It is day three of Spookathon, and today I'm actually going to be starting off this blog with an unboxing. So I have two huge, oh, don't flash my address, two huge boxes from Indigo, and basically I've been stressed. So to help me cope, I've been buying stuff. Which is a horrible idea, 10 out of 10 don't recommend. Your bank account will get drained, which I know. But I also have some things, I sort of know what's in here. I've made a lot of orders in the past few days, which is pretty bad. But I know some of the things that are in here, and then some of the things are gifts from my mom. So I'm hoping she doesn't watch this blog and I'm telling her not to watch it. So she doesn't get full of her gifts because her birthday is next week. Yeah, next week. So we're going to start off with the little box. So what, oh, I made this order yesterday. What, how is it here? I just made this, I made this order yesterday. Indigo has great service. So the first thing I see is Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, which I'm really excited about. I loved her book and then there were none. So I'm really excited to get this one. It was on sale and I've heard good things and I'm excited. So yeah, I ordered this. I also, why are these here? I ordered them yesterday. I was not expecting them. I also ordered the Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, the hardcover because I got the second and the third book. I've wanted to read this series for the longest time. I feel like I'll love it. The second and the third book, I ordered those in hardcover, not ordered. I bought them in hardcover at a first store and I've been waiting to see, like, find the first book and I haven't been able to find it ever. So I'm just like, I'm just going to buy the bullet and I'm going to buy the hardcover. It wasn't on sale online, which is great. So now I have my completed set of the Mara Dyer trilogy. So I can finally read it now and then they had a sale on a box set. So I bought the Six of Crows duology box set. That's really bad. I don't know why I did this. I ordered it last night on, like, a whim and it's already here. And I've wanted this series for a long time because it's right up my alley. Like, usually fantasy isn't my thing, but Six of Crows I'm so excited about because it's a heist. I heard it's really dark. My friend, Nina read it and loved it. So I'm so excited. So this is, like, the Six of Crows duology, Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom. And then it has both editions. They're dipped pages. So then we have Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. The box set was on sale, so I'm pretty happy with that. But I ordered these yesterday, like, Indigo is no book depository. Like, they will be here so fast, unless you're not in Canada, I assume it would take longer for you. But, yeah. And I have this huge box and I do think I know it's in here. I think it's more presents for my mom that I ordered. So let's see. Oh, I should probably show you me opening it and, like, show me opening it. Okay, fun. This is fun. Okay. Yeah, so most of these are gifts from my mom. So first thing I have here is a mug. It's all wrapped. So I'm not going to open it, but it's a mug and it says mom there on it and it has a little bear. I'm so excited to give that. She's kind of tired of me buying her mugs, but I don't care. And then when I was ordering my mom's stuff, there were these things I wanted on sale. They were comics. So the Riverdale comics. So I got volume one and two. So these were on sale. So I bought these because they were on sale. And I wanted to buy them before, but I'm, like, cheap. So yeah, clearly I'm cheap. So yeah, I got these, which is fun. And then the rest are other gifts from my mom. So this I'm so excited about. It's basically a Kate Spade recipe book. And I'm trying not to talk too loud because she can hear me. And it's the design of it. My mom has, like, a whole kitchen set with this design. So I wanted to get this because we have a little recipe stand, like a little recipe book stand so she could put this on it. And I wanted to get it for her before, but it's expensive. So I finally wanted to get it for her birthday. So and then if you spent a certain amount, you could get a blanket for a decent price. So I got her a blanket. Yeah, got her a blanket. It's just a white, cozy faux fur furrow, fun. So that was my unboxing for reading updates quickly because I bought stuff and I want to look at it all now. I am having a better day. So thank you guys so much for the positivity yesterday. I had a better day today. Update. I haven't read my two stories yet from slash girls and monster boys. But I have read about 40 or 50 pages of the Dreadful Tale Prosperity. I just got home from school, like a little bit, like maybe an hour ago. So I haven't gotten around to reading anything at home, but in between classes and like joint classes, I was reading a bit. So I ended up knocking out about 50 pages of