Life Update: 1-Week Social Media Hiatus

Hi all,

Mental illness has been kicking my ass this past week.

Directly after graduation, things were okay. I was able to keep myself on a pretty regular schedule where I’d get up at a decent hour, do my whole morning routine, send out a few job apps, work on content for this blog, take care of the apartment, etc., and get to sleep at a normal hour. Little by little, that started to slip: sleeping until noon and then one and then three PM, only sending out a job app or two a week, letting the apartment get dirty, skipping meals, not being able to sleep…ya’ll get the picture, right?

I’m currently writing this on no sleep. My sleeping schedule is all out of whack, and as I was trying to fall asleep around 3 AM-ish, I kept having those really ugly intrusive thoughts and cried a whole lot (as I do) and decided I was tired of feeling this way. I ended up hopping in the shower to clean off my anxiety attack sweat. I was still full of excessive energy, so I decided to go downstairs to make breakfast since it was morning anyway. At 5:30 AM, I wandered downstairs and realized it was lightly raining and the sun was just starting to come up and I was all fresh and clean and smelled like coconut and honey from my shower and for the first time in a while I felt good. I did some dishes and made a small cup of coffee and a bagel (the best breakfast I’ve had in days). I feel better in that moment than I have felt in a week.

I’m usually pretty good at managing my mental illness (I don’t take meds or see a therapist or anything), but this last week or so (I’ve lost track of days tbh) it’s gotten worse than normal. I’m a work-a-holic, and not having school or a job or a tight schedule has been hard on me. This blog helps, since I have like to keep up my Wednesday and Saturday posting schedule. The lack of responses to job apps, the stress of getting ready to move, and the lack of a daily schedule have really taken a toll on me. I can’t remember struggling this bad with my depression since high school.

I’ve been thinking about the changes I need to make to get myself back on track. I made a nice little to-do list and thought for a bit. I’ve decided to try and take a one-week hiatus from social media starting Monday (tomorrow). I know I’m not currently using it in a healthy way, which is something I’ve never had a problem with before. I know I’m overusing it. I’ve been using it to put off things I really need to do, like make phone calls and send out applications, and things I really want to do, like write posts for this blog or read. Also, with the recent celebrity suicides, there’s been a lot of talk about mental illness and depression all over every social media platform, and the majority of it is more triggering than helpful for me in my current state.

This social media hiatus includes WordPress–I want to stay away from the Internet in general for a while. I’ve been really satisfied with the work I’ve put into this blog and the feedback I’ve gotten since I started posting more after graduation; just so you know, your likes and comments and things like that mean so much to me, especially at times like this when quitting seems so easy.

I know this might be a little bit personal, but if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. There won’t be a new post this Wednesday or Saturday, but I should be back on Wednesday 6/20 with something for ya’ll! For now, I really want to take some time for self-care and reflection, and I want to try to get out of this little hole I’ve dug for myself. Like I said, this hiatus starts tomorrow, so I’ll still be around on Twitter and Tumblr and what-not for a bit (trying to soak it all in, ya know?).

That’s all I have for now. See you next week!

 

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Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Series: Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #2
Published: Quirk, 2015
Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 428
My rating: 2 stars

Description:
“This second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises.

Complete with dozens of newly discovered (and thoroughly mesmerising) vintage photographs, this new adventure will delight readers of all ages.” (Goodreads)

Why I picked it up:
I read and quite enjoyed the first Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children novel last year. I picked up the following two books at a bargain outlet and was looking forward to getting more of this world, especially since so many people had told me the series got better as it went on. Unfortunately, I didn’t love Hollow City as much as the first novel in the series.   

Thoughts:
I found that this book was missing a lot of what I liked about the first in the series. While I didn’t love the characters in the first book, I thought the plot and world were unique and interesting. I found Hollow City to be quite repetitive and predictable. While there were a few aspects of Hollow City I did enjoy, it lacked the same suspense as the first novel.

One thing I really enjoy about the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children books is the unique, magical world that Riggs has created within them. I’ve read a lot of YA fantasy, but I’ve never read anything like these, and it’s one of the elements that keeps me reading even if I’m not in love with the plot or characters. The magical abilities that each of the children have aren’t necessarily unique (we see strength, invisibility, flight, etc. quite often in fantasy) but the world that they’re in is different. The portals and travelling into different time periods isn’t unique, but the way Riggs uses them are. I love the idea of the hollowgasts and wights, because they add another layer to this magic world. One thing I really liked about this book is that we’re finally seeing Jacob really hone his own power and seeing what he’s capable of.

I’ve struggled to find characters that I really like in this series. I’m a very character-driven reader, and usually I find at least one or two characters I get super attached to in series, but this one just isn’t doing that for me. I found Jacob to be rather flat and boring for a main character. I often forgot he was narrating the story at all until he would interject his thoughts into the mix; it was so rare that it was jolting when it happened. However, I do like Bronwyn’s character and wish we got to see more of her. I hope that there’s more of her in the latter novel (novels?). I’m not going to lie, I was also a pretty big fan of the talking dog in this one, too.

I did find the book a bit tough to get through because the plot was repetitive and formulaic. After the first fifty pages or so, any time the characters got into a situation, I could tell you how it would play out—the same situations was repeated in different contexts until the end: travel to new place to find puzzle piece of information, do some brainstorming, find it, get into a seemingly inescapable situation, miraculously escape, travel to new place to find puzzle piece of information….It was very predictable, and therefore there was absolutely no drama or suspense for me. I never had any concern that everything wouldn’t turn out perfectly fine. I suppose that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when I’m going for a fantasy adventure, I expect suspense. (Imagine reading Harry Potter or Percy Jackson and never being worried for the characters, you know?) The first novel kept me reading because I was always worried that the characters wouldn’t make it out, or make it out alive, and Hollow City lacked that same suspense.

This book did just did not live up to the hype of the first book. Since I already have the third book, I do still plan on reading it; hopefully, it will change my mind about the series before recently announce book 4 comes out!

Some quotes:
“I had changed. And that, at least, gave me some hope: that even under ordinary circumstances, I still might find a way to live an extraordinary life.”

“That’s because the true purpose of money is to manipulate others and make them feel lesser than you.”

Recommend for fans of: Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater, The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Buy the book: Amazon, Book Depository, Thriftbooks

Thanks for reading!
Find more reviews here.

Top 5 YA Book Covers

Hi all,

Okay, I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but hear me out. I’ve wanted to do a post like this for a long time because there are so many beautiful books on my shelves I love to admire, and I wanted to gush about them. I also wanted to draw some attention a few extremely talented cover and book artists; the work that book designers and cover artists do help create the wonderful pieces of art that we love. After all, they wouldn’t look so pretty on our shelves without the work they do! The books in this list, in no particular order, are all ones I’ve read and loved.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (Knopf)

This one is pretty obvious. I never read sci-fi, but I was totally drawn in by this cover. The bright orange helped, but the see-through cover over the black and white board with blacked out text? Irresistible. It really conveys the secret documents, government cover-ups, and conspiracy in the book, and I think it’s so unique. Cover design: Ray Shapell

Check out Ray Shapell’s description of his process here!

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

This is another book I didn’t plan on reading until I saw it in a bookstore. It’s just so beautiful and whimsical. I love the copper text and the texture; it feels so cool in your hands. And, as a bonus, the two-page and border illustrations throughout the book are absolutely jaw-dropping. Cover design: Natalie C. Sousa; Illustrations: Sara Kipin

Check out an article about the cover design process here!

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (HarperCollins)

I’m a huge fan of minimalist designs, and The Hate U Give’s cover is one of my all-time favorites. I think the simplistic style and the juxtaposition of the black girl with a white protest sign that blends into the all-white, matte cover does a lot for the book. The back of the book’s black background with the black character offers a powerful juxtaposition between the two sides of the book, too. Cover design: Jenna Stempel-Lobell; illustrator: Debra Cartwright

Check out an article about Stempel-Lobell, Cartwright, & the THUG cover here!

