Hello, everyone, my name is Olivia, and today I wanted to recommend you a couple of books that
you can pick up if you are feeling stressed and you want a form of escapism. So, when I'm feeling
stressed, I usually gravitate towards shows or movies, but I know a lot of people will want to
gravitate towards books if they are very stressed and tense and they want to just escape their world
for a moment and dive into a fictional one. So the first book that I want to recommend you
is Rafe by Rebekah Weatherspoon, who is one of my favorite romance authors. And romance is a genre
that I generally gravitate towards if I'm feeling stressed out, if I want something quick to read,
and I just want to dive into a book without having to put a lot of effort into it. So, Rafe follows
our main character, Rafe, who is a male nanny and he gets hired by this very successful surgeon who
has these two daughters and is very busy with her job, and she needs someone to watch them
after her previous nanny just recently quit. So this romance is between Rafe and Dr. Sloan,
who is the mother of these two daughters, and they form a very strong connection with one another and
they kind of start out as a forbidden romance because they know they should not be falling
for one another because it's very unprofessional. It's going to ruin the dynamics of this new nanny,
who is in this house, but their romance is just undeniable. The chemistry, they just cannot
ignore, and it is just such a wonderful romance. Rebekah Weatherspoon is the queen of chemistry,
and it's just palpable on the page from the beginning of this story. I read this book in
one sitting because it's a very quick romance to read, and I just love the dynamic between Rafe,
who is just a very calm collected type of man, and Sloan, who is successful and driven but
also deeply cares about her children and wants the best for them. So, if you have not read a Rebekah
Weatherspoon romance, I would highly recommend starting with Rafe because it was an amazing,
quick read that just put a smile onto my face and made me forget about the world for a couple of
hours. The next book that I have to recommend is also a Rebekah Weatherspoon romance because they
are just so great, so quick to read, and I have never not really loved a Rebekah Weatherspoon
romance because she just writes them so well. So this one that I have to recommend is called Xeni.
Xeni has recently lost her aunt, so Xeni goes to her aunt's house to hear the will being read and
the lawyer tells her that she is able to receive the very big inheritance that she was promised,
if, and only if she agrees to marry a man named Mason who was friends with Xeni's aunt when she
was previously alive. Xeni then meets Mason who is a Scotsman who lives in the tiny town that
her aunt lived in. He's a very soft, very lovable man who is so sweet, and Xeni's aunt decided to
pair these two up into a marriage of convenience because she knew that they would be perfect for
one another. So in order for them to receive their inheritance from the aunt, they have to marry each
other, even though they do not know each other. It sounds so utterly ridiculous but it is so
wholesome, so sweet, and, like I said before, with Rafe, the chemistry is just off the charts
with these characters. Their banter back and forth is wonderful. The way that they get to know each
other slowly but surely is beautiful and the steaminess and the romance is just so palpable.
It'll, like, leave butterflies in your stomach. I just love Rebekah Weatherspoon's romances so
much because they feel so authentic and real, and it feels like a movie in your mind and it's
something that, once you pick up, you never want to put down and it was just such a great story
that I loved as equally as Rafe. I feel like I loved both of these stories so much. The next book
that I have to recommend is a very soft YA story that I thoroughly enjoyed, and I think I read in
one sitting as well, and it is I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee. This follows our main character, Skye,
who is plus-sized and Korean and she decides to enter into a K-Pop competition where they
have singers dancers and a mix of the both. So Skye decides to enter this competition because
she wants to be the next K-Pop idol and this is the competition that will allow her to do so,
but a lot of people don't believe in her because they have very strict standards when it comes
to being a K-Pop idol and they think that she won't make it because she is plus-sized. So Skye
enters this competition, against everyone else's judgments, and she just puts herself out there
and she enjoys herself, makes new friends, and just proves to the world that she can become the
next K-Pop star. So this YA is perfect for people who love K-Pop, people who love soft contemporary
novels and for stories that have a lot of heart but also deal with some very important topics like
the beauty standards and the K-Pop industry, the strained relationship between Skye and her mother,
and the soft and beautiful relationship between Skye and her supportive father. This book has
so many different aspects that I love in YA contemporaries and wraps it up beautifully in a
very fun and airy type of novel that we would just absolutely fly through because, once I started
reading it, I just could not put it down. It was just so entertaining and soft and light and that's
exactly what I think people would need if you are feeling stressed out if you want some form of
escapism. The next book that I have to recommend, it doesn't necessarily have a plot but is more a
vibe in itself, and it is Whereabouts. Whereabouts is a novel told in vignettes about a woman's life
as she is just walking through her city, living her daily life interacting with those she knows
and she's slowly transforming into a person that she wants to be. Whereabouts is a meditative,
slow-moving novel that will suck you right in with its beautiful prose and vivid types of
descriptions about this woman's life where we're watching these very seemingly mundane moments but
they all kind of form into one collective look at someone's life, and it kind of teaches you
that these small moments in your life that you may not think is important actually make up your whole
entire existence. This is a type of book for those who don't necessarily need hard-hitting plots to
dive into a story, for those who like character studies, for those who like just atmospheric
settings that they can dive into and just enjoy the beauty of writing. Another novel that is
absolutely beautiful and feels like a warm cup of coffee in a way is Writers and Lovers. I picked
up Writers and Lovers on a whim because so many people were recommending it to me and told me that
I should pick it up for those who are feeling lost, for those in their 20s, for those who
have a very creative type of mindset, and I think that if you were in any of those veins,
you would definitely enjoy Writers and Lovers. This follows our main character Casey,
who is trying to find her place in life. She just recently moved to Massachusetts and is in a very
unhappy type of living situation where she doesn't like her job, she doesn't like where she lives,
and she wants to become a writer. So we follow Casey on this journey as she finds herself,
she figures out her place in life, and she finds friends and lovers along the way,
and she is learning more about herself with every moment in her life. This definitely deals with the
transitional moment in one's life where you are making new friends, you are finding a place for
yourself in a new state or in a new home, and you are falling in love with different people,
and you are learning more about yourself through the relationships that you make with others.
I just greatly enjoyed this novel so much and it also kind of deals with the loss of the main
character's mother because that is what really sets the whole story in motion, and that was kind
of the tipping-off point for this transitional moment in her life. So if you enjoy all those
things that I listed. I think you would greatly enjoy Writers and Lovers. It's perfect for those
who love writing themselves. It's perfect for those who are creative and sad and lost and
people in their 20s. I feel like this is perfect for people in their 20s,
even though our main character is in her 30s. I feel like your 20s and your 30s are those
two decades where so many different things are happening at once and you're learning so much
about yourself and you're reinventing yourself every single day, and I think that that's what
Writers and Lovers capture so beautifully and so effortlessly. This is one of my favorite books
of 2021, so I would highly recommend it. It's just it's such a fantastic novel. If you are
looking for another romance to dive into to forget about the world and just have a grand old time,
then I would highly recommend The Love Hypothesis. Yes, you have seen it on TikTok. Yes,
you've probably seen it on Bookstagram. Yes, I'm going to recommend it here. The Love Hypothesis
is such a wonderful romance between a Ph.D. student and a professor at the university that she
attends. So we follow Olive who is studying to get her Ph.D. when she has to concoct this fake dating
type of scenario with a very gruff, very aloof professor at the university that she attends.
He is known for not having a lot of friends. He is known for being very mean to others, but they
begin to fake date one another and uphold this very absurd type of situation in front of others.
The Love Hypothesis is one of the few books in 2021 that I just thoroughly enjoyed myself with.
I just wanted to read it at all times. I read it for most of one day that I was off of work,
so if you love the fake dating trope and the grumpy and sunshine trope, as well, then you would
love The Love Hypothesis, and it was just-- it was just a cup of sunshine if that's the
way I can describe it. If you're looking for a pick-me-up, if you're looking for something
to put a smile onto your face, you have to try The Love Hypothesis because it was just amazing.
It's totally worth the hype. I listened to TikTok for once and I picked it up and really enjoyed
myself with it. I went in with no expectations at all and it was a five-star read for me.
It was fantastic. I had a great time with it. And, lastly, if you're looking for a non-fiction that
you can read maybe a chapter a night before bed in order to wind down or you can read in one sitting
in order to take your mind off of everything and feel a little bit more hopeful in life,
then I would have to recommend The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. This is actually based off
of John Green's podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed where he discusses many different aspects of life
and he goes into detail into the history of it like the history of the QWERTY keyboard,
the history of dinosaurs, the history of plagues, and he also goes into different topics like his
childhood growing up, the different embarrassing moments in his life, when he met his wife,
how much he's in love with his wife. And this non-fiction just really encapsulates the beauty
of humanity and the beauty of society. If you are feeling down and if you feel like there's no hope
in the world, I feel like you should definitely pick up The Anthropocene Reviewed because
it was beautiful. It was insightful. It was a great reminder of the complexities of humanity
and how far we've come as a society and the different aspects of our history that you may
not know a lot about and John teaches you about it. And if you want to listen to the audiobook,
he actually narrates it, so it feels very personal because he mixes together science
and history while also talking about different moments in his life so it feels personal,
but it's also very educational and it's just the perfect mixture of everything you would need in
order to feel hopeful. And John really reminded me that there is beauty in the world. There is beauty
in the future and there's beauty in hoping and keeping that hope alive, and it is one of my new
favorite nonfictions that I definitely do want to get a copy of because I do want to highlight
the different passages that I really enjoyed that stuck with me. But if you're looking
for a non-fiction out of this whole entire list, that's the one that I would have to recommend to
you. So those are some books that I would highly recommend if you are ever feeling stressed out and
you need something to help you wind down feel a bit comforted and help you escape life for a bit
because all of these books, I think, I sat down and read in a couple of sittings, and I think that
these are the perfect types of reads for when you just want to escape the world and you just want to
dive into a fictional one. I'm also going to tag a couple of my comfort YouTubers down below because,
like I said before when I'm stressed out, I don't necessarily read. I usually gravitate
towards something visual, like movies tv shows or YouTubers, so I'm going to tag a couple down
below that I gravitate towards when I'm feeling stressed out and I just want to forget the world
and just want to learn about someone else's world. So if you are feeling stressed out, I hope you
feel a little bit better in the future, and I hope tomorrow is kinder to you. Thank you to everyone
who leaves very kind comments and likes my videos and shares it. That support means the world to me,
and I'm just so happy that I'm able to offer other peole comfort the way that my comfort YouTubers
offer me comfort. So I hope you all have a wonderful day, and I will see you very soon. bye~