that. So I think I'm on page 70 or 60. I don't know. But so far it's actually just starting to pick up because at first I was like so bland about it. I was like, ugh. But it's starting to like pick up. So I hopefully it will get better from there. But yeah. This is so yellow. This is what happens when you film this early and there's no daylight. I love it when there's no, oh wait let me show you. I love it. And it's pitch black out. Oh yeah, it's three by the way. I find it funny in my day two vlog, everyone's telling me like, go to bed. Um, yeah, five is good for me. So yeah, see this usually happens and I've been up since two. And my lips are chopped. Don't mind that. Okay, so today, I don't know what's going to happen. Schoolwork I'm pretty good with and I, I don't know, like it's not like we have a ton going on in school today so I might not go. We'll see. So I might do work at home because there's not much to do today. Most of it is work periods and I can work from home. But we'll see. I mean, oh, last night I read my story from Slash of Girls and Monster Boys, the one I didn't read too because I was so tired. I was participating in the little Instagram live stream thingy that Daniel and Rita Five does, which I love you guys should check him out. He's great. Um, so doing that, so I was reading Slash of Girls and Monster Boys for it. And yeah, I read the story by Megan Shepherd. I think it's story five I'm on. So today I have to read three, which is fine. But this one was good. It was literally like a game with death and that's all I'm going to say. And it was pretty good. Like at first it took me a bit of adjusting to get used to the writing, but I liked it. So yeah, fun, um, plans. I want to get maybe like 200 pages into the Dreadful Tale Prosperity and if I'm feeling it, finish it. But if not, honestly, just get like a solid 200 pages then maybe we'll see, um, because realistically I'm probably going to nap today because your girl got like four hours of sleep. So yeah, which is usually good for me, but I'll still nap anyways. So right now, I think literally my whole house used to be walking around at like three. I'm going to go and I think I'm going to get a drink like I wanted to your coffee, but I'm going to get my shy cold beverage thingy that I have in the fridge. I'm going to do some editing maybe. My appearance in these blogs is quite something, but I got two more packages just now and I was actually reading in bed, but the doorbell rang and there was packages. So I'm like, yes, you guys, I had a problem. I'm not lying. This is the book outlet and then it did go. So I got my scissors. I know what this is. I think it's my manga that I ordered the other day because there was a sale. I think unless I ordered something else, I don't remember. Okay. Not cooperating. Great. Yes. Okay. This is what I thought thingies that come in them and then I Tokyo Ghoul, they had a sale on the manga. It was literally 40% off, which is great. So I've read volume one and two. I've read volume one and two, but I didn't own the rest, which I didn't buy all of them, but I bought some of them. So I bought volume three, this was four, volume four, volume five, and volume six. They were all 40% off and I've been meaning to get more of this series. It's just they're 15 bucks each, which is really expensive. So the fact that they were 40% off kind of made me get them. So I'm happy they're here, which maybe I can actually read these for the read of thought too because it is like ghouls and monsters and blood and human flesh and all that good stuff. So I might read those for that. And then this package is huge. I think I ordered like 15 bucks, which is fun. I'm sorry. I look gross.  So I'm dead and lying down. My cat was here sitting with me and then he saw me bring two boxes in and he just left. He's like, nope, pass, especially because I put them on the bed and he was lying there and he's like, excuse me, no, I'm leaving. I've actually never ordered from Book Outlet online. I've been to the warehouse, but I've never ordered online. Okay, so this is my thing with all my books. First thing I see in here is the Tom and Ockers. They tell me knockers by Stephen Kang. These are like the, that edition, just the nice edition. And I already have a copy of the Tom and Ockers, but it's like a mass market. So I wanted like a nice edition. So I got this. And then also in that edition, I got the dark half, which I haven't read or heard much about, but I'm back. I'm back from the dead and you don't seem glad to see me at all.  That's cool. Just sitting on the back. Okay. Yeah. I'm excited to read that. Next, what I see here is Flawed by Cecilia Ahern. I heard good things about it, like one choice will cost her everything. If you break the rules, you'll be punished and like, I don't know if you're flawed. You get like a stamped slash tattoo. They are flawed. They do not speak to them. They do not help them or you will be punished. Okay. So that's fun. This is the new paperback that came out. I actually think it's actually kind of cool looking. So yeah, the sequel's already out, but I remember when it came out like the first book. And then I also have, I'm so excited, I have Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborrow. And I don't exactly remember what this one was about, but I heard someone talk about it. I think it was Chelsea from Chelsea Dallin Reads and she talked just about the plot. It sounded so incredibly interesting. Yeah, I don't really remember what it's about now, but I remember as soon as I heard about it, I wanted it so bad. Okay. So then next thing I have here is Beauty and the Beast. I was so shocked to see this on the site. So I'm going to open it. I have the Peter Pan in this edition. They're really fancy, like interactive editions. I really like them. They come in like plastic wrap. I only have the one for Peter Pan, but I love it. I've never actually read the original Beauty and the Beast, which is interesting. It'd be really cool to get all of these actually, like all of these editions. Because I know they have one for the Jungle Book as well. I'm not sure what other ones they have though. So we have Beauty and the Beast. Oh my God, it's so pretty. Look. Yeah, it's gorgeous. And they always have little like interactive stuff in here, so this is probably like a note. Nope. It's a map. Map of Rich City. Okay. And there's little like paper and stuff to like hold it, keep it new. Then there's this thing. I don't know what this is. Open. Okay, fun. I don't know. There's just a bunch of like random interactive stuff. There's like photos in here as well. There's little things in here. So yeah, it's illustrated. It's really pretty. I'm really glad I got it. It was a really good price considering how much it is regular. Okay. So the next stack, I got Nerve by Jan Ryan, Jean Ryan. This is about this game and stuff. I watched the movie a little while ago and I did enjoy the movie. It's not the best movie out there, but it was like entertaining. And I think the book would be fun and it was like a few bucks. So I just got it. Next to that, I also have Passenger by Alexander Bracken. This is like a time travel kind of book, so I got this. Next up is All the Rage by Courtney Summers. And I know this one deals with sexual assault, which is why I got it. I also got A Shadow Bright and Burning by Jessica Kluis, delivered that service. So basically A Shadow Bright and Burning, it's a fantasy book, but it's about this girl who can burst enough flames and stuff. I read the first little bit on my, it was really cheap on Kobo, so on my e-reader it was like two bucks to buy. So I got it and I read the first bit and I liked it and the hard cover was a good price, so I thought I would get it. I still want to finish it, but I'll probably finish it physically then on Kobo. This I'm so excited for. This is what we saw by Erin Hartzler. This deals with sexual assault as well, but I've heard such amazing things. Jesse from Jesse the Reader talks about this book so highly and I heard it's really hard-hitting and apparently it's really good and doesn't get enough praise. So this I'm so excited for. We're getting to the end of the stack. Okay, then I also have This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills.  Like I knew it was like this, so I was like, I gotta get the hard cover because of it. Salon isn't expecting to fall in with a group of friends when she moves from New York to Florida, especially not a group of friends so intense, so layered with private tragedies and secret codes and so while consuming yet, that's exactly what happens. Okay, sounds fun. Covers beautiful. We're near the end of the stack. It makes me sad because it's like Christmas. I might make another order. Please convince me not to in the comments. Okay, then I also got The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry. I wanted this since it came out. I think it came out last year sometime, which the reason why I wanted this one was because Lala from Xenlau talks so highly about it and it's like I think magical realism slash contemporary. It's a debut. I don't know. I heard it's fun. Gang covers gorgeous, wanted to get the hard cover. And then the last two books in here are First We Have a Dangerous Girl by Abigail Hayes, Friends for Life or Death. Okay, so this is like a really popular thriller. It gets like a good amount of buzz. Apparently it's really shocking. So maybe I'll read this. How long is this? Well, I mean it's 385 with like big ish font. So I don't know. Maybe if, well, I'm not going to finish what I want to speak with on, but if I do, then I can read that.  