The best of this bunch are  - Little Squirrel Squish (3.5 stars) about a squirrel who wants to be a reindeer.  The Christmas Bunny (4 stars) about Santa's bunny helper, Brave Benny (3 stars) which is about animals getting ready for winter.  It has the best pictures but I don't understand how a deer pounced joyfully and at times the illustrations were too dark for the word printed over them. 

Arial YouTuber is nice because it has extras that would interest a child, including a recipe and how-to guide. (3 Stars)

Grumpy Dinosaur and Dragon's Breath (3 star) aren't bad but the lesson is a bit heavy handed.

Mariko and the Magic Mirror is a good look at grief and death for children, but feels off because of the use of culture that isn't fully explored or used. (3 stars)

The worst is the Singing Horse (.5 star) which uses stereotypical illustrations of Native Americans.  I mean, living in teepees in the desert bad.

Informationen zum Buch: 
Das Buch „Lange Beine, kurze Lügen“ aus dem Ullstein Verlag umfasst 240 Seiten und ist seit dem 9. November 2018 als Taschenbuch und E-Book erhältlich. 

Worum geht es: 
Der aus Wien stammende Youtuber Michael Buchinger lügt bei fast jeder sich bietenden Gelegenheit. Er hat dadurch eine Menge Vorteile und hat das Gefühl, weniger Menschen zu verletzen, wenn er ihnen nicht die harte Wahrheit ins Gesicht schlägt. In seinem neuesten Buch legt er das Ganze offen und beschreibt rückblickend große Ereignisse und kleine Situationen aus seinem Leben, bei denen er gelogen hat und erklärt auch warum. Zum Schluss legt er sich selbst auf, eine Woche nicht zu lügen und wird dabei sogar ein klein wenig überrascht. 

Meine Meinung: 
Eines vorweg: Ich kannte Michael Buchinger vor dem Lesen des Buches nur vom Namen her und hatte bis dahin noch keines seiner Videos gesehen. Mittlerweile habe ich mal rein geklickt, da er in dem Buch auch von seinen Anfängen bei Youtube erzählt und auf ein paar Videos sogar näher eingeht. Die Videos sind unterhaltsam, aber ich mag den Wiener Dialekt nicht, der mir im Buch aber erspart geblieben ist. 

Ich hatte deutliche Vorurteile gegenüber dem Buch, da ich eigentlich der Fraktion „Ehrlich währt am längsten“ angehöre und mit Menschen, die schon fast automatisch lügen, eigentlich nichts anfangen kann. Dennoch hat das Buch mein Interesse geweckt. Gerade, weil er hier ja nun reinen Wein einschenken möchte. Der Einstieg fiel mir leicht, da er seine Lügen mit einer großen Portion Humor präsentiert und das Ganze teilweise wirklich so absurd und übertrieben klingt, dass Michael einem schon fast leid tun kann. Lügen ist definitiv nicht immer einfach und man verstrickt sich sehr leicht darin. Er kommt auch nicht so rüber, als fände er das alles einfach nur cool und fair, sondern reflektiert sich sehr oft auch selbst und macht sich Gedanken um andere. Außerdem spricht er auch sehr ernsthafte, persönliche Dinge an und ist auch dort überraschend ehrlich. Man entwickelt im Laufe des Buches tatsächlich Verständnis für seine Lügen und wird sich bewusst, wie oft wir alle eigentlich nicht immer die ganze Wahrheit sagen. Dieses Buch hat mir Michael Buchinger auf jeden Fall ein wenig näher gebracht und ich halte ihn trotz seiner Lügen nicht für einen schlechten Menschen. Trotzdem sind die hier beschriebenen Rechtfertigungen kein Freifahrtschein für‘s Lügen. Auch nicht für jemanden wie Michael Buchinger. 

Das Cover gefällt mir gut. Die relativ einheitlich gehaltenen Farben empfinde ich als angenehm und es wirkt nicht überladen. Der Titel als Heiligenschein über dem unschuldig in Szene gesetzten Autor ist das sprichwörtliche Sahnehäubchen. Toll fand ich auch die inszenierten Zitate von Pinocchio und Donald Trump auf dem Buchrücken. 

Fazit: 
Ein unterhaltsamer Roman, mit einer Mischung aus Humor und purer Ernsthaftigkeit, der einem den Autor näher bringt, Vor- und Nachteile des Lügens aufzeigt und in Gedanken noch ein wenig nachhallt, da es gar nicht so leicht ist, immer und jedem die ganze Wahrheit zu sagen.