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen (Viking)

This might be a more nostalgic pick, but the hardcover of What Happened to Goodbye was my first favorite cover. Like The Hate U Give, it’s pretty simplistic, but I think it really captures the mood of the story. I first read this in seventh grade (wow, it’s been a while), and it was my very first Dessen book. I just loved the jeans, bare feet, clothes spilling out of a bright yellow suitcase with a plain, white background. Thirteen-year-old me seemed to think it really captured what I imagine being a teenager would be like, and it still sort of captures the same feeling when I look at it today (or, now, more what I wish it would be like?). It remains one of my favorite covers today, most likely for nostalgic feelings more than anything. Book design: Nancy Brennan

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (DoubleDay)

This is one of the most whimsical covers I have, and I think it totally captures the magic and mystery of the book. The paperback has a cut out circle that shows the circus underneath, which brought me back to the kind of peak-a-boo books I read as a kid; it’s not something I see much in YA or adult books, so it stuck out to me. Plus, I loved the minimalist use of silver for the two characters on the front main cover. I just feel like this cover is so magical and really conveys the feelings you get reading the story. Cover art: Helen Musselwhite

Honorable mention: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)

I couldn’t decide if I should add this to the main list or not because I absolutely love this cover but it was the final Raven Cycle book so I have a lot of emotional attachment to it. I nearly cried when I first held it in my hands. But that’s beside the point; I really do think this is absolutely beautiful. I love the pearlescent white background and the mystical stag, as well as the use of light and dark blues. Again, this cover makes me think “magical” and that’s exactly what the story conveys, so I think this cover does a great job. Cover artist: Adam S. Doyle

That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading, and check back Saturday for a new review!

Review: Dear Martin

Published: Crown Books, 2017
Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 210
My rating: 5 stars

Description:
“Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it’s Justyce who is under attack.” (Goodreads)

Why I picked it up:
This was my book club’s February pick for Black History Month (so yeah, it’s been a minute since I’ve actually read it…). It had been on my radar for a bit, so I was glad I had an excuse to read it; I ended up completely loving it.                                                                   

Thoughts:
This was such a powerful little book. I didn’t expect it to pack such a big punch, but it was so moving and emotional and impactful and raw. There was so much to love about it I barely know where to get started.

Overall, this was a super fast-paced novel. I never wanted to put it down, and could have easily read it in a single sitting if I’d had the time. It’s truly a rapid page-turner.

I thought Justyce was a great protagonist. He was a complex character who really grappled with his own situation as a young black man in America who has witnessed police brutality. He doesn’t always do the right thing or make the best decisions but is so emotional and in-depth about what he’s facing (and will continue to face). There is so much in-depth discussion, whether through dialogue, the letters to Martin Luther King Junior, or Justyce’s own thoughts, and I thought this offered such an elaborate perspective on these issues. The letters played a huge part in getting to know Justyce; we were able to learn how he felt, what he feared, what he wanted, and how he struggled to understand how he could make a difference. I thought using the letters to MLK were such a smart way to have Justyce grapple with the things he faces throughout the novel.

It was also interesting to see Justyce’s thoughts, feelings, and struggles play out in his relationships. I was constantly frustrated with his best friend Manny’s sympathy for and inaction against the racist members of their group of friends, but this described yet another complex issue that I can’t fully understand. Reading about Manny’s reasoning (and watching him continue to consistently help Justyce even when he doesn’t quite deserve it) made him such an understandable and likable character. His relationship with his debate partner MJ and his ex-girlfriend also drove me crazy at times, but it ended up having a significance that I would have never considered; I was surprised when it finally came to light.

I was also surprised by the Big Event. I try to keep my reviews spoiler-free so I don’t want to say too much, but the twist of this book was shocking to me. I had my theories about how things would fall around the climax, but I hadn’t even considered what actually happened as a possibility. It was so shocking and heartbreaking. This book packs a huge punch. There is so much raw emotion tucked into 210 pages, more than I often get in 500-pagers or long-running series. I wasn’t expecting it to be so impactful.

