not Scribd  as I keep calling it. Scribed is now called Everand but the audio book is available there.  Interested to see how this goes because I have noticed I do tend to enjoy thrillers when  I listen to them on audio especially like popular thrillers. This also has quite a  simplistic and conversational writing style which I think works really well as an audio  book so that's the first book that I'm goi

ng to be picking up. I have already started this,  I'm around 20% of the way through but I don't have many thoughts yet so I'll wait until the  halfway point before I give a proper update. The next book that I'm going to be picking up is  Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka. This is an older thriller. I don't know exactly when it came out  but I know that it was adapted into a movie and it's about five assassins who all board this  same train and it's about who gets out alive. I think. I'm pretty sure

that there's a connection  between them all. Maybe they've all been given a similar assignment or there's a link between  their assignments. Don't know too much but I'm excited to give this a go. This is also translated  fiction, it was originally published in Japanese. Then the final book that I'm going to be picking  up is Rabbits by Terry Miles which is about an alternative reality game. I haven't heard many  people talking about this so again I'm going to be going in with pretty much zero ex

pectations  but I tend to enjoy thrillers when I don't know that much about them so that is the case  actually for all three of these books. I know enough about them but I haven't heard like  anything that could even remotely be considered a spoiler so that is the final book that I'm  going to be reading in this vlog let me know in the comments if you've read any of these  and what you thought of them and yeah I think if I was to make a prediction I reckon Bullet  Train is going to be the book t

hat works the best for me and that I give the highest rating  and then maybe The Teacher is going to be the lowest because I don't tend to love domestic  thrillers but we'll see how it goes. Thank you for watching this vlog and I will catch up  with you once I have some reading updates. Hello everyone, happy Saturday it is coming up  on 11:00 and I thought I would check in with you with some thoughts on The Teacher by Frieda  McFadden because I read some more of this at the gym earlier. I'm now

at 45% of the way through  and I'm having mixed feelings about it so far, it's very addictive and I'm enjoying the listening  experience. I want to know what's going to happen so my intrigue is high but also I feel like  I've worked out exactly what direction this is going in. I could be wrong obviously I'm just  speculating here and I'm not going to go into my thoughts and theories because I don't want to go  into spoilers but I feel like I've worked out what some of the twists are going to be.

I still have  questions so it's not all bad but if it does go in the direction that I think it's going in, I  don't think think I'm going to like it. This is following a couple of characters we have Eve who  is a teacher and she's married to another teacher called Nate. They are unhappily married, she  isn't happy with the way that he's treating her, she thinks that he doesn't give her enough  attention and that he doesn't really love her. They both teach at the same high school and they  are p

erceived very differently by their students so everyone thinks that she's an ice queen and  that she's too strict whereas he is the fun cool teacher who everyone likes and that all the girls  fancy. The other perspective that we're following is a student at this school called Addie and she  is seen as a troublemaker - unfairly I think. There was an incident the previous year that  she was caught up in and she got blamed a lot for what happened, again, unfairly in my opinion.  She's being bullied

quite badly and I don't like reading those parts. I don't like reading about  the bullying that she's going through and how she doesn't have many friends. It feels really  uncomfortable and it's probably deliberately that way but I am really concerned about the way that  her character is being handled and I'm concerned about the direction that her character is going to  be taken in. Obviously I don't know for definite so at the moment I'm cautiously thinking this is  going to be a three stars b

ut it could go either way. I do like the way the Frieda McFadden writes  plot twists that are usually really surprising. There was some stuff that happened in the  Housemaid and the Housemaid’s Secret that I didn't see coming and I feel like I should have. I feel  like she does a really good job of making you feel like you can't trust any characters and keeping  you on your toes so feeling mixed things about this at the moment but we're going to see how  it goes. I'm going to try and finish this

today because I only have about 2 and a half hours left  of the audio book and I'm going to go into town now to grab myself some breakfast so I'm going  to listen to this on the way to and from town and then I also have some chores this afternoon where  I can listen to an audio book. I also need to film my February wrap-up at some point this weekend.  I might try and film it this afternoon but it's really dark and gray and miserable outside. It's  raining and I can hear the rain so it's pretty