I read her book This Song Will Save Your Life and I really liked it. So I wanted to get this as well and I was waiting to find the hard cover and book outlet had it. So yeah. So there you guys have it. That was my quick little haul for a reading update. I haven't read much today. And it's like 12.50. So it's almost 1 PM. I've honestly just been chilling today. And I actually finished editing my review for The Godfather, which I'm not going to upload till all my Spookathon vlogs are up because I don't want it to be like a line of Spookathon vlogs. And then in the middle, there's just like a random review. So I'm going to wait so that it looks more pleasing. I think I'm going to wait because I'm really happy with that review. So I'm excited for you guys to see it. But yeah. So for reading updates, I'm currently reading another story from Slash Your Girls and Monster Boys. I'm reading the one by Megan Shepard, which right now is getting really good. It reminds me of The Merciless a little bit. And at first it was really angsty and annoying, but I'm really liking it now. It's really took a turn. So I'm excited to finish that story now because the bail person came when I was reading in bed. So I literally went to the door like this. I was like, hi. And like she'd never seen me too. So it's like, did she? Who is she? But anyways, yeah, thank you guys for watching.


Good morning guys, welcome back to our Guinness World Record attempt to become the youngest pair to circumnavigate the globe by a motorcycle. We're here at a roadside complex in the desert of Kazakhstan. And we have a nice breakfast this morning, bread and eggs and a nice coffee. We actually ended up spending two nights here because after checking on the map we realized that we were really close to a super cool place to visit but we'll tell you more about it when we hit the road. We have a long road ahead here in Kazakhstan so let me show you guys where we're headed. So we have now made it all the way up to here and over the next few days we're going to be following this road north to Aktobe and then this road south round, round, round, round, round to reach the city of Aktau on the Caspian Sea. Today we're aiming to make it up to this junction here where hopefully there's another road house waiting for us. It's about 320 miles and Google Maps says it will take us 6 hours and 30 minutes. It's already 7.15 so better hit the road, let's go. Look at this guy. Check out what they have here as like a restaurant seating area. We thought that's so cozy so we had a nice dinner here and a nice lunch here. And we were just like having our meal and then laying down straight after. Plus this place was just 10 pounds a night. From Anglia. Yeah. Aktobe Aktau. See you later. 24 miles straight. Wow. I think it's a new record. So yesterday we took a day off to go and visit the Baikonur Cosmodrome because when we got to the hotel after the last ride I had a look on the map and I said to Lavie oh my god we just rode past the place where the first man in space launched from and the first object in space. Which is absolutely crazy. We couldn't believe it but we drove already another 50 miles. So basically we had to make a decision. Do we just carry on and forget about it? Or do we take the day off and ride back and go and see it? And we were like well this place is in the middle of nowhere and we just rode straight past it. So I think we have to go back and see it. But anyway let me tell you guys a little bit about the Baikonur Cosmodrome because it's a pretty amazing place in world history. So the Baikonur Cosmodrome was created in 1955 when this was part of the Soviet Union and then in 1957 this place became part of world history when the first ever satellite was launched into space from there called Sputnik 1. And Sputnik is a really cute name I think. Yeah it is isn't it? And then just four years later which doesn't really sound like enough time to make sure it's safe but four years later the first man in space was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Yuri Gagarin in 1961. This was part of the US-Russian space race and it's pretty crazy because Yuri Gagarin actually only beats the first American into space by like three weeks or something. So it was like super close but Yuri Gagarin goes down in history as the first man in space. We actually looked up if we can do like a little tour or something but apparently tours like this are really expensive. So we basically thought okay right let's just ride to the place and just see if we can go in and check it out. We got to the front entrance and we said oh hey we want to come in and have a look around and the guys were just like no not possible. Yes no way. So actually I didn't realize but the place is still an operational space station. Kazakhstan have leased the entire place to Russia. It was like a deal they made after the fall of the Soviet Union. So Russia are still launching all of their spacecrafts from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Yeah it's so crazy that it's actually in Kazakhstan and I really had no idea. Because it's actually still an active high security space station site they basically told us without joining a very expensive tour and having the special permit to be able to go in basically the closest we could get was the entrance. But they did have a really cool display in front of the entrance where they showed a few like mock-ups of some rockets and there was a replica of Sputnik 1 the first ever object that humans launched into space. So at least we could see that which was still pretty cool and it's still a pretty special place to be. Yeah totally. Come on. Hello guys. Hello guys. Sorry. Scared them a bit. Beautiful. Beautiful. Wow. And you know what's super crazy? I looked up online and apparently the last launch from the space station was two days ago. It was such a pity really I would have loved to like see something even though it's like really far in the distance. Guys just make sure if you pass through this area here check the days when they will launch a rocket. Maybe you will be lucky and see one. Yeah you probably could have seen it from the road if you were passing just at the right time. Yeah. But we had no idea and apparently we went there at the right time so. Yeah. Oh well. Break number one 100 miles down 220 to go.  I mean since we left Turkestan this has basically been it. It's just flat with some bushes but mostly deserts. It's absolutely crazy. I didn't realize that there was such a massive expanse of like absolutely nothing here. We've got a camel train crossing the road. Hello guys. Hello. The trucks are just beeping to try and scare them off. Oh there they go. Guys look look look look look look look. There's nothing. Oh and look on the other side. It's also nothing. Nothing everywhere. Just a lot of camp spots. We just saw a sign that said that this over there is actually the edge of a meteorite crater. It said it was 10 kilometers from this road and we looked down the track and it was just a completely sandy track. Like there was no chance that we'd be able to make it. No. But I'm going to see if I can get a satellite view for you guys so that you can see this crater because from what I can see from the edges of it that it is a pretty big meteorite crater. Really cool. Yeah that's pretty cool. So we've been looking for a place to stop for lunch for quite some time now and something's finally come up. Literally it's been nothing for such a long time. For ages. Absolutely ages. We said we were going to stop around midday but we just had to keep riding. We don't really have any food with us. Well this one looks really busy. Really busy. The right place for us to find some lunch. Yeah it's probably the only place. Yeah. And everyone is here. Look at this. I thought it's the place for us. Perfect. Over there. Cool. Let's just get whatever right. Get whatever we can. All right so we're all full and we just filled Bumblebee up as well. We had another Lachman soup. Yeah it's so funny because I asked the lady if they have anything with vegetables and she looks at me like no. And I'm like you know. Vegetables. Exactly. I'm like oh I'm not even bothered you know. We have two Lachmans please. Yeah exactly. It's basically like a brothy soup with some bits of beef in it and then it's got like some chopped potatoes and carrots. One or two peppers. Yes. No but it was good. It was really good. And now we have just about 150 miles left until we reach the place where we want to stay. We haven't picked an accommodation so we will just go there and see if they have anything available for us. Yeah it should be another roadhouse with like rooms and a restaurant so it should be pretty similar to where we started the day. Yeah but it's pretty crazy because we tried to pay with card as well here in the restaurant or for the petrol and we couldn't pay with card in ages so I'm pretty happy here that we got enough cash for now. It's because here in Kazakhstan they've got this thing called Kaspi and it's basically like they scan a QR code on their phone and then it makes like a transfer between their banks. But of course we don't have a Kaspi account we don't have a Kaspi bank so a lot of places are like don't even use card anymore. They just do like cash or Kaspi. Anyway some more exciting Kazakhstani landscapes to come hey. For sure. Some more emptiness to come. So we just took our last break of the day but we've also put on our rain gear because a head is looking pretty dark and actually a Russian bike had just pulled in here before called Vitaly and he told us that it was raining where he came from which is that direction but anyway we've only got another hour, hour and a quarter to go to finish the day. So that's not so bad then we'll be ready for another lahman hey. Yeah it's pretty crazy because I don't have supermarkets here on the road so we haven't had the chance to get any supplies actually and dance now. Yeah we haven't had nearly as much bread and cheese as we would like. And it's super crazy as well because the Russian guy he just told us that he rode all the way from St. Petersburg three days ago. Yeah pretty much at the same time it took us to go from like Shinkent to here. To Petersburg. I can't get it