Over 35 Books!: June & July 2018 Book Haul (minus Book Con): Part 1

These past two months were so crazy in books that I had to split this post in two, can you believe it?!

I didn’t want to bombard you all with 35+ books and chatting about all of them in one post, so I split it up & this post is all about the books I received in June! (It also would have taken me 3 hours to write the whole thing, and I don’t have that much time for one post.)

As always, there’s a few things I want to discuss before we get into a book haul:

1. YOU DON’T NEED A BUNCH OF BOOKS TO BE AN AWESOME BOOKISH PERSON. You are awesome and wonderful no matter how many books you have in whatever format. Owning books is not representative of your self worth.

2. HARDCOVER CULTURE IS HARMFUL…BUT SO IS NOT THANKING PEOPLE. I am incredibly privileged to be able to receive so many books (as a teen this is really really cool to me) and I feel obliged to thank all the wonderful people who send me things. So despite trying to dismantle hardcover culture, I still feel the need to thank people for the awesome things they do for me.

3. IF YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS WILL BE BAD FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH, JUST DON’T READ IT. Seriously. You’re not under contract, and I do not expect you to read everything I write. If you think this will be harmful to you (jealousy is an emotion that SUCKS–I know all about it), please, go look at cute GIFs of puppies. You don’t need to force yourself to do something you don’t want to do.

And just to balance out my excessive hardcover + book owning, here’s a little promo thing I like to do to help boost bookish people who don’t have the same level of support!

If you are a blogger/bookish person who receives less than 20 physical books each month (20 includes books you buy yourself), link me a recent blog post you’d like some love on, an IG post you want comments on, a tweet you want boosted, etc.

I’m leaving this open until the end of August! I’d love to do some blog hopping. You don’t even need to read this post. If you drop a comment with a link and nothing else, I’ll still check it out. This is a no-pressure zone.

You can find the rest of my June & July haul in my post with my Book Con haul! This post features all the books I got at Book Con (over 30!).

1. Sometime After Midnight by L. Phillips

Starting the month off with the most unexpected piece of bookmail! Thank you so much to Penguin Teen for sending me a finished copy of Sometime After Midnight, a book I loved reading the digital review copy of!

I totally had no idea this was coming but OMG IT IS SO GORGEOUS IN PERSON! The illustrated people on the front and back covers is GORGEOUS and I also love seeing the hottest hot pink hardback you have ever seen. Take the hot pink of I Believe in a Thing Called Love and multiply it by 30. That’s how bright and luminescent it is.

This book is literally so much fun and is one of my favorite contemporaries of 2018. I just really love this queer Cinderella retelling that includes literally ALL of my favorite tropes (famous people? check! music? check! Cinderella? check!). I totally recommend you check this out if you haven’t already because WOW IT IS AMAZING

You can read my review here!

2. Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

Thank you so much to Tor Teen for sending me a finished copy of Anger Is a Gift plus an adorable notebook as a part of their giveaway! I am so excited to dive into this title and I am so excited that more and more social justice novels are being released!

After The Hate U Give, it’s really reassuring to see more titles similar to it coming out and justifying that THUG wasn’t alone. Books like Tyler Johnson Was Here, Dear Martin, and so many others.

Very excited to dive into this one, and I’ve heard that it’s also got LGBTQ+ rep? I might be wrong on this point, but I do hope it does!

3. Save the Date by Morgan Matson

Thank you so much to the Fantastic Flying Book Club and Simon & Schuster for sending me an early finished copy of Save the Date for the blog tour! I loved participating in this blog tour and reading this book!

Morgan Matson’s novels are all very entertaining and it’s like a giant chaotic mess that somehow comes together. Save the Date was a great read and I definitely recommend you check it out if you love contemporaries with large families and a bunch of craziness!

You can read my review here!

4. The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (ARC)

Thank you so much to Aimal from @ Bookshelves and Paperbacks for hosting this giveaway for The Poppy War and giving me a chance to read it!

After that whole debacle that struck out at the author of The Poppy War way back when in late spring/early summer, I entered a bunch of giveaways and managed to win myself a copy of The Poppy War to read!

I’ve been so excited for this one, but also so hesitant because I’m scared that it’s too much for me to handle, y’know? There’s a lot of content in here that’s graphic and dark and I’m definitely a little nervous for it.

But I’m ultimately eager to read this, and hoping for the right mood to strike me so I can dive into this wholeheartedly!

5. Girl at the Grave by Teri Bailey Black (ARC)

Thank you so much to Jean Book Nerd and Tor Teen for sending me a review copy for the blog tour! I LOVED reading this one a couple weeks ago, and it’s absolutely perfect for any lovers of Stalking Jack the Ripper!

It’s a Gothic murder mystery + romance and Teri Bailey Black builds the romance in a way that is enjoyable and makes the murders positively twisty and misleading! I definitely couldn’t guess the murderer (although I’m not so great at guessing them ever).