You can tell that Dodie is not a professional writer, not that this is written badly by any means. There are just some parts that drag a little or the wording is a little odd and doesn't flow too well. I still really enjoy the book.

I love her as a person, and enjoy getting to know more about her, at least the stuff she was willing to share in this book, and it seemed she shared quite a lot! Thanks Dodie. We need to talk more about stuff like this so people know we're important, too. Invisible illnesses are the worst, because nobody believes us.

I relate to the mental health stuff she is going through, though I do not have the exact same mental disorder she has. It makes me so sad to know someone as nice as Dodie feels as bad as I feel, if not worse (at times) because of her fame and differences in her life.

This book makes it even more clear how strong and brave Dodie is. It's not easy to share your innermost feelings, let alone with millions of strangers. I do not know if she fully realizes how much of a role model she is to people of all ages. She seems like such a humble person. Of course this is from what I see of her online personality and this book.

One of the things in the book that I liked is how she talked about being able to find humor even during the worst of times. We've got to be able to laugh and sometimes we need that humor to get through tough situations.

She stresses about how important self care is. This is something I really agree with, but often forget, so I am glad she talks about it.

The poetry and song lyrics were a great touch. I also loved the photos and drawings scattered throughout. I can only imagine how pretty the physical book will be.

My final thoughts: If you are a Dodie fan, you might like this! Even if you do not know her, you might relate if you suffer from mental health issues. I do feel this is written for a teenage audience, but who cares about age. I hope all ages can love this and get to know Dodie.

Side Note: Unrelated to the book, I really adore Dodie and her music!

Confession: I'm a bit of a Dodie fangirl. I enjoy her YouTube videos and her music. I'm kind of shocked I was approved to read this book, as I am a little "nobody" in the blogger/reviewer world, but it has happened, I'm reading it and liking it so far.

I kind of really like her. She's quirky and has a good singing voice. Her videos usually have meaning other than getting views for money, at least I think so. I don't watch every one of her videos. In fact, I do not watch every video of any person I follow on YouTube. I just feel like she is genuine. She talks about her mental health openly, isn't afraid to be herself, in fact a lot of her videos is sans makeup, even with acne/acne scars and I find that so refreshing. I think we should not be so focused on how we look. So we get pimples? So we gain weight? We're all human and these things happen! Dodie can be a role model to other people with similar experiences, though watch her with caution, as there have been viewers that mentioned watching people talk about anxiety, depression...etc can be triggering for them, because sometimes she is known to get in a dark place with her Instagram and Snap Chat stories.

In this video, Dodie wonders if there is a such thing as oversharing when it comes to depression...etc

Am I oversharing?

In this video she follows up and apologizes.

Follow Up

I'm not big on YouTuber books, but got really excited for Dodie's book. Maybe she will change my mind about these sort of books and I will give more a chance. Though I am not sure I follow too many people who have published.

There is Connie Glynn "Noodlerella's" fiction novel, which I am curious about. Undercover Princess by Connie Glynn. The name and plot sound quite cliche and I can swear I have read something exactly like it before, like on Wattpad, so that is bugging me! But I do want to give it a try, as I enjoy Connie's YouTube channels as well.

---

The only YouTube book I have tried to read is:

Gabbie is from "The Gabbie Show" and I've only watched a couple of her videos.

And this book wasn't for me, sadly.

---

Disclaimer: I received "Secrets For The Mad" by Dodie Clark from Netgally in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the chance to read this! Review will come closer to publication date, which is in November.

My review today is on a book of poetry written by Gabbie Hanna. She is most known for her YouTube channel The Gabbie Show.

However, I am disappointed to say that her book was not my cup of tea.

I got this through Netgally in exchange for a review. I had to stop after about half the poems. I will admit, I do not know much about poetry. I feel bad putting a low rating on something that is the author's feelings, but personally I felt it was badly written and just odd. It seemed childish, which I guess fits the theme of the book and title.

The poems are personal to Gabbie and I feel like they will resonate with some people; just not me.

I don't know much about her, but she genuinely seems like a nice person. She is trying to be funny in the book, even with her more depressing poems and it didn't work for me. However, I do think she can be funny. I've seen some of her videos randomly while going on a YouTube binge, as a person is want to do when it is late at night and they can't sleep.

As a side note, I do want to add that I have listened to the song "Out Loud" that she wrote that is based from this book, and I give the song a 5 star rating. (If you were to rate songs) I really like it! I think I could like her book a lot more if I just understood her poetry more. I've watched more of her videos and I really like her as a person.

I have chose not to give this a rating as I feel it is not fair since I did not read the whole thing.