why some bikers can ride that much in a day. He says like he can do 1,500 kilometers in one day. Yeah and we strive to make 500 kilometers. Yeah well this wind is getting bad as well and I can already feel some raindrops on the helmet. Yeah. So I reckon it might be a bit of a miserable last hour. Yeah I actually I don't think that we can use this camera anymore. It's absolutely not working very well. Look at that. I don't even know if it's recording. Oh man technology is always breaking. It's gone. It's gone. Where's the piece GoPro? We're finally getting somewhere. It is wet. And absolutely freezing cold. Wow that got pretty crazy towards the end hey. It was so super hectic and I really forgot how much I hate to ride in the rain. It was just one truck after the next after the next and it was windy and the rain in our face and I was so cold my rain gear is not waterproof at all. My whole leg part is all torn up and stuff so it's not really working very well. I really hope that we didn't break our media mod with the GoPro 10. Yeah so at the moment I'm just sort of airing it out because this allows us to connect our microphones to our front GoPro that's on my chin. This is not waterproof it's like water maybe resistant I don't know if it's going to work tomorrow. Yeah. Let's see. Fingers crossed. But I'm really really happy that we found this room here it's really nice it's really clean I think we will have a good night and that's it from us today we hope you enjoyed the video if so please give us a thumbs up subscribe to the channel share the video with your friends and family comment below and we will see you next time


Alright, so I have finally finished reading A Sky Beyond the Storm, which actually came out almost two months ago now, but like I just... I added the stuff in the way so I didn't get to... get to it, and I can confidently say that it is a solid ending to a solid series. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. So I have talked a little bit about an Ember in the Ashes on this channel before, not all that much, but it is a good series. You know, I've mentioned that every time I bring it up. It is young adult fantasy, and I'm normally not a fan of young adult fantasy, but this series is still pretty good. And the way that that works is that it doesn't really do anything new. Let's be clear on that. It follows pretty much all the same tropes and cliches and everything you've seen before. And some of those, it does play around with a little bit. There are a few plot twists sprinkled throughout the series that I didn't see coming, and some themes did come up that I wasn't expecting at the beginning. It is definitely a little more complex than a lot of its genre contemporaries. But, you know, you've seen most of this before, and it works because all of the characters... Well, all the characters work. You know, they all have at least a little bit of personality and a little bit of depth to them. Only, like, the major characters are done super well, but even the side characters, they're all... Well, they're real people. Or at least they feel like real people, feel like facsimiles are real people, you know? None of them feel like total cardboard cutouts. None of them feel like total cliches. And so because of that, you grow attached to them, and then when bad things happen to them, or even when good things happen to them, it makes sense and you feel for them. For example, when the two main leads, Lya and Elias, start to fall in love in the latter part of the first book, and especially in the second book, it makes sense that they would feel that way. You know, it doesn't just come out of nowhere, and it doesn't feel like, okay, the plot demands that this happens, so now it's happening. In fact, you could actually remove their romance from the story as a whole, and it would still work out pretty well. You know, you could just have them be friends or something, and it would still work. You'd lose some of the heart of the series, because their romance is genuinely pretty good, and in fact, they are part of a love triangle, which is not terribly done, and I liked that as well. But just having them have an actual connection rather than insta-love, and they suddenly die for each other, that adds so much more to the series, and makes it feel so much more real as opposed to checking off a list of boxes. But enough about the series as a whole. A sky beyond the storm itself, this one picks up not long after the last book ended, like, you know, the Nightbringer, the King of the Jinn finally managed to free the rest of his people, and from their imprisonment they've gone insane, so now they're just gonna go kill all of humanity, and also the Martial Empire has been split in half, and the Old Emperor is dead, and Charis Vitturia, or actually it might be Vitturia, because like in Latin V's make more of a U sound, but I don't know. Not important, I don't think the author intended it that way, but Charis Vitturia declared herself Empress, and she's going around trying to kill everyone who doubts that she's Empress.  