bad but yeah hopefully today is going to be a  productive day. I'm currently reading another book on my Kindle but that's not for this vlog,  it's not for any vlog, it's a book that I want to read because I want to read it so yeah once  I finish that book on my Kindle I'm going to make a start on one of the other thrillers  that I want to read for this vlog but yeah to summarize mixed feelings about The Teacher so  far but we'll see how it goes in the second half. [Music] So I finished The Teach

er by Frieda McFadden and  I don't want to sound dramatic but I think this is one of the worst books that I have ever read.  I'm really tempted to give it one star because I can't think of anything positive to say about  it other than it was addictive and I couldn't put it down but that was mostly for all the  wrong reasons. I think I said earlier that I thought I'd worked out what direction it was  going in. Oh just lost my glasses there. I was kind of right but also I wasn't like at all, was 

not expecting a lot of the stuff that happened in this book and I really wish I'd been filming  my reactions because I was making some faces. I listened to this as I was going into town and  people were probably looking at me thinking what is wrong with this girl cuz I was making  some faces. I was visibly reacting and it was not good. This was gross. That's the only word  I can think of. I didn't enjoy it and I am, I'm going to collect myself and maybe update  you again in the morning once I've

had some time to process my thoughts but yeah  this took a turn and I didn't like it. So it's been a few days since I finished  reading The Teacher by Freida McFadden and I wanted to try and explain in more detail why  I hated this book so much because as you will have seen in my last update I was so angry at  this book. I haven't felt this angry at a book in a really long time. I literally can't  remember the last time I gave a book one star but that's what I'm doing with this  book. I hated i

t so much and I think what it came down to is I felt deeply uncomfortable  reading this. When I pick up a book like this, I expect it to be fun and entertaining. That's  why Frieda McFadden is such a popular author because she writes these thrillers that are  really fast-paced and addictive and gripping and yes this was fast-paced and addictive  and gripping. I should have known based on the synopsis that I wasn't going to like this  book, it actually says in the blurb that part of this book is

about an inappropriate student  teacher relationship. It gave me the ick. It made me feel really uncomfortable and that  wasn't the feeling that I wanted from a book that's meant to be fun and entertaining. It  felt to casual and I know that it's fiction and I know that the characters were meant to be  unlikable and I was meant to feel uncomfortable but I just didn't enjoy reading it. Aside from  that I also thought this had way too many twists and that's a trend that I've noticed in a lot of  t

hrillers recently is that it feels like authors are trying to squeeze in as many twists as they  possibly can and I am fed up of getting whiplash. So yeah not the start of the vlog that I was  hoping for however I have now moved on to my next read and that is Bullet Train by Kotaro  Isaka. This is described as a dark and satirical thriller and it's about a group of people all of  these different people they’re strangers who have boarded this train traveling from Tokyo. It says  on the back “why

are they all on the same train and who will reach the end of the line alive?” So  very intrigued about this one. I will give you a proper update once I'm a little further in but so  far it feels really fast-paced and I am intrigued. [Music] So I have been making good progress with Bullet  Train. I'm currently around a third of the way through I reckon so I'm on page 167 and so far  I'm really enjoying it. I'm a little confused because I don't think this is actually a thriller  but there's a litt

le blurb on the back like a little review by The Guardian that describes it  as a “high octane thriller thoroughly enjoyable” and I agree that it's thoroughly enjoyable but  I would agree more with this little blurb on the front that says “a locked room crime drama played  out at 200 mph” like this feels more like a crime drama rather than a thriller and it might get  more thrilling the further that I get into it but not much has really happened yet it's mostly  been introducing us to these diff

erent characters and we're piecing together this puzzle of how  they're all connected. It has this tone where it's not really taking itself too seriously.  It's not quite a comedy but it does have that satirical edge and there's characters that are  being sarcastic or there's characters that are doing stuff without really thinking and other  characters are looking at them thinking “what are you doing?” There's this one guy in particular  who is a kind of assassin. I would describe him as more of