Definitely recommend you check this one out! My review is going up on Friday!

6-7. Last Star Burning & Shatter the Suns (ARC) by Caitlin Sangster

Thank you so much to Caitlin Sangster for hosting this awesome giveaway of Last Star Burning and an ARC of Shatter the Suns! I loved reading Last Star Burning and am very excited for the sequel!

It’s a pretty low-key Asian science fiction novel set in the future, and it’s full of mystery and intrigue with its government and diseases and all sorts of interesting worldbuilding. I definitely enjoyed book 1 and am thrilled to be able to read book 2 early! This one is THICK and I’m going to have a very fun time working through the hundreds of pages.

100% recommend you check this one out if you’re looking for an Asian SF novel! (It’s like cheese. Gets better with age.) You can read my review here!

8. The Tombs by Deborah Schaumberg

Picked this one up from the library! I was the only one who entered a giveaway for it, but the person hosting just never got back to me despite my follow up messages, so I had to pursue my own copy.

It was only a couple of dollars, and I’m excited to really dive into this historical debut!

9. Nothing but Sky by Amy Trueblood (Annotated Paperback)

Thank you so much to Amy Trueblood for sending me an annotated copy of her debut! I really enjoyed reading this post WWI historical fiction novel about a wing walker, and I can’t wait to dive into the awesome annotations!

Amy was also kind enough to send along some swag, like character stickers (gasp!), regular stickers, and two bookmarks! This was totally awesome and I hope to add the extra swag to a giveaway in the future!

I ADORED flipping through the annotations! I had already read the ARC, but the annotations that Trueblood wrote in were so much fun to read and made it such a cool experience as I skimmed. Annotated books are the best.

You can read my review here!

10. The Dark Beneath the Ice by Amelinda Berube (ARC)

Thank you so much to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an ARC of this novel! I totally did not expect this in the mail because I have an eARC, but this was such a lovely surprise!

I love love loved reading this debut! This is probably one of my favorite spooky books ever because

1) I wasn’t that scared; I was the proper amount of spooked
2) the comp titles are literally the best & so accurate (Paranormal Activity x Black Swan)
3) the f/f romance!!! I love it!!!
4) so much fun! was a total blast & I loved the mystery and parallels in the book!

Seriously recommend you check this out if you’re looking to get into horror and chilling novels! You can read my review here!

11-12. Replica by Lauren Oliver, The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell

I love Books-a-Million. They have way more bargain books than Barnes & Noble (I’m hoping to pick up Roar by Cora Carmack soon!) and they have swag in their books more often than Barnes & Noble.

I picked these up because I loved reading both these titles, just haven’t bought copies yet! They look lovely on my bookshelf, and were total blasts to read! (4+ stars to each).

If you’re looking for a near-future novel about clones, definitely take a peek at the dual story two-for-one that is Replica! And if you’re looking for some magical time traveling to the 1920s to do some heisting, The Last Magician has got your back!

Read my review for Replica and The Last Magician here and here respectively!

13. The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

Thank you so much to the wonderful Mars for sending me a hardcopy of this book! They are such a wonder for doing this and I am so appreciative of their program #GiveBooksToTeens!

I’m part Taiwanese and it was so gratifying to read a book that had a girl with my identity represented, and all of the cultural aspects were SO ON POINT. Plus, this novel was just extraordinarily moving and very well crafted–it’s almost impossible not to love it, even on a base level in appreciating Emily X.R. Pan’s skill with her craft.

Definitely recommend this to all contemporary lovers. Read my review here!

14. The Walled City by Ryan Graudin

This is the last Barnes & Noble bargain-priced book that I want from their chain, and I’m luck to have found a copy in Coral Gables while at the A Reaper at the Gates signing because it’s not in stock at my local! Gah!

But I really enjoyed reading Graudin’s Invictus and have very high hopes for her previous novels? She seems like a great writer and The Walled City intrigues my (also I love the black and red aesthetic ngl.)

Excited to dive into this one! If you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts!

15. A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir

I GOT TO MEET SABAA TAHIR OMG AHHHH!!! I love her An Ember in the Ashes series and it was so so exciting to get to meet her at the end of June. She is so sweet and was such a pleasure to meet with my book bestie Aitana Reads (who also bought me this book!!! thank you!!!)!

I got all of my books signed and a lot of miscellaneous swag. I totally loved hearing her speak at the event and also chatting with her one-on-one and giving her a sewn, stuffed onion for her Veggie Tales Instagram stories!

(Side note: the onion made it to the big screen and was featured a couple weeks ago as an imposter onion. That’s right. #famousonion)

This was such an awesome night and I am so hoping to make it to more Florida signings over the next month!

Have you read any of these? Are excited for any? Let me know about your recent book hauls in the comments below!

Part 2 coming next Tuesday!