And as I said earlier, it sticks the landing. You know, like I said, doesn't really do anything too unexpected, but it does everything well. Like, when there's battles and when they're trying to unite all the good guys to fight the bad guy, it's done pretty well. When there are action scenes, they're done pretty well. When there are character beats and people reaching the end of their arcs, it's done pretty well. And I wish I could go into a whole lot more specifics there, but I mean, that would involve basically going line by line through all four of the books, and that's not really what a review is, that's more of a super in-depth video essay analysis type thing. And so basically, it's kind of hard to explain, but like, yeah, it does a lot of the same things we've seen before, but it does them pretty well. I do have a couple of issues though, and I want to stress that they're all minor, but they really are what makes this last entry and really the series as a whole. It makes it good, in fact really good. I think the first two books are genuinely fantastic, but the series as a whole and this last one I think are just good rather than the great that they could have been. For starters, the POV problem. Now, first book just has Elias and Lya, and it switches back and forth between their first person POVs, and it's neither their narrations stand out from one another, but it's not a big problem because there's only two people and because they're both off doing such different things that you can read a little bit and already be pretty sure which one you're reading. Then the next book adds a third person, Helene, and that's when it started to get a little confusing. The third book added a fourth person, and then this last one adds a fifth. Now, the vast majority of them are still Lya, Elias, and Helene, but the Nightbringer does get a fair number of chapters to himself, and we actually get one from Charis Faturia, and man, I like the prose in this, I like the way it's super poetic and lilting, and I like that, but all the characters just sound the same, and they're all doing similar things, like preparing for battle and such, and so they don't really stand out from one another all that much, and occasionally I did get confused about who I was reading. And I'm just gonna keep saying this till I'm blue in the face. If you are going to write a book or series or whatever from multiple characters' perspectives, you either have to go really hard in making them sound completely different from one another in their narration style, like the young world is really the only example I can think of of that, or you can do it where every book in the series is told from a different character, so even if they're not that different, it's not that hard to remember who you're reading, like the Animorphs did this, for example, or just write it all in third person. Like I really find myself wishing that this whole series had been written in third person because, well, the prose I think is pretty good, like I said, it's poetic and everything, but it feels weird for characters to be thinking along those lines, especially when it's all the exact same way, so yeah, that's not a huge problem, but it did bother me. Another thing is that, okay, so the gin are hurt by salt, like, you know, that makes sense, mystical creature hurt by some mundane thing, like silver or sunlight or something like that, okay, that's fine, but in this it makes a bunch of references to people coating their weapons in salt and using them to fight the gin, which doesn't make sense because salt is a powder, like if you sprinkled it on a sword or something and then you tried swinging it, it would immediately all fall off. That's weird to me. Like maybe you could put something in the salt to make it stick or maybe you could just dip your sword in salt water and then dry it out in the sun real quick and there'd still be little granules stuck on the blade, maybe, but none of them ever mention anything like that, and well, it's such a weird thing. Every time it came up it took me out of it and it would have been so easy to just fix that somehow, but it never was fixed, and on that matter, I think Helene. So, okay, you know what? This book is a little over 500 pages long. It didn't need to be that long, and the biggest culprit in that is that around a quarter of Helene's chapters don't really add anything and they could have either taken some of the information and folded them into other chapters or just cut them out entirely, we wouldn't have missed that much, and we probably would have had a book that was 30 pages shorter overall, which, yeah, that would have been better. And, well, my only real complaint about this book, and even though it's not the biggest one ever, it's just that it lost its dark edge. Like with this one the series is no longer as dark as it used to be and that was one of the things that helped it stand out from other young adult fantasy stuff, which, as I mentioned, I'm just not that big a fan of.  