Bits of Books: More YouTuber Memoirs!

We're midway through summer, and the days are flying by... as are the books on my Goodreads Challenge! In the interest of speeding things up a little bit, I decided to compress two recent reads down into one review... because really, how many blog posts do I need to make about YouTubers?

Here are two memoirs, based on the lives of two very different Internet personalities: LGBT advocate and teen magnet Tyler Oakley, and beauty guru from across the Pond, Estee Lalonde!

bloom: navigating life and style, estee lalonde

Estee Lalonde has been one of my consistent YouTube subscriptions, since my early college years. Her conversational style and life advice is down-to-earth and very chill, which is somewhat at odds as to the current status of a fashion and beauty influencer, and her life is highly affected by the fact that she lives in what I personally think is one of the most interesting cities in the world (London!).

Her book, Bloom, showcases a lot of her signature, laid-back and stream-of-conciousness thinking. It's very conversational and accessible, and despite the physical book's relative thickness, pretty short. Organized into bite-sized portions like "Life," "Home," "Fashion," and "Food," she breezes through each with various degrees of personal inflection, touching on things like her anxiety and depression, disordered eating, and the emotional toll of moving to a new country, without allowing the writing itself to get overly affected or dark.

The style of the book's formatting and layout was just as much of a factor in its construction as the actual word content, and I think it's actually one of my favorite parts of it. It is filled with photographs that are carefully stylized, without losing any sense of personal belonging or intimacy, and they illustrate Estee's sense of organization and colorful personality perfectly.

The fact that the composition of the book itself was so stylized, was both an asset and a detraction. It highlighted Estee's style and fit with her brand, but also felt somewhat disconnected from the highly personal stories she was telling. It was almost as if she was letting the reader get closer to her life, but not that close, holding them at an arm's length away courtesy of colorful blocking, text changes, and perfectly aligned photos.

It also didn't help that her life has changed considerably after the publication of this book last year: while she talks quite a bit about her boyfriend - the Internet best friend, who eventually wooed her to move across to England from Canada in the first place, and who she has been with since the launch of her channel - it stings somewhat, due to the fact that they have recently broken up, and are no longer together.

Regardless, I enjoyed reading it, though I can't say that it was one of my favorite YouTuber memoirs. I wish more attention had been paid to the words, as much as the formatting, and that Estee had gone a little deeper than just surface level attributes. I can listen to her talk for hours at a time on YouTube and on her podcasts; I wish that she had spent as much attention to her storytelling here.

binge, tyler oakley

YouTuber Tyler Oakley is highly notable in his particular job market, due to his compassion and activism, high energy, outrageous sense of humor, and equally boisterous laugh. In a realm packed to bursting with big personalities, he has proven himself as a force to be reckoned with, after parlaying his fame into not just greater career opportunities, but significant ways to give back, which is why I'm such a fan.

Binge is a collection of bits and pieces of Tyler's life, likes, and history. Scattershot and short, he discusses more serious topics - like exploring his sexuality, his experiences with homophobia and heartbreak, and a childhood eating disorder - alongside the kind of topics he gleefully dishes on best, like details of late night partying gone awry, tales of hookups past, and his experiences in the fangirl lifestyle. The tones are disparate, but evenly weighed throughout the book, giving both the highs and the lows equal measure, each balanced out with his irreverent, conversational tone.

I do think there are elements of it that surprised me; namely, how raunchy it can get in various sections, especially due to the fact that I consider his fanbase to be rather young. I checked my thinking of, "Is he really okay with kids reading this?" when I put myself in their shoes, and realized that it was exactly the kind of thing I would have loved to read when I was younger (even though my parents would definitely not have approved).

Beyond the somewhat inappropriate nature of quite a few of the stories, there was enough heart to go along with it to recognize that Tyler wasn't blowing these stories up to exaggerate or hyperbolize his life, but because he is a storyteller at heart, who wants to share both the best and worst parts of his life with his fans.

While I think it started to lose a little steam towards the end, that deliberate sense of sharing was something that really set the tone for the book, and makes me think that no matter the medium, Tyler Oakley excels when he has a great story to tell.

What are some of your recent reads this past summer? Have you read any YouTuber books? Let me know, in the comments below!

Bits of Books: Nora Ephron, and Mamrie and Hannah Hart

I've been stuck in a bit of a reading slump through the latter portion of this year: whether it was stressing about my Orlando trip, completing my NaNoWriMo Challenge, or even just trying to make the most of my holiday spirit this December, my focus hasn't exactly been on reading... and as a result, I've fallen five books behind on my Goodreads Challenge, with only about 20 days left before the new year!