I did have mixed feelings about the redemption of a pretty awful high school friend toward the end. When I first finished the book, I thought it was so sudden and unrealistic that the guy had finally come to his senses; I thought it was a bit ridiculous, and someone who was that horrible would take a lot longer to change their ways. However, after stepping away from the book for a bit and chatting about it with book club friends, I can see why Stone ended it this way. There was enough tragedy, honestly, and it was nice to end the novel on a more positive, uplifting note after everything Justyce had gone through. Also, it leaves you with the idea that you can make a difference and help people change, and I think that could be really valuable for readers, specifically the middle and high school students who are the target audience of this book.

Honestly, there’s not that much to dislike about this book. It was a really solid, excellent read. How many times can I write about how stunning and emotionally powerful this book is before you get tired of reading about it? I loved so much about it, and what I didn’t like was small and subjective. Overall, it was an extremely powerful book that I absolutely recommend.

Some quotes:
“Your ancestors survived a transatlantic journey, built this nation from the ground up, and maintained a semblance of humanity, even when the very conditions of their existence suggested they were less than human…That is your legacy…This country belongs to you.”

“It’s a conundrum: white people hold most positions of authority in this country. How do I deal with the fact that I DO need them to get ahead without feeling like I’ turning my back on my own people?”

Recommend for fans of: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and America by ER Frank

Buy the book: Amazon, Book Depository, Thriftbooks

Thanks for reading!
Find more reviews here.

The Beauty & the Beast Tag

Hi all,

Time for another tag! I saw this Beauty and the Beast tag over on tomesoftheunknown (I can’t seem to find the original creator), and I couldn’t pass it up since Beauty and the Beast is my favorite classic Disney princess movie. I think this is such a cute idea! Okay, here we go…

From Giphy

Gaston

A Villain You Can’t Help but Love
The Darkling from The Grisha Trilogy, absolutely. I know that Alina was trying to do “the right thing” by not teaming up with “the bad guy” but I would have absolutely joined The Darkling.

A Book Everyone Loves But You Don’t
I heard nothing but good things about We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, and I ended up fairly disappointed when I’d read that one for book club last semester. I think my biggest disappointment was Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, though. I had high expectations for this, and enjoyed most of it, but I hated the ending so much it ruined the whole thing. I don’t want to give anything away, but I have a review here!

Belle and Adam

Your Favorite One True Pairing (OTP)
Ronan and Adam (hah) from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater for sure. I rooted for them to get together since the first book in the series, and I can’t wait to see where their relationship goes in the Ronan-centered trilogy Stiefvater’s writing!

Belle

A Character Who is Destined for Greater Things
Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower. We leave his story just as things are starting to get better for him, and I imagine him going off after the story ends and becoming a great English teacher or lit professor and inspiring young people with words.

A Book You Bought for its Beautiful Cover That’s Just as Beautiful on the Inside Too
The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo. I’d read The Grisha Trilogy (which I didn’t love) and the Six of Crows duology (which I did love), but didn’t have any interest in The Language of Thorns until I walked into a bookstore and saw the cover. I didn’t even think twice about buying it, even though I knew nothing about what it was about, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s beautiful on the inside not just in the feminist retellings of fairy tales, but also in the gorgeous internal illustrations as well. It’s probably the most beautiful book I own.

Lefou

A Loyal Sidekick You Can’t Help but Love More Than Their Counterpart
This is probably a cliched answer, but Hermione from Harry Potter. Don’t get me wrong; I love Harry as the hero. But Hermione is so similar to me and reading/watching her as a child was so inspiring and uplifting.

Mrs. Pots, Chip, Lumiere, and Cogsworth

A Book That Helped You Through a Difficult Time or Really Taught You Something
The Fault in our Stars by John Green. One thing I love about this book that no one seems to talk about is the way it handles the grief process; I love the way Hazel Grace talks about funerals and does her best to accept/overcome loss; I read (and reread and reread) this around a time in my life when I was dealing with a lot of loss and grief, and I always felt understood in how I felt when I read it.