They might lose some stuff along the way, but they'll do it. Whereas the first three books, even if you weren't thinking the world was going to get destroyed, there was some super dark messed up stuff in there, and I'm not just talking about the violence and the rape and such because, you know, that's obviously there. But in the first book, you really got a feeling for what it was like for Laya because she was an oppressed minority living in a police state, you know? The government and private citizens can do whatever the hell they want to her and people like her, and she has no defense and basically no recourse against them.  And then the second and third books, we see a genocide take place and it's mostly through the eyes of someone who has some power and she wants to help but she just cannot do it. She's still powerless to stop it. And we also see it through the eyes of people who are just caught up in the middle of it and they can't even protect themselves. All they can do is run and the whole, all the while they're watching other people like them be killed. And so it's super dark and then this book doesn't really have anything to replace those. So it's just a pretty standard, hey, bad guy's trying to destroy the world with a big magical thingy-ma-jig. Let's stop the bad guy from destroying the world with his big magical thingy-ma-jig. And I'm going to have to do a brief spoiler section after this because there is one plot point at the end that I thought, or plot twist at the end that I thought was really, really stupid. And, well, basically I just feel that they didn't have to sacrifice nearly enough to earn their happy ending. Like, I'm okay with this series having a happy ending because they clearly had to suffer and crawl and scrape to get there. But they didn't have to suffer quite, they didn't suffer quite enough, I don't feel. And so the ending didn't have quite the same bite and impact as maybe it could have had. But all that said, that's it for the non-spoiler section. I think An Ember in the Ashes is a very solid series. I think that even though it doesn't really do anything new, it does it all very well. There are still a few things in there that surprised me. And I think if you're someone who is into young and old fantasy, you'll probably really like this. If you're not, then you might still enjoy it. Like, because it is darker, but it's also not quite as dark as a lot of regular epic fantasy. And, well, it's just a little comfier, I think. Yeah, that might sound weird considering some of the subject matter, but it's just a bit comfier. You don't have to think too hard while reading it, it's mostly pretty surface level. And I don't know, I enjoyed it. So if you're looking for something like that, I think you'll enjoy this series. And A Sky Beyond the Storm, it sticks the landing. So if you read the first three books and you're still excited for this one, you'll definitely enjoy this one. The heartless obey me now, Sora. Now I have nothing to fear.  Okay, real quick. The only thing about this book that really bothered me was a twist that came right at the end. So at the end of the third book, we found out the identity of Cook and we realized, oh, that's actually Laya's mother. And that's how she was able to be such a crazy badass. And I liked that. It was pretty good. It was a huge moment for Laya as a character and for Cook as a character. And then immediately afterwards, Cook had to sacrifice herself to let Laya escape and to help her live. And it was actually genuinely pretty heartbreaking because she thought her mom was dead, then she finds out she's alive, and then she loses her again right away. That's really sad. But then near the end of this book, her mom just comes back. Yeah, there is an explanation given. It's just, oh, well they didn't check my body during the battle, so I managed to get away. Yeah, it was... it's not a very good explanation. And then she also decides that she wants to take the mantle of Soulcatcher from Elias, so he's not trapped doing that. And then he can be a human again, and him and Laya can get married and live happily ever after. And... well... that felt pretty bullshitty. That felt very bullshitty, in fact. Because like I said, I'm fine with them having a happy ending if they have to suffer for it, but they didn't really have to suffer for that. And while I definitely prefer in this sort of series, I prefer having a happy ending over having a tragic ending, I would rather have had a tragic ending of Elias and Laya love each other, but he's stuck being his ghost shepherd for all eternity. I think that would have been a lot better than this because this just kind of comes out of nowhere and is very unsatisfying. Other than that, I like the ending, though. I would not be able to do stuff like this. 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