However, despite the fact that I haven't been reading as much, there are still plenty of books left that I have managed to read this year, that I still never ended up reviewing in the first place, several of which I thought were really good. So, even though my reading habits are shot, that doesn't mean my blogging habits should be!

This bits of books is a short-and-sweet roundup of some recent reads, from seriously funny ladies. 

Nora Ephron, I Remember Nothing and I Feel Bad About My Neck

I haven't had much experience with author Nora Ephron, besides all the movies I love that she's helped create, like You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, or Julie & Julia. Now, I'm kicking myself that it took me 'til after she'd died to pick up some of her written material, because her voice is one I'd want to hear for a very long time. 

These two books of hers, in particular, are very similar: brief collections of essays, lists, and more inner musings of a woman who was both wildly in love with life and food, as well as all-too-aware of the ways she was getting older. These slim packages were low on word count, but high on humor. 

Her voice is intimate and universal, as if the things she's telling you are secrets that only you can know, that the whole world can relate to. From writing about her career beginnings, to the small bald spot - dubbed an "aruba" - on the back of her head where her hair refuses to cooperate, everything she says is slyly funny, sharply clever, and possessing a spirit and spark I can only hope to cling to once I've entered my twilight years. 

I'll definitely be on the lookout for more books from her in future library trips, because be it home entertaining, journalism, or movie making, I'd listen to her talk about anything, because you can bet that it will be funny. 

Mamrie Hart, You Deserve a Drink

Straight out of the success of her wildly popular and pun-filled YouTube channel, comes Mamrie Hart, ready to mix up a custom cocktail of hilarity, irreverence, and, yes, plenty of booze, just like she's known for on the Internet. 

And let me tell you, Mamrie here knows her personal brand like the back of her cocktail shaker. On her channel, she's boisterous, exuberant, and twenty different kinds of fun and zany, and somehow, she's managed to repackage and re-purpose those same qualities of herself, and flip it into an incredibly successful collection of the same tales she's used to spinning on YouTube. 

Accounts of Dairy Queen-heavy car trips and too-nude beach vacation excursions abound in this series of stories, perfectly encapsulated in the book's title. If there's anyone who deserves a drink for making it through this crazy, kooky, sometimes-cringe-y collection, it's you, because, let's face it: Mamrie's had plenty. 

While the Looney Tunes capers might get a little repetitive after a while - let's be real, after a few nights out, our crazy friends' stories all start to sound the same - at the end of it all, you're left thinking two things: 1, I'm so glad Mamrie's not dead, and 2. Because I'd really like to drink with her. 

Hannah Hart, Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded

Hannah Hart - zero relation to Mamrie, one of her best friends - is also a wildly popular YouTube phenom, with plenty of alcohol-infused street cred, as well. 

As host of the popular series My Drunk Kitchen, Hannah has already released a best-selling cookbook of her drunken kitchen creations, of the same name; however, the vodka-soaked blissfulness of her zen cooking style is proliferated with plenty of nuggets of surprise mindfulness and reflection, too, that merited their own vehicle for publication. 

One of my favorite things about Hannah is that core of chill optimism and wisdom that winds throughout her YouTube videos, bespeaking a greater sense of connectivity with the world than just what her social networking abilities would entail. This collection of stories from Hannah's childhood, career development, college years, and more, only verifies her abilities to reflect and reveal, without ever seemingly condescending or blunt. 

It isn't just that Hannah is outspoken about the challenges of America's mental health stigmas, it's because she grew up with a schizophrenic parent, and multiple step-parents who couldn't help them. It's not that she's a national ambassador for the LGBT community, it's that she struggled with escaping her pastor father's devotion to religion in order to define what love means for herself. A childhood growing up in substantial relative poverty helped grow a love and appreciation for food of all kinds. Through every story she shares, Hannah weaves a greater understanding of the puzzle pieces of her life that fit together in a way that's brought her to where - and who - she is now. 

(My younger sister - the person who I introduced to Hannah's videos in the first place, and who now shares my love for her funny, fabulous personality - waited for two hours in line in order to get a copy of Buffering signed with a special message by its author, and then gave the copy to me for my birthday. It's only another layer of loveliness to a very exceptional book, from an equally lovely person.) 

Have you read books by any of these funny ladies before? What did you think? Let me know, in the comments below!

College Fashion Post Link Up: Jane Austen's Emma

I, like quite a few of the bookish folk of the Internet, was enamored with last year's YouTube breakout webseries, the hit show that modernized the quintessential British novel in a way I have never seen done so successfully before, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The show followed the titular Bennet sister through 100 webisodes of the humor, drama, and miscommunication that we've come to expect from the old-but-never-antiquated tale of Pride and Prejudice.

Therefore, when I heard that Bernie Su, Hank Green, and the rest of Pemberley Digital were making another long-term series this year - after the not-as-interesting sojourn to Sanditon this past summer - I was primed and ready to fall in love with Miss Emma Woodhouse even more than the first time I watched Clueless (her name was Cher Horowitz then, but still, you know that was an adaptation, right?). Emma Approved did not disappoint in the slightest, and I'm already loving the new interpretations of old characters, as well as the fact that Emma's cheerfully domineering attitude perfectly translates to the life of a lifestyle blogger. I'd just manages to reach full-on obsession status with the show... when, after it's 24th episode in, it decided to go on hiatus for the month of January!

Not to be left alone with my feelings, of course, I grabbed my copy of Emma, and set about a send-up to the story in a College Fashion article, which, like I said yesterday, premiered on the very first of the year.

In fact, today, a year ago, was the day my very first article as a contributing editor premiered on the site... what an anniversary! This year, in my opinion, has made me a stronger writer and a more discerning reader, and has given me a better sartorial eye and a thicker skin (criticism has never been a medicine I've particularly enjoyed taking). I'm so happy to have written for such a great website for a full year, and I'm excited to do it again in 2014.

To celebrate, here's one of my favorite outfits from the Emma post: inspired by the verve, wit, and spunk of the titular heroine!

FOLLOW THE LINK TO SEE MORE OF THE ARTICLE!

Lost in Austen (and my recent dealing with Austen as well)

Hello, everybody!

Just so you know, my newest College Fashion article was uploaded today, on the topic of Jane Austen's first published work, Sense and Sensibility. Take a look at it right here.
(And simply because I neglected to promote my past article as well, take a look at my looks inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre right here.)

While this sort of post would typically be accompanied by my personal review of the book, I must make a confession: I haven't actually finished it yet. What can I say, it's hard to get past the Austen rule quite so easily, especially when you're a Freshman in college with work to be done and an essay to turn in next Friday and two midterms before then as well.

That being said, I have been engrossed in some other forms of Austen fiction, just not the kind written by the legendary authoress herself. Additionally, they are not about Sense and Sensibility, but about her arguably most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice.

First up, is the masterful YouTube series - which I only just managed to catch on to, despite the fact that the multi-media web series has been running since April 9th, 2012 - The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. 

And fair warning: this will suck you in quickly. It is an expertly adapted modern variation on Austen's classic tale, and the characters are not only easy to relate to, but much easier to see reflected in those closest to you. And like those closest to you, you can follow all of them on quite a few social media platforms, including reacting YouTube channels and Twitter feeds. They are amazing in their ability to coordinate between them all, and it allows for a heightened sense of reality between you and the multi-faceted subjects of Austen's world.

However, I do have to comment that I didn't realize that this series was still ongoing. So, on the plus side, my adventures with Lizzie and the Gang are not yet over, but on the sad side, I am now slave-bound to my computer four days out of the week, waiting for the next upload. And wouldn't you know it, I managed to catch up just as the story reached it's most suspenseful moment. That's what I get for taking to YouTube when I KNOW I have a paper due.

As for the second mode of Austen magic enrapturing my mind recently, I have the BBC miniseries Lost in Austen to thank, for my adventures on the struggle bus, while my notes for midterms went untouched. That being said, it was a very enjoyable excursion, in the end.

The series, which ran in 2008, stars Jemima Roper as Amanda Price, a modern-day fan of the classic romance fiction, who, after a disastrous marriage proposal from her boyfriend, finds Elizabeth Bennet in her bathroom, having discovered a secret door between the real world, and Longbourn. The two unintentionally swap places, and soon Amanda must cope with all the characters of Austen's world that we know so well.

It is made up of four episodes, each about an hour long, and its fast-paced nature and snappy dialogue make each installment go by quickly. The additional interest of seeing a new side to each of your favorites - a charming, but framed Wickham; a terrifically awful Darcy; and a seriously unexpected turn of events for Caroline Bingley, for instance - should convince you to track down this show immediately.

So, that's enough Austen for me right now. I think it's about time to wash my brain out with something far less romantic and hopeful... especially since tomorrow is Valentine's Day. 

Veteran's Day Weekend!

I hope everyone out there has a great day today (I know I am), but just because I won't have a blog post prepared before Monday, I wanted to ensure you have a great Friday as well.

So please, enjoy this video: "B*tches in Bookshops (based on Jay Z and Kanye West's "N*ggas in Paris")," from the incredibly talented La Shea Delaney and Annabelle Quezada, who I am now considering following on Twitter (new follower alert: strange, unknown college kid from WA suddenly interested in your tweets because she liked a vid? Yeah, minor leaugue creepy... maybe not).

Anyways, everyone have a good weekend!