*instrumental music plays*
Hello everyone. My name is Olivia and welcome to a new reading vlog. In this reading vlog, I am hoping to find a five-star read.
My last five-star read was in 2020 in November. It is now April in 2021, and I have yet to find
a five-star read. It's either because I am in a ~massive~ book slump, or I just don't know the
type of book that I want to read that is going to become a new favorite, that is going to leave a
lasting impression on me. I have been overrun with three star reads, and I am so tired of it. Three
star reads, to me, are books that were good but I wouldn't really think about them and they aren't
necessarily favorites of mine, but they were just like a good book. They were a book that I
read and it happened. I want to read something that's going to be a new favorite of mine,
something that I will want to gush about and talk about all the time in videos, and it's just so sad
that I have yet to find a book like that in 2021. So in this video, I am hoping to read Piranesi by
Susanna Clarke because this is a book that I have seen so many people talk about both on Bookstagram
and on Youtube. And, it just seems like the perfect book that would capture my attention,
that would leave a lasting impression on me because it seems like a very weird read. And,
sometimes, those are the things that I love most. But before I tell you about Piranesi and how far
I'm into the book already, I want to tell you a little bit about this video's sponsor who is Ana
Luisa. Ana Luisa is a sustainable 100% carbon neutral jewelry company, providing high-quality
pieces with affordable and fair prices that will make beautiful gifts for both yourself
or loved ones. I have recently worked with Ana Luisa before for my Little Women reading vlog,
and all of those pieces that were provided to me are just so beautiful and I always wear them with
all my outfits and they have just quickly become staple pieces in my wardrobe. Today I am working
with Ana Luisa to tell you about their Mother's Day sale where you are able to get 15% off of all
their jewelry on their website to get your mother a beautiful gift to celebrate her on Mother's
Day. My mom and I love sharing necklaces with one another, so we were able to go on to Ana Luisa's
website and pick out a necklace for each of us and this is just a great way for my mom to get a nice
dainty gold necklace to help celebrate Mother's Day and have a long-lasting piece of jewelry that
she would wear for years upon years. So my mom was immediately smitten with the Vida necklace.
This dainty necklace is made out of sterling silver dipped in gold and it has cubic zirconia
gems attached to it, as well. While I was able to pick out the Forget-Me-Not tag necklace. I really
love this necklace because of the minimalistic design and the hand that is holding some flowers,
and I also really love the fact that 10% of the proceeds of this necklace goes straight to the
Tri-City Forest Project. If you are looking for some affordable jewelry pieces to gift to your
mom for Mother's Day, Ana Luisa is the perfect website to check out to look at their jewelry
that starts at $39 and has no luxury markup prices. And, you are also able to get 15%
off of your order right now, if you were to order the jewelry before Mother's Day. The last days
for you to order your pieces to get to your house before Mother's Day is May 5th, for those who live
in the U.S., and May 3rd, for any people who live internationally. Be sure to click the link in my
description to check out Ana Luisa's jewelry and check out their website and to see the pieces that
my mom and I both got for ourselves. Thank you so much to Ana Luisa for sponsoring this video,
and let's get into talking about Piranesi. I am already on part two of Piranesi. This is a very
short novel-- less than 300 pages-- so there are seven parts to it and right now all I know
is the main character who is called Piranesi. The description of the book on Goodreads says,
"Piranesi's house is no ordinary building. Its rooms are infinite, the corridors are endless, its
walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others...
Waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant, but Piranesi is not afraid."
Piranesi is living in this building, this very mysterious building that has an endless amount
of rooms. Living amongst skeletons in the building, Piranesi lives with one other person who is called
the Other. Him and the Other meet twice a week to talk about their research and their
scientific discoveries of this building and the description says as they research more and more,
they start to discover that someone else lives in the building. I'm really hoping it's going to
be a five star read, but who knows I feel like it might even be like a four star read, but even with
four star reads sometimes four star reads can be favorite novels of mine as well. So I'm very
excited to keep on reading it and I'm reading it on my kindle because I took out the ebook
from my library. Now I'm going to get deeper into Piranesi because it is so intriguing and weirdly
written and some words are proper nouns when they aren't supposed to be proper nouns, and it's just
such a unique writing style that took me a bit to get into, but now that I'm in the swing of things,
I just want to know what's going to happen next because it's so odd. And, what initially intrigued
me about this book is that people said it's very similar to The Starless Sea, both in its writing
style and in its weirdness, and The Starless Sea is one of my favorite novels of all time.
So if it's anything similar to The Starless Sea, it's probably going to be a new favorite of mine,
so let's cross our fingers and hope that I love this novel.
*Instrumental music plays*
So I am 41% through Piranesi, and it is getting so good because we are learning more about the world
that they live in, we're learning more about these characters. And, the Other who lives with Piranesi
is ~so~ weird. I do not trust him at all. He keeps on telling Piranesi things that clearly are lies,
but because we are following Piranesi's point of view, he easily believes this one other person who
he lives with because it's the only other person in this world. And he is just very innocent, very
naive when I'm over here like, "Piranesi, no! He is so weird! He's telling you lies!" You can
clearly see it. And, there have been a couple of revelations already that have gripped me
and makes me want to read even more and more. So hopefully I can read a decent chunk of this today,
and I'm also wearing my sweater that I thrifted! If you have seen my thrift store, book,
plant haul recently, I spoke about this sweater that I thrifted. It reminded me of The Lighthouse,
which is one of my new favorite movies that I've seen, and it just makes me feel like I should be
tending to a lighthouse or be out on sea, and I love it. It's so cozy and these sleeves fit
over my hands, which is a plus for me because my arms are so long and that never happens for me,
for sweaters. So I'm just so happy with it, and now I'm going to get to reading more of Piranesi.
While I was filming that my bust of The Statue of David came in. This is something that I've
wanted for my shelves for years because, one, I love Michelangelo's art and, two,
I just wanted a bust to have kind of like a dark academia, renaissance feel for my shelves, and
it is absolutely beautiful. The detail is, like, wonderful, and I'm going to put it next to my Ex
Machina screenplay because that is a place where I can display it, and I am just so happy with it.
I came back from Starbucks to see that my giveaway prize that I won on instagram came in
the mail. So I entered a giveaway, randomly, for a Great Gatsby prize. It was hosted by Scribner,
and I thought, "I'll just enter it for fun," and like see if I win. And turns out, I won,
which is the most on brand thing that i could win. So, I won a third copy of The Great Gatsby,
which is amazing, and what's really exciting is that I got a Great Gatsby
tote bag and this is like the most on-brand tote bag that i could ever have, and I'm just very
surprised that I won this giveaway because I never win anything so this is a very welcome surprise.
I finally finished Piranesi, and I had such a great time with this book. While it is not
a five-star read and it's not a new absolute favorite book of mine, I still really enjoyed
the story. I enjoyed the atmospheric writing the unique writing style and Piranesi, himself, who
is such an innocent and naive character because he's being manipulated by the world around him
and the people around him as well. It was such an atmospheric read that really immersed me into this
story and was also a really weird read with a very weird premise that I have never seen before and
really enjoyed. It was just so absolutely unique and very enjoyable and also a quick read because
it's less than 300 pages. If you're looking for something that has the same lyrical writing as The
Starless Sea, I would highly recommend Piranesi, although it's not similar in a plot at all. I
feel like the writing and the overall tone of the novel is very much similar. I also really
enjoyed the fact that Piranesi had some religious undertones to it as well. I don't really know how
to describe that feeling that I have, but it just seems very religious in a subtle way that's not,
like, preaching to you but the way that Piranesi interacts with this world and really worships it
is very much similar to that of an organized religion. So I thought that was really cool
and other people might not see it that way, but that's, like, what I got out of it and I just
loved the story itself, and, like, I said, it's not a five-star read, for me. It's more like a 4.5
star read, for me, and that's still really good because I have been reading three-star reads,
non-stop, for the past three months and it was driving me ~bonkers~
to read books that I felt very lukewarm about. So, to be able to find this book really enjoy it,
really enjoy the time I took with it was just amazing. Throughout this reading journey,
I also wrote down everything that happened in the book in my reading journal, which I usually forget
to use when I'm reading. But this is a journal that I have mentioned, I think in a previous
vlog, like, a year ago, where I write down every single thing that happens in a book because I have
terrible book memory. So a month from now, if I were to finish a book, I would not remember most
of the plot because I just have terrible memory when it comes to remembering stories. So I created
this journal to write down everything that happens in a book, and it's a good way to look back on the
books I read and refresh my memory when it comes to its plot. And it's also really good for series,
as well, because it's a recap for you when you are hoping to read the sequel and you don't remember
the book that you read previously. So, I had a lot of fun writing down the notes for Piranesi.
I still have to update the ending because I just finished it, like, five minutes ago,
but like I said, I had so much fun with Piranesi, and if it sounds like right up your alley, if you
love atmospheric writing, if you love really weird stories, I feel like this would be the book for
you, especially if you loved The Starless Sea. I'm going to leave the vlog off here,
and while I did not find a new 5 star read, I did enjoy myself with the book that I read. And let me
know if there are other reading vlog challenges that you would like me to try, in the future,
because i would love to take your ideas into account. And if you want to connect with me
anywhere else on social media, all my social media links will be down below for my Instagram,
my Goodreads, my TikTok, etc. Thank you so much to Ana Luisa for sponsoring this video and providing
me and my mother with gorgeous jewelry. If you want to get your mother jewelry for Mother's Day,
be sure to click the link in my description to get 15 off% of all of Ana Luisa's jewelry pieces
now until Mother's Day, so be sure to check that out as well. And, thank you so much for supporting
my channel and following me, and leaving kind comments, and I hope you all have a wonderful day.
bye!~
you