August-October Haul! | 2021

Now I may not have been doing actual reading these past couple months, but I've certainly been buying books. Hot damn, have I been buying books... Let's skip the long-winded preamble today and dive right in to the haul! We have a boatload of books to discuss here...

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Sometimes the Barnes and Noble near my workplace has books on sale for $5 with the purchase of a drink at the cafe. Naturally, my pack-rat nature has a very hard time passing up these deals, since I always buy a coffee anyway. None of these books are ones I'd gravitate towards typically... so why the hell did I buy them...? I then learned that they are all YA novels to boot. Gods help me.

The first book I discovered at the cafe was Tweet Cute by Emma Lord. As far as I can tell, this book is exactly what it looks like and the tite suggests. Essentially each main character's family owns a business in the food industry, and they end up at war via Twitter. Simultaneously, they are chatting anonymously in an app and falling for each other. It's a blend of two overdone tropes: enemies to lovers and annonymously falling in love with someone you actually don't like in real life. I'm not writing this one off without reading it, as I do sometimes like to pick up a cheeseball romance, but this one is definitely getting saved for one of those moods.

The next $5 deal appeared to be a historical fiction novel, which I was quite excited to see. Stacey Lee's The Downstairs Girl follows 17-year-old Jo Kuan leading a psuedo-double life. By day, she's a maid for an affluent southern family in Atlanta. By night, she writes a newspaper column giving advice under a psuedonym. When the column begins to address race and gender issues, Jo Kuan must face the backlash for her bravery. This is certainly an idea that interests me, but the young target audience makes me nervous that the topics won't be handled as thoroughly as I will want them to be. Only time will tell.

In a moment of absolute insanity, I picked up a thriller from the cafe. I seldom read thrillers and seldom yet am wowed by them. 14 Ways to Die by Vincent Ralph follows a teen trying to solve the murder of her mother and capture the seriel killer dubbed "Magpie Man" via a live webshow. I'm going to be honest, I really only picked this one up to keep with the new tradition of buying all of the $5 cafe deals. Someone come save me.

I picked up just one more cafe book before I could end the bad habit. My last purchase here was The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. I don't feel as guilty about this one. Though I don't typically reach for YA contemporaries like this, I have enjoyed one of Yoon's books in the past. I'm looking forward to trying out another of her novels when I'm in the mood for something lighter. The novel follows two teens on the brink of major life changes. Natasha is facing deportation to Jamiaca with her family in a mere 12 hours. Daniel is enjoying his final days of freedom before being shipped off to college to start a career he has no interest in. Both meet on a New York subway, and perhaps it's love at first sight?

Crying in H Mart

By Michelle Zauner

I had first heard of this memoir from listening to the podcast Books Unbound. It was essentially described as Zauner's coming to terms with her mother's death and attempting to reconnect with both her mother and her Korean heritage through food. There was also the added bonus that Zauner is a musician in a group called Japanese Breakfast. After listening to some of their music, I knew I had to find this book. I love food and music, and good memoirs hit me really hard in the feels in the best way. When I ventured to Barnes and Noble to purchase this beauty, I was stopped by other shoppers or salespersons on four seperate occasions solely so that they could tell me how amazing this book is and how happy they are that I was purchasing it. It goes without saying, my excitement to pick up this book was unsurmountable by the time I got home with it.

Have I read it yet? You'll just have to wait to see if it appears in the wrap-up later this week! (hint hint)

Beowulf

Translated by JRR Tolkien

If you are not super excited about this find too, you are probably not nerdy enough for this blog. Please see your way out.

So basically, Tolkien taught a class on Beowulf at Oxford once upon a time. It became a labor of love for Tolkien to pour over the ancient epic and translate it to a more modern English. As his understanding of the text grew, so too did the insights of his students. What started as a simple translation became a beast full of footnotes from lectures and discussions from students who taught Tolkien as much about Beowulf as he did them. I've always wanted to read Beowulf, and this particular edition sounds like one of the best methods for me to do so.

The Time Traveller's Wife

by Audrey Niffenegger

This is yet enother book recommended by Books Unbound. This particular book has been recommended so many times in so many ways, that I simply had no choice but to finally buy it. The premise is incredibly intriguing to me, and fall is the parfect weather for such a tragic and sad book in my opinion. Gah, this book sounds beautiful and I cannot wait to pick it up!

Essentially we follow a man who is constantly displaced in time. A time traveller, if you will. However he has absolutely no control when he appears or leaves. There is one constant throughout these movement, though. His appearances are always pivoting around the life of one woman. He sees her throughout every stage of her life, and they fall completely and irrevocably in love with each other. How does one exist with such fleeting yet life-long love for another?

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

By Yoru Sumino & Idumi Kirihara

I don't know when or where I've first heard of this manga, but I've seen it make the rounds. I've been looking to pick up more graphic novels, manga, and comics that are standalones or part of more compact series. (As opposed to series like Soul Eater, with 25 books. Don't get me wrong, I love Soul Eater, but hot damn... a girl sometimes just wants a one and done graphic novel experience.) When I heard that this collection was initially just two volumes, it seemed perfect for me to explore.

Yamauchi Sakura will soon die from pancreatic failure. There is nothing to be done to avoid this fate, so she chooses to live with her illness as a secret and let her friends enjoy what time she has left with them without such plaguing knowledge. In a series of curious circumstances, an introverted classmate learns of her secret. Bound by this knowledge, they become connected and explore together what it means to be alive.

World of Wonders

By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

After a particularly trying day of work, I texted Karo one simple question, "What is a book that makes you happy?" with every intention of reading it right away. Unfortunately, I could only find her recommendation online, so it took much longer than anticipated to get my hands on a copy.

World of Wonders is almost a memoir in that each story follows a piece of Nezhukumatathil's life. However it's threaded with imagery and connections her life has had with many of the wondrous beings that populate the world, from fireflies to azolotls to cara cara oranges.

Saga Vol 3 & 4

By Brian K Vaughan & Fiona Staples

I'm still working my way through Saga, slowly as to savor the story. I'll skip the long drawn-out explanation for the first book's plot, as you've read it on this blog many times before. Instead I'll just subtly remind you that it's a space opera following two lovers of warring species and their newborn baby as they run from the armies of their respective peoples, and attempt to live peaceful lives together away from the war and tragedies of the past. It's a hot mess in the best possible way.

Rat Queens Vol 3 & 4

By Kurtis J Wiebe

Rat Queens is yet another comic series I'm working and loving my way through. This one is set in a high fantasy setting, following a ridiculous female adventuring group. These comics are plump full of strong ladies, great social commentary, hilarity, debauchery, candy, mushrooms, and so much drinking. Basically, it's perfect, and I never want this series to end.

The Part About the Dragon Was (Mostly) True (Audiobook)

Written by Sean Gibson

Narrated by Haley Catherine

I'm never going to stop talking about this book. I'm sorry... but I'm actually not sorry. I was finding myself desperately missing the world and characters within this book. I then realized, for the first time in my life, I wanted to splurge and pay for an audiobook. I am so damn happy I did! The only thing that could make this book better is hearing it read by a voice who is Heloise the Bard incarnate. Gods, this makes me so happy.

If you haven't yet read my full reveiw and super fun Q&A with Sean Gibson, please do so here! He is a remarkable man who wrote a remarkable book. GO READ IT NOW LOSER!!!

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Clearly, my bank account hates me right now. On top of this huge haul, I also gave Book of the Month a try for September and October. If you're curious to see which books I chose, keep your eyes peeled for a post coming to you in a few days! In the meantime... I have a boatload of reading to do in order to catch up with my recent spending habits. *sigh*