a thief but he accepts these jobs that  always end up going wrong. He feels like the most unluckiest man in the world and he is on this  train to do a job that ends up going wrong. The other characters include a guy who is looking  for revenge against the person who seriously injured his son, then there's also these two  guys who were hired to rescue this kid that was kidnapped and retrieve the ransom money and  then return the kid and the ransom money to the kid's father. Hope that all made se

nse but  yeah there's a few different characters that were following and so far I'm not preferring one  or two perspectives over the other, like, it's not like I'm getting to a chapter and thinking  “oh no we're back to this person again” like I'm enjoying them all equally so yeah I'm very  excited to read some more of this tonight. I am hoping to get past the halfway point because it's  currently Wednesday so if I make good progress on this tonight I could try and finish it tomorrow  and then r

ead another book over the weekend. I'm 100 pages from the end now and I can  definitely see why this is described as an adrenaline thriller - adrenaline thriller.  Because the action has definitely picked up in the second half. I'm still enjoying it but I  can't help but find myself wishing that it were a little bit more serious but that's really unfair  because it's not meant to be a serious thriller, it's meant to be satirical and a little bit  ridiculous. I can picture how this would work as

a movie. I haven't seen the adaptation yet but  I'm definitely interested in it because I know that Brad Pitt is in it but the character that he  plays is not the character that I thought he'd be playing so that's interesting but yeah I'm going  to read the last 100 pages tonight. It's feeling like a four stars at the moment because even  though I'm enjoying it in the moment I don't think this is is going to stick with me long term  and I feel like that should be the main criteria for me giving

a thriller five stars. There's  thrillers that I read a few years ago that I gave four stars in the moment but I'm still thinking  about them and I knew at the time that I probably would still be thinking about them but yeah this  is feeling like a four stars as I said and I'm interested to see how it wraps up. It is going in  a clear direction, most of the plot I mean yeah pretty much all of the plot takes place on this  train that it's going towards a destination and it has this structure wher

e they're stopping on  the way like I'll see if I can find actually in the beginning there's like a map of where they're  going to. It's not really a map but there's a diagram showing all the different stops on the  way. There you go, so you can see they start in Tokyo and then they're going to Marioka so liking  the setting for this but I'm interested to see how it wraps up because if it's too ridiculous and  over the top then I don't think I'm going to love that but I have enjoyed the journey

that we've  been on to get to the end - pun intended. [Music] [Music] So it's now Saturday and I have a few reading  updates that I need to go through with you. The first is I finished Bullet Train by Kotaro  Isaka and I liked this. I'm going to give it four stars. I feel like the ending could have  been a little bit stronger but ultimately I don't think I was ever going to give this five  stars. As soon as I started it I realized that the tone was probably a little too satirical  for me. I thin

k for me to really really love a thriller and give it five stars it needs to  be the kind of thriller that you're meant to take seriously and a lot of thrillers that I've  been picking up especially in the last few years have been thrillers that are meant to be fun  and that you're not meant to take seriously and I think that's why I've not been enjoying  thrillers as much recently because the tone just doesn't work for me. Would still recommend  this if you're looking for a thriller that has a

lot of adrenaline and that is a little bit  absurd with some quirky characters. One of the characters in this for example is obsessed with  Thomas the Tank Engine. It was interesting let's just leave it at that. I believe this is part  of a series. I think each book in this series follows different assassins that are part of this  underground criminal network. I'm not sure if they continue on from each other. I feel like  they might be more of companion novels and my partner does have the next b

ook in the series.  I think he bought it last year. I can see it up there so maybe I would pick that up if I'm in  the mood for this type of thriller in the future. I have now made a start on the next book that  I'm reading for this vlog and that is Rabbits by Terry Miles. I am enjoying this so far I'm  only around 60 pages in so I've only read the first few chapters but already I like the writing  and I like how it feels confusing. Everything feels very mysterious this is basically about a  gam