Be Our Guest

A Book That Made You Hungry
Do cookbooks count? I like to bake (when I have time), and I love to flip through Rosanna Pansino’s Nerdy Nummies Cookbook. I’ve been watching her on YouTube since high school and love how she represents “nerdy” things like video games and sci-fi movie and book series; the way she’s able to translate her love of those things into baked goods is so creative and super cute. Find her on YouTube here!

A Fictional Character You’d Love to Have Over for Dinner
Can I pick two? Sam and Grace from Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver trilogy. This was one of the first book series I absolutely fell in love with, and Sam and Grace were couples goals for me when I was younger. I would love to be friends with them but having dinner with them would be chill.

Beauty and the Beast

Opposites Attract
Kaz and Inej from the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo; they’re drastically different from each other. The way their relationship develops over the course of the two books slowly reveals their characters to each other and the readers, which I love. They learn about each other’s differences but connect with each other regardless.

Something There

A Character Who is More Than They Appear
Hanna from Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. When I first started reading this, I was trying to figure out how she could be the heroine of the story; I thought she was just a spoiled rich kid. She turned out to be such a kick-ass character, much to the surprise of both me and the book’s antagonists. Check out my review!

A Book or Series That You Weren’t Into at First but Picked Up Towards the End
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I found the first portion of the book to be so boring and kept waiting for Jacob to get to the peculiar world or for some action to start. I probably would have DNF’d it if I didn’t have to read it for class, but it started to pick up about halfway through. You can read my review here.

Kill the Beast

A Book You Picked Up Because of the Hype
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I didn’t have much interest in reading it, but a few of my book club friends kept telling me that it was so good and they couldn’t put it down. I finally picked it up not to long ago, and I didn’t quite agree with their assessments of it…

Tale as Old as Time

A Popular Theme, Trope, or Setting You Will Never Get Tired of Reading
Okay, definitely the hard-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside character who’s often bitter/angry/untrusting but would do absolutely anything for their friends/loved ones. Bonus points for a really dramatic tragic backstory. I’m also a fan of the character with a dramatic tragic backstory they don’t tell their friends about and hides behind humor.

A Book or Moment That Always Makes You Cry
I’m gonna use a repeat: The Fault in our Stars by John Green. Again, I think this book does an excellent job of representing the grief and healing process, and I pick it up when I’m going through something like that, but it’s just as painful to read each time.

This was super fun to do! As always, I’m not tagging anyone, but if you’d like to participate in this tag, go for it!

Thanks for reading! Check out more tags here, and come back Saturday for another review!

Review: Obsidio (The Illuminae Files #3) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Series: The Illuminae Files (Book 3)
Published: Knopf, 2018
Genre: YA sci-fi
My rating: 4.5 stars

Description:
“Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? 

Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha’s past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict.

With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.” (Goodreads)                                                           

Thoughts:
I’ve been following this series loyally since Illuminae came out, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the finale. Unfortunately, I didn’t love it as much as the first two books, but I did enjoy it enough to absolutely speed through it even in though I was in the midst of final papers and exams.

First off, I really loved the format and structure of this series overall. All three books, together, are essentially composed of documents utilized in a court case. The documents tell the story we follow, but this is really just a second story within the larger story of the court case itself, which frames the documents. I’ve always thought this was so unique and compelling. I think being told through documents is one of the reasons why this book (and the other two) was so fast-paced. The documents were generally short and quick to read but packed with a lot of action or information. I never wanted to put this down. It completely consumed my life while I was reading it, and I was constantly thinking about when I could pick it up again and keep reading.

I’ve also grown so attached to the characters in this series, especially the characters from book one, who I’ve had the most time with. I both liked and disliked different main characters being introduced in each book, because I had so much more time with the book one characters than I did with the book three characters; still, I just loved all three main couples. I loved that circumstances brought them all together; I thought they were fairly well-rounded with flaws, strengths, and weaknesses, and they all balanced each other out in order to achieve their goals. In this book especially, I liked that Asha didn’t have any special skills like Kady’s computer/teach skills or Hanna’s combat skills but was still a vital asset to the resistance. Essentially, I loved that the MCs were all strong young women who thrived in areas that are often male-dominated. They were frequently doubted or brushed aside by adults, and always proved them wrong. (Also, as a small side note, I thought all three couples were super cute.)

