Used Bookstores Are My Weakness | Q2 Book Haul

Here we are again. Me, with too many books. Me, breaking my book buying ban. Me, posting this an entire month late. None of these should be very surprising.

First, I have my BOTM picks from May and June. I actually didn't spend any money on these because I won a three-month subscription (and got an extra book credit because the customer service is incredible), so now I'll have plenty of books to read for a while, even outside of my supposed "ban" on buying books.

If you've been thinking of joining BOTM, you can use this link and I will get extra credits if you join. (But seriously, no pressure. I just genuinely love this service.)

• AMERICAN WAR: This novel is a near-future imagining of America, after its second civil war--this time over fossil fuels/clean energy. I think this is told after the war by a child born during the war, recounting his family's involvement in the war. 
• EXIT WEST: I was actually waiting to put this post up until I finished this book and man, oh man am I so glad I did. If you take one thing away from this post, it's that YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. 5 stars, my review is linked on the title. Please, please, please read it.
• A MILLION JUNES: So, this is apparently a take on Romeo and Juliet? I'm a sucker for anything that is compared to Shakespeare, and I've heard glorious praise about Henry's writing style so I had to grab this one.
• AND WE'RE OFF: I don't know much about this. Goodreads compared it to Gilmore Girls and that's all I needed to want it immediately.

where my books were acquired, a guide

* my local used bookstore

** my local indie bookstore, at an author event

*** a giveaway

• BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY* & CODE NAME VERITY*: These two books are ones that I've heard endless good things about. I don't know much about either except that they take place during WWII. That's all I want to know going into these books.
• ALWAYS AND FOREVER, LARA JEAN: I wasn't going to buy this, I never even planned on reading it, but the cover is so pretty and it was 20% off at Target. It was a moment of weakness. I'll read this eventually.
• WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI**: People, this is one of my new favorite books. Expect to see this on some sort of list at the end of the year. It was that good. I had the pleasure of meeting Sandhya Menon at her stop in Nashville, so I got to talk with her for a bit and she signed my book! 5 stars
• UPSIDE OF UNREQUITED***: Another one of my absolute favorite books so far this year. Incredible, so diverse, better than Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and all around a great and engaging read. 5 stars 
• THE MOTHERS*: I don't know too much about this, which is my preferred way of going into contemporary novels, but I do know that it place in a black community in Southern California. I definitely picked this up for that setting alone. I also believe it's a character-focused piece, but don't quote me on that.
• STRANGE THE DREAMER**: Something about a city called Weep that no one remembers. There's magic and blue people? You all know what this is about. I don't know enough about it to explain. But I did get to meet Laini, and she's fantastic.

• WICKED*: I got about halfway through this book ages ago when I was a wee thing in middle school, before I ever saw the musical. I then saw the musical and returned the book to my sister half-finished. I am and always will be obsessed with the musical. It's the musical that got me into musicals. I want to give the book another try, as an adult.
• JURASSIC PARK*: If you know me, you know my favorite movie is Jurassic Park. Not only is it a fantastic film, it's incredibly innovative and is the reason we have as many amazing CGI effects in movies as we do today. Anyway, dinosaurs are cool; Kristi @ Melbourne on My Mind loves this book, so I finally picked up my own copy.
• QUEENS OF GEEK: People will not shut up about this book, so I picked it up so I could read it for myself.
• THIS SHATTERED WORLD*: Amie Kaufman is the reason I now am interested in Sci-Fi. I was surprised how much I loved These Broken Stars, and I am very excited to read the sequel and see what happens next in this series. (Also, this series has the prettiest covers ever. Hands down.)
• BRAIN ON FIRE*: This is a memoir that I've heard endless good things about. It was also 75¢ and that's definitely the reason I finally picked it up.
• THE COLOR PROJECT: SIERRA HAS A BOOK. LOOK. AHHHHHHHH. CONTEMPORARY BOOK WITH A GEM OF A BOY NAMED LEVI. I'M FREAKING OUT.
• DEFY THE STARS***: SPACE. Claudia Gray writes a lot of Star Wars books, so I'm sure this is great. I'm excited to read it.
• CITY OF SAINTS AND THIEVES: I actually got this from my friend Trina because she read it and didn't feel the need to keep it on her shelves. This is a YA mystery/thriller that takes place in Kenya. That's all I needed to know.

AND THAT'S IT. Have you read any of these books? If so, tell me down below. (Also, I'm very excited to be blogging again. So yayayay.)

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Auto-Read Authors | Monthly Recommendations

A few of my favorite people, Trina @ Between Chapters and Kayla @ Kayla Rayne, run a monthly recommendations group over on Goodreads. This month we're discussing our auto-read/buy authors. Naturally, I have separated this by novelists and comic book authors.

NOVELISTS

• VICTORIA/V.E. SCHWAB: Some of my all-time favorite books are from Victoria, so naturally, she has to be first on this list. The Shades of Magic trilogy, the Monsters of Verity duology, and (my personal favorite) Vicious. I will read anything and everything she releases until the end of time.
• AMIE KAUFMAN & JAY KRISTOFF: Kaufman and Kristoff are basically inseparable at this point. Whether they're writing together or separately, I love what they release. They both have their hands in so many different series that they're dominating my TBR pile at the moment. 
• BECKY ALBERTALLI: While I haven't read Upside yet, Becky joined this list halfway through my first read of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda because she writes the most vivid and amazing characters throughout her novels. 
• SANDHYA MENON: I adored When Dimple Met Rishi when I read it this month, and I actually got to meet her when she was touring for its release. She's lovely and wonderful and so, so nice. I loved her writing, and a fantastic personality and presence will immediately put an author on my auto-read list.
• ALICE OSEMAN: Another author that I've only read one book from, but Radio Silence absolutely captivated me when I read it a few months ago. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I still need to pick up her previous book, Solitaire, but I'm definitely going to be following her future works.
• RAINBOW ROWELL: Rowell's books aren't my favorite. Some of them are, but others just aren't for me. However, I do love her writing style and (most of) the characters she creates. 
• LEIGH BARDUGO: Bardugo is not only fantastic at creating worlds but also phenomenal at crafting some of my all-time favorite characters. I'm still mid-Grisha trilogy, but Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom have sold me on the rest of her works for all time.
• COURTNEY C. STEVENS: Courtney is another of those "I met the author before I read the book" situations that made me fall in love with the author and subsequently read and adore their books. She's fantastic and wonderful both on the page and off. 
• J.K. ROWLING: I mean, does this really need an explanation? Despite my indifference towards the Fantastic Beasts movie and my nearly 100% hatred of Cursed Child, I will always be invested in what Rowling is doing next.

COMIC BOOK AUTHORS 

• NOELLE STEVENSON: Nimona and Lumberjanes are two of my favorite non-novel works in existence. While she's no longer working on Lumberjanes, it's still one of my favorite series and Stevenson's stamp on those characters is still there. She also is a fantastic illustrator. Everything she does is wonderful.
• JOHN ALLISON: Fighting for my favorite comic series against Lumberjanes is Giant Days, which is written by John Allison. It's so wonderful and definitely my favorite contemporary comic out there. I'm definitely going to be following his work for a while.
• KELLY SUE DECONNICK: DeConnick was one of the biggest writers for Captain Marvel in the past five (maybe more?) years. I adore how she wrote Carol Danvers. I have a bit of backlist to work through of hers, but I'm definitely following her future endeavors as well. 

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Blogging Hiatus Favorites (+ returning to the blog!)

Hello, stranger. How are you? My life has been absolute mayhem, and I dealt with it by . . . well, not reading but becoming obsessed with other media. Honestly, I've been kind of a wallