May wrap up + June TBR 🌟🪸⎮ Book slumps, reading out of my comfort zone 

the best advice i ever received on reading classics is to treat them as ""normal"" books. don't overthink them or try to analyse everything, just read it and enjoy it. remember that they were once modern books!

I personally read way less in the summer because I’m busy being outside and making plans with friends/family. Reading comes in waves. Don’t be too hard on yourself! Your other hobbies are also valid.

I think Des would be my fav RU-vidr if she read 1 book or 100 her vids are just so entertaining and comforting

classics while you’re in a book slump?! you’re a brave brave woman

The way des is in a reading slump by her monthly tbr is 25% classics. I believe in you girl!

LOVE Jane Eyre!! as someone who doesn't read classics much I found it so approachable and surprisingly easy to read. Jane is such a memorable and lovable protagonist and the writing is STUNNING and so atmospheric

I would advise for getting into classics that you shouldn’t have the expectation of having an extremely gripping read but of having a leisurely time with the characters and experiencing what they go through. Also Rebecca and Jane Eyre are sooooo good!

I know you mentioned in your vlog that you didn't know what the bell jar was about, so I just would recommend you look up the content warnings for that and the glass castle! just to make sure you're in the right headspace to take care of your mental health ❤️

Slumps are the absolute worst! Hoping for a better reading month for you in June!

The main advice I could give for getting into classics is to go into them knowing that they’re meant to be savored, not devoured. Take your time reading them, don’t rush. Savor each sentence. Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books of all time so, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it! I do have to caution you about going into that one thinking it’s gonna be a romance bc that’s what it’s usually marketed as. It’s not a romance although it is partially a love story. It’s mostly a Bildungsroman. It’s Jane’s life story & her romance w Mr. Rochester is just a small part of her story, not her whole story.

Rebecca is SO SO good. Definitely gothic vibes, actually a bunch of those classics could fall in that category. There’s something so satisfying about how these classics end, it makes you feel like they were worth the effort when you get to the end!

Rebecca, Pride and prejudice, Narnia... all my fav books. Narnia books helped me when i was in a slump, life and reading 🤣, and i miss that world so much i wanna go back now ❤.

as a few others mentioned, I would put off the bell jar until you're in a good mental space. also, tips for reading classics: listen to the audiobook and don't try to speed through something with tough language

The Rom Commers is quite possibly my new favorite romance book EVER!!! It’s got me out of my 2 month long reading slump

Thank you for creating this safe and happy corner of the internet! Forever grateful for all the work you put into your vids❤

I swear Destiny and I are so in-sync lately with our reads! I also went to Barnes and bought classics because i'm also in my classic era!!! i got pride & prejudice, great expectations, great gatsby, & oliver twist!! little women has been sitting on my shelf and ive been waiting for a good time to pick it up!

the glass castle is one of my favorite memoirs of all time. it’s really emotional and frustrating to read but it sticks with you.

Powerful was so good yet so devastatingly heartbreaking 🥺 I'm so excited for Reckless!! ❤

Idk if that many classics in one month is a good idea for a book slump 😭 I love classics, but that many back to back would burn me out

I finally got out of my book slump, stay strong girlie 💪 Also I’ve read most of those classics, I recommend Little Women first. It’s the “easiest” one to start with. Then Pride and Prejudice (my love 💗). Classics will definitely put you deeper into your slump, I fear, so try not to binge them back to back. I recommend reading Sylvia Plath when you’re in a better mental headspace 🧡 And Jane Eyre has a gothic tone! You got this bestie!! 🥳

I agree with all the other comments here saying that you can't go into classics with crazy expectations. Classics can be slow and have parts that feel very redundant, but you just have to be happy to go along with what is happening and just the overall experience. They are stories from another time, so they will be different from the way things are written today, but at the end of the day, they are still just words on paper, so don't let yourself get too intimidated!!

Classics are my favorite genre to read. I love Little Women, Jane Eyre, and Withering Heights. I recommend them all! For me personally, I usually have to separate reading my classics with more light reading in between because they tend to take more time to read (and more brain power). I hope you enjoy them all as much as I have!!

Classics during a slump is crazy 😅 9:17

Your videos are literally the HIGHLIGHT of my week, I’m always exited whenever you post and you’ve helped me through some of the hardest times, luv you❤ can’t wait to watch this one😮

glad I wasn't the only one in a slump this month!! love u des! 💞

The classics you chose actually are super readable. Little Women, Pride & Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre are all in my top 10 favorite books of all time. I have read and reread them so many times, and I always get something new out of them, and different parts hit differently as I age. (I just turned 40….which feels ancient…) Little Women in particular has been a mainstay in life for me. Rebecca is also excellent. The Bell Jar I’ve only read once, but it has really stayed with me and I intend to reread it soon. The best advice for reading classics is to treat them like every other book. These are classics to us, but when they were written, they were viewed the way we view commercial or genre fiction. Enjoy the language too. There are hilarious and heartbreaking moments in all of them. And have fun with the idea that you’re reading works that some of your favorite authors love. For Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations, read them with an audio version. Joseph in Wuthering Heights…..talk about using dialect. And Dickens writes beautifully, but I have to listen to his because it’s easy to get tangled up in his sentences.😂 And just go into it open minded. Enjoy the picture of the life as it was in that time. Enjoy the characters. Know that you’ll start to see the way that they’re referenced or given nods to in modern work. I promise you’ll see reflections of them in your real life. Oh, and Wuthering Heights is NOT a romance. It’s written in the Romantic art style, which means is dramatic and passionate and obsessive. But definitely not a romance. There is love, yes, but it’s by no means meant to be read like a romance novel. I also really enjoyed The Lovely War. I don’t usually like war related historical fiction, but this one just had beautiful writing and characters. Cleopatra and Frankenstein is on my tbr.

bestie des posted!!! ur videos are keeping me sane rn 💘💘 the mid year book slump has caught up to me HELP. also can’t wait fr the summer vids I’ve been rewatching all of the OG bestie des summer vlogs☀️☀️

omg definitely recommend to read the bell jar while you’re reading sylvia plath’s journals, there is so much inside on the book and so many connections within the main character and sylvia herself

I love the vibe of all these new books! Can’t wait for the videos

I loved both The Ministry of Time and Before the Coffee Gets Cold! Time travel is one of my favourite sci-fi sub-genres, but the bigger focus of both of these books is the characters. The Ministry of Time was such a mish-mash of genres - sci-fi, romance, historical, comedy... and it somehow pulled it off so well!

Love you Des ❤ get out there and enjoy summer while you’re in your book slump

Rebecca is so phenomenal, I can’t wait for you to read it!! It’s got such a good setting and a bit of a mystery subplot too 🥰

love this new exciting journey for you! i would definitely recommend reading "Before the coffee gets cold" somewhere in the autumn-winter times, so much better for the experience! or at least to read it in the dark haha

I read pride and prejudice last year, and it turned into one of my favorite books. I was really scared about going into a classic, so I did start listening to it on audiobook, but a few chapters in I switched over to actually reading the paperback. There is a couple things language wise I had to look up, but I got more comfortable with it as I went. I just really loved how natural and beautiful Elizabeth and Darcey got to know understand each other over time. I definitely want to read Emma sometime soon

i took a class on Austen's works and I think the thing that helped me the most actually understand things was reading and listening to the audiobook, I grasped onto things a little more and finished them faster than I would have just only reading them! honestly even reading a quick summary like cliffnotes helps if you're interested to see what kind of symbolism, etc. there are in the books! jane eyre wasn't my favourite, but I have read her twice and it is so enjoyable / really easy to understand 😋

every time des uploads a video i feel blessed

I’m so excited I have like 5 book tubers videos to watch rn❤❤❤ tyyyyyy

I love that you're getting into classics! Those are the books that got me into reading in the first place :) wuthering heights is one of my favourites!

So excited for new reading vlogs!

Excited to see all the June videos!! I really enjoyed the Glass Castle in high school!!

loooooving this lit fic/classics era!

So excited for your videos this month 🤗🤗

I LOVE these videos so much!! Also I'm OBSESSED with your sweatshirt!! I cannot wait for her new album!!!

I agree so much about Karley Fortune's books! It always feels like I've kinda read them before

YOURE GLOWING!! 💕

Lovely War, Little Women, and Jane Eyre are some of my favs!! I’m so happy to watch a video of books I actually know about haha.

This TBR is fire. Happy Reading!

I love your videos des and you inspire me to read so many books and I absolutely love your room

You’re gonna LOVE the classics, I never looked back 🥰

Omggg Im so excited to see u reading classics

Clasics are so underrated. They are pure gold and joy❤Not all classic are hard to get into. ❤

was also in a slump from april to may! + read before coffee gets cold and it was SOOOO good + currently reading cleopatra and frankeinstein!

Just love your videos sooo much! I literally look out for them! Sending love from the U.K.🫶

Hey girlie! I am obsessed with before the coffee gets cold. It’s such an amazing novel. it’s comprised of 4 interconnected short stories so it’s really easy to fly through! I think I read the whole book in like 2ish hours. Definitely a 6-star read for me

Jane Eyre is my absolute favorite book! I truly think this will be the book of my life. The way Jane is, thinks, acts, it's just simply perfection and it resonates with me in such a way that I felt seen, even though it is about a victorian woman. The story is very emotional and beyond the fact that it is a thick one, it goes really fast and you wish in the end that it was bigger just so you can see more about her. *ps: sorry for my english if there's an error, english it's not actually my first language :)

I’m so excited for you to read Lovely War!! I read it on January and adored it, such a beautiful, well written and unique story. I wish it had more hype because it’s totally worth it, I hope you enjoy it and can’t wait for your review 💗💗

You're inspiring me to get to some of my backlog this month! I've also wanted to read Cleopatra and Frankenstein forever!

So glad your channel exists❤

Wuthering Heights is my favorite read of this year so far!! It’s very good… starts slow and confusing but stick with it. The story is beyond beautiful

obsessed with you and this video!!!

yayyyy i was literally waiting for this!! love u des🤍🎀!

jane eyreeee!!! it’s one of the first classics i read for fun that truly stuck with me. it’s great to start out with too!

hi Destiny! I'm in a book slumpp too and I got one last year in May and June. For me its bc of uni being very chaotic during this time with projects and exams but it's validating to see other people going through this too! Love your videos btw

i read little women last year and it was one of my favourite books of the year! i think you’ll really enjoy your reading experience

just finished The Bell Jar & it's my only 5 star so far this year! i think you'll love it

omg yes i want to start just reading all different kinds of books too!!

I hope you have a wonderful reading month! I’m excited to hear your thoughts on Rebecca and Lovely War. Those are two of my favorite books of all time ❤

Before the coffee gets cold is amazing!!!

THE BELL JAR IS ONE OF MY FAVES

I’m so excited for you to read The Glass Castle!!! It’s one of my all time favs

So excited for those videos coming!!! ❤

Looking For Alaska was my favorite John Green and my favorite book throughout high school. I loved it so much.

oooo im excited to hear what you think about these books!

Did I just get back from vacation and then binge the last 6 videos Destiny posted? Yes absolutely and I couldn’t be more content listening to her while unpacking

I’m excited to watch you read these books! A lot of them are on my TBR but I’m afraid to read. Maybe you will give me the motivation!!

i’ve had lovely war on my shelf for years! i can’t wait to see what you think about it

I'm reading Narnia right now, I also loved the movies and I did read 1 of the books when I was young and I found the rest thrifted online. They are so good!

Girl your hair looks like a princess 😍💓 I bought This Summer Will Be Different recently so I am excited to give it a read after your review 🥰

I highly recommend the glass castle it was a five-star read for me in 2022 and I still think about it sometimes

Looking For Alaska was such a good read (at least when I was in Highschool). Excited to hear your thoughts

I absolutely love your tbr ❤more variety.

Lovely War is one of my favorite books I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!💗

My advice for classics is to listen to audiobooks while reading them, personally it helped me better understand them and like them a lot more! So excited to see your reactions to them all!

the romcommers is so good!! i got an arc of it and i loved it so i hope you do too!!

Lovely War was so good!!! Definitely recommend the audiobook, it’s amazing 😍

Also very excited to watch you read classics!

the lovely war has a weird POV style that my throw you off at times but it actually ended up being a really great story and heavier than I was expecting.

❤ hoping for another 24 hour readathon soon 😬 I love seeing how many you can read. I blows my mind how fast you read!

I sort of reread Beach Read too in may (I just flipped trough and added the annotations from my other copy) and I realised that the us copy has a different ending as the uk copy and apparently there are copies that have both endings merged together. This is completely useless information but I love telling people random stuff I learned on the internet 🩷

jane eyre is one of my all-time favorite books, I hope you enjoy it

omg the glass castle is AMAZING!!! you have to watch the movie after you read it. both are masterpieces.

Jane Eyre is the first book I read last year and it’s one of my all time fav books.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE IS SO GOOD OMG MAN

Honestly, Looking for Alaska is gooood, cant wait to hear you talk about it. I love it and hope you enjoy it too

The glass castle is amazingggg

I’m so curious to see what you think of all these classics and impressed that’s what you have on your TBR…classics often put me into a reading slump 😂

I feel you girlllllll!!! I’m in the BIGGEST book slump since finishing boys of tommen! Nothing is hitting 🥲 I’ve picked up like at least 5 different books read 100 pages and just stopped! Hopefully we have a great reading month in June! 🫶🏼🫶🏼

As someone who studied English Literature in under-grad (4 years of reading classics), I think enjoying the literature depends on your mentality-they are more character-studies rather than romance novels. Classics are the most thought provoking literature out there! So excited for your wrap up next month 🤍

Looking for Alaska to me was the fault in our stars to you, literally love that book

Destiny I just read Wuthering Heights for the first time and it was hands down the best classic I have ever read. The first 20% is a little tough but it gets sooooo good and then everything from the beginning will click.