There were some things in the book I wasn’t crazy about, though. As I said earlier, I had a harder time getting attached to the book three main characters; I had a lot less time to get to know them and have a less solid idea of their personalities, so for the majority of the book I was much more interested in what was happening to the characters from the previous two books and much less invested in the book three characters’ story lines.

I also think this book was lacking some of the elements that made books one and two so engrossing. There was certainly a lack of the surprises and plot twists that the first two books (especially book one) contained. I was able to predict nearly everything that happened and there were no jaw-dropping surprises that I absolutely didn’t see coming, which was one of my favorite things about the previous books. I expected to go on a crazy up-and-down journey full of twists and turns, and though the journey was exciting, it wasn’t surprising. There was also a lack of drama. I expected a real banger of an ending, but it was tied together clean and pretty; though I’m glad it was a happy ending, I’m disappointed that it wasn’t as dramatic and huge as the series led me to believe it would be. I definitely expected more out of the finale, especially in comparison with the other two books in the series.

There were also a few unanswered questions that I had, which I didn’t expect. I went into this book expecting to find out more about BeiTech, United Terran Authority, why the illegal mining operation on Kerenza began in the first place, etc., and I was a little disappointed that I still have so many questions. I rarely read sci-fi, and I absolutely loved the space battles, conspiracies, collected documents full of evidence to take down giant corporations…the story taking place in this futuristic world was engrossing, and I wish that the world, and especially the motives for the antagonists, were further developed. The series has ended, but there’s still so much about the situation I want to know.

Personally, I don’t think this book was as strong as the other two in the series, but I can’t deny that I still loved it. It was still a fast-paced and consuming read that I didn’t want to put down. While I think that the ending was a little more clean-cut than I expected from this series and I still have a few questions with no answers, I think Kaufman and Kristoff did a pretty good job at wrapping up a pretty kick-ass series.

Recommend for fans of: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, & The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Buy the book: Amazon, Book Depository, Thriftbooks

Thanks for reading!
Find more reviews here.

Summer 2018 TBR

Hi all,

This summer, my TBR stack is towering. I went on a book-buying binge after graduation as a gift to myself. Usually, I try to watch for deals or see what I can pick up second-hand to save money, so it’s tough to get new releases or books I really want; I usually have to wait until I see them on sale or secondhand. As a grad present to myself, I bought a bunch of books I’ve wanted for a while.

The full TBR stack is pretty massive, so I’m going to talk about a few that I’m really looking forward to reading.

Current Read: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

This was recommended to me by a bunch of book club friends and since we have similar taste, I decided to finally give it a shot. I’ve only read the first few chapters, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet. You can follow my live-tweets over at my bookish Twitter! (Goodreads)

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

As ya’ll probably know, I absolutely loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of Leah, I was super excited to find out Becky Albertalli was writing a book with a bisexual main character. I’ve heard mixed things about this, so I’m really looking forward to diving in. (Goodreads)

Make Trouble by Cecile Richards

This was gifted to me but the very first English professor I took a class with as a graduation present; I nearly cried when she gave it to me (the super sweet and motivational note written inside didn’t help matters). I hope the book is just as motivational! (Goodreads)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

I confess, I have yet to read The Handmaid’s Tale. I’m currently reading Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, which I absolutely love, so I figure The Handmaid’s Tale is a must-read. (Goodreads)

MaddAddam (MaddAddam #3) by Margaret Atwood

I finally got around to diving back into the MaddAddam trilogy after reading the second book for a literature class. I recently finished up the first book, Oryx and Crake, and book three isn’t the book stack photo because it’s currently on it’s way. I’ve really enjoyed this series so far, and I’m looking forward to finishing it up. (Goodreads)

Thanks for reading!