e and the details like I said are still a bit hazy but essentially this game has been going  on for years. Some people are obsessed with trying to find out what this game actually is no  one knows anyone who's won this game. There are rumors but anyone who's taken part in this game  has been sworn to secrecy. I think there's a lot of secrecy surrounding this game all I've  worked out so far is that it's to do with recognizing patterns and seeing connections  where there shouldn't be connections

kind of giving me Matrix vibes which is a movie that  I enjoy so hopefully I enjoy this as well. Our main character is called K and they are part of  a group of people who are obsessed with finding out about this game and K is approached  by someone called Ben. No that's a lie, this person is called Alan and he was rumored to  be a winner of this game. He's this billionaire and he approaches our main character K to say  that there is something wrong with the game and he needs K's help. That's ab

out as far as  I've got so far but I am definitely intrigued and I'm excited to carry on reading this. It says  on the back that it's “an electrifying compulsive read set in the world of the hit podcast” so  I think Terry Miles is a podcast host but I've never heard of this podcast before so hopefully  that doesn't affect my enjoyment. It doesn't feel like the fastest read but that could just  be because I've only just started it and it's mostly been setting the scene and introducing us  to this

game and this main character but things could pick up once I get further in. I'm actually  heading out in a few hours because it's Mother's Day tomorrow and I'm going to see my mom tonight  with my sisters so I'm probably not going to get much reading done today unless I read before I  head out but I'm hoping to spend most of tomorrow reading. I was going to film this weekend but  honestly I can't be bothered so yeah tomorrow is probably going to be a nice cozy reading day  and I'm hoping to re

ad a good chunk of Rabbits. Yesterday was such a nice day, it was like my  perfect Sunday. I woke up and went for a run which I love doing at the weekend because it means that  I feel refreshed and like I've been productive for the day. I then had to do a food shop because  we had no food in the house but otherwise I spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading and we  also watched the film Bullet Train. Found out that it's on Now TV and coincidentally Now TV sent  me a voucher to get 3 months

for £1 per month so took advantage of that and watched Bullet Train.  It was okay. I think I still preferred the book even though the film did some things better than  the book. I felt like the tone from the book was captured quite well in the film and it worked  better I think as a film in terms of the humor. Lemon and Tangerine were still my favorite  characters and I liked how they kept Lemon's obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine. Joey King's  character wasn't done well in my opinion. In t

he book they had more of a prominent role. In the  book they were also male but that didn't bother me at all. I never have an issue with filmmakers  changing the gender of a character. I actually thought it made sense for this character in  particular because in the book they're meant to be this innocent looking teenager. Obviously  in the book you get the character's thoughts and you could see that they were doing stuff just  because they wanted to see if they could get away with it and that wo

uldn't have translated well  I don't think onto the screen so I understood why they had to come up with motivations for  why this character was doing certain things. In the movie it was very much an action movie type  ending whereas in the book it just kind of ended. Yeah mixed feelings on that. I think I would  recommend it but I personally prefer the book. In terms of reading updates, I am now around  140 pages into Rabbits by Terry Miles and I am really liking this. For some reason  I'm readi

ng it quite slowly but I feel like that's just my mood at the moment. I  don't want to be rushing any books because my brain is struggling to concentrate. Weirdly  this book is about seeing connections and on page 64 I saw the name Griff which I never see  in books. Obviously Griff isn't my real name, my real name is Sam. It was really strange but  yeah like I said I am really liking this so far I like how this is about obsession and it's really  delving into that. I think it's doing a really go

od job of showing how people become obsessed  with this game. I'm a little bit obsessed with this game I'm not going to lie but yeah there  are all of these people who are trying to find out as much as possible about this game and it's  taken over their lives. The main character is not reliable because there's been times in the past  where they've fallen down this rabbit hole and they've started ignoring everything that's  going on around them. My battery just died which is very annoying but as

