Hey guys! So a few weeks ago I ran a poll on my Twitter asking if you guys wanted me to start doing occasional book hauls, and two out of the three votes were yes, so here we are. (By the way, if you somehow found my blog through something other than Twitter: first of all, I applaud you, and second, if you like what you see here, you should totally go follow me over on Twitter. Only if you want to though.)
Thanks to Book Outlet, which I’ve known about forever but only recently started using, I’ve accumulated several books over the past month or so—a lot more than I usually do—so I figured I should probably go ahead and do this haul before the amount of books got too crazy. I have 11 books I want to share with you today, so let’s just get right into it!
Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy edited by Ameriie
This book is actually an anthology of short stories from 13 different YA authors, who collaborated with 13 different booktubers in order to create it. It came out last year, and I’ve been wanting to buy it pretty much ever since. All I really know about this book is that a few of my favorite booktubers helped make it and it contains short stories about villains, which I am so ready for. I love stories about villains and antiheroes. Also, several of the authors included in this anthology are ones I have either read and enjoyed before or have been interested in trying.
Reign the Earth by A.C. Gaughen
I don’t know much about this book other than that it’s a fantasy and there is elemental magic involved. I think I’ve heard some people say it gave them Avatar: The Last Airbender vibes, and I absolutely love that show (so much that I actually have the complete DVD box set in my dorm room with me as I write this). Needless to say, I’m excited to eventually read this book.
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
This is a book I have already read, but I read it on audio through the library so I didn’t actually have my own copy. When I saw it for less than $3 on Book Outlet, I couldn’t resist. To give a brief description of what it’s about, it’s set in an alternate Earth where the United States are all islands, all the countries have different names and cultures, and people called Rithmatists have the ability to do magic using chalk. I absolutely loved this book. If you’re interested in hearing more about my thoughts, the first review I ever posted on this blog was actually a review for The Rithmatist, which you can check out here.
Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
This is the second book in the Arc of a Scythe series. I read the first book, Scythe, back in July, and I really enjoyed it (I also have a review for that, if you want to know more—I swear I didn’t mean for this post to be self-promotion avenue, it has just ended up that way). Since this is the second book, giving you the synopsis will be super spoilery, but the basic premise of the series is that far in the future, humanity has figured out how to conquer all human suffering, and has even conquered death. Now, the only way someone can die is if they are killed by a person ordained to do so called a scythe. In the first book, we follow two unwilling teenagers who become apprenticed to a scythe and learn the art of killing and political maneuvering in the scythedom. It’s a very dark story, but it’s fantastic.
My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares
I didn’t know a single thing about this book before I saw it on Book Outlet, but then I read the description, and it sounded like something I would like so I decided to go ahead and buy it. It sounds sort of like a magical realism sort of story about a boy and a girl who have been falling in love with each other over and over again over the course of several lives, but only the boy can remember his past lives. I’ve read a book with a similar premise before that I didn’t love, but it’s a cool concept, and I think if it’s done well, I would really like it. So fingers crossed for that.
Eon by Alison Goodman
This is set in a fantasy world based on ancient Chinese myths. It includes a girl pretending to be a boy, something that I apparently have a thing for in books. The thing about this book, though, is that I have actually tried to read it before, from the library, and I didn’t end up finishing it because I couldn’t get into it, but I’m still sort of interested in trying again, and it was less than $3 on Book Outlet, so I bought it. As you can tell, I always make smart book shopping decisions.
Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan
This is apparently a story about a boy who is cursed with invisibility and the girl who can see him. The synopsis implies that they fall in love, but it also implies that this might be more than just a love story, which is what I’m hoping for. I can see this book being overly cheesy and annoying, but I can also see it being really good. Either way, I want to eventually give it a try.
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
I have pretty much no idea what this book is about. I just know that it’s the first book in a fantasy series and that one of my favorite booktubers, Regan from PeruseProject, absolutely loves it. Also, judging by the title, I’m going to guess it’s probably about a thief because that seems like a safe assumption. I love fantasy, and my reading tastes seem to align with hers for the most part, so I decided, why not?
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
This is the first book in a four book fairytale retelling series called The Books of Bayern. I’m not at all familiar with the fairytale this book is based off of, nor am I familiar with the ones the rest of the series are based on, but I want to become more familiar with fairytales and retellings, and I’ve liked pretty much every fairytale retelling book I’ve ever read. Plus, another of my favorite booktubers, Hailey from Hailey in Bookland, really liked this series when she read it.
Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer
This is the seventh book of the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, which I read and loved when I was a kid. Unfortunately, though, when I read them for the first time, it was through the library or an e-reader, so I have been slowly collecting the physical copies of all the books, and someday I will have them all so I can reread them easier. So far I only have this one and the first book in the series.
If you don’t know, Artemis Fowl is an urban fantasy series about a child genius named Artemis Fowl who discovers that beings like fairies, centaurs, and other mythical creatures exist in the real world, but they keep themselves hidden from the human world, living mostly underground or in other places humans can’t easily get to. They are also much more technologically advanced than humans. The books are more or less episodic in that there is somewhat of an overarching plot, but it isn’t touched on in every single book. However, I wouldn’t recommend reading them out of order because the characters grow and change (when we meet Artemis in book 1, he is 12, and by the end of the series he’s in his mid to late teens) throughout the books, and sometimes things from earlier books are referenced or repeated in later books.
Goodbye, Paris by Anstey Harris
As I have said with far too many of these books, I don’t really know what this book is about. I picked it as my Book of the Month mostly because it has Paris in the title, and I don’t know much else about it.
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That’s all of the books I have for this book haul today. I feel like it was really repetitive, and I’m sorry for that. I’m trying to think of ways that I can make these a little more interesting than just me writing a laundry list of books I bought because it seems to me that it can’t be all that interesting. If you have any ideas, be sure to let me know down in the comments.
Anyway, thanks for reading, guys, and I’ll see you next time!
-Ariel