I was saying this  is really a book about obsession. These people know that there are risks by taking part in this  game. People have died and no one even knows what you get for winning but it's an obsession  that they just can't walk away from and I really hope that the stakes feel a little bit  higher in this because it has been quite slow to build up but I'm very very intrigued and I'm  hoping to get past the halfway point tonight. The further that I get into this the more confused  I am and

at the moment is not so much a bad thing because I've still got about 150 pages left so  we might still get answers but I'm really hoping this doesn't have like an ambiguous ending  where everything is left open. Depending on how it's handled that might be okay but I really  hope we get some answers because I am gripped at the moment. The further that I get into this,  the more anxious the main character is feeling and that's making me feel anxious. I also quite  like how we don't know or at lea

st I don't think it's been mentioned what gender the main character  is. Just a heads up there's also been quite a few pop culture references in this and I don't know  whether that's been done deliberately because the whole point of this game is that you're meant to  see connections between things and the more pop culture references there are then as the reader  you're going to see more connections for example it mentioned the book Dune earlier and obviously  the second movie has just come out s

o I've been seeing that everywhere and it's really weird  seeing it in a book there's been a few occasions like that where pop culture references have  been mentioned and it relates to stuff that I've seen recently in real life then there's also  probably been pop culture references that have been mentioned that I haven't seen in real life  but that other people might have it’s just really an interesting experience. I am really liking  this. I just hope that the ending ends strong. It is time to

wrap up this vlog because I have  now finished Rabbits by Terry Hayes - no - Terry Miles. My partner has just finished reading  a book by Terry Hayes and I keep getting the two authors mixed up but this is Rabbits by  Terry Miles. I have now finished this and I think I'm going to give it four stars. Might  change my mind in six months time or however long if I find that I'm not remembering this  or if it's not sticking with me but I enjoyed my time reading this and I would recommend it  if you

like this kind of thing. By that I mean if you enjoy thrillers that focus on technology  or that have some kind of gaming aspect. I think this would work for a lot of people. It has this  hazy quality where there were parts in this book where I was very confused and I wasn't sure  if I was understanding everything but I was. I was following everything that the characters  were doing. I think it's deliberately written in a way where things are meant to be unclear and  where you're meant to be con

stantly questioning stuff and yeah I did like the atmosphere in  this. It did feel a little bit repetitive and I also think that the scope could have been  scaled back a little bit and that would have allowed the book to be around 50 to 100 pages  shorter and I think that would have helped with the pacing because towards the end I could feel my  attention starting to drift so even though I was reading it quickly because I wanted to find  out how things were going to be wrapped up, I wasn't as in

vested in the ending as I was  in the beginning so yeah four stars maybe more like a 3.5 or 3.75 but I would recommend it  to certain people. If you like the TV show Black Mirror as well then there were certain aspects  of this that gave me similar feelings to some of those episodes especially the ones that do  focus more on technology rather than morality. As I said that does bring us to the end of this  reading vlog and I think my main takeaway from this vlog is that I do still like thrillers

but  maybe I need to pick up more or less wellknown thrillers like Bullet Train and Rabbits. I  really enjoyed both of these and even though they weren't five stars I would recommend them to  certain people and I enjoyed my time reading them. As I was saying, I don't think I'm going to  stop reading like the super popular and super hyped thrillers. I think I can still enjoy those  however filming this vlog has confirmed that I need to pick up lesser well-known thrillers  and thrillers that are m

aybe a little more outside my comfort zone or that are just not  talked about as much. I really want to pick up more literary thrillers and I also want  to pick up more crime thrillers because one of my favorite thrillers that I've read so  far this year was the Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino which is translated  fiction and again I think I need to pick up more translated thrillers because I think  the setting of a thriller really really impacts on my enjoyment. Maybe I could do a whol

e  vlog around reading translated thrillers, let me know if that's something that you'd  be interested in but yeah I am going to wrap up this reading vlog here. Thank you for  watching if you made it this far. Let me know in the comments if you've read any of the books  that I talked about in this reading vlog and if you have read any five star thrillers recently.  Let me know if you have any recommendations but yeah otherwise don't forget to give this video  a thumbs up if you liked it and clic

k subscribe if you would like to see more videos from me but  otherwise I will see you next time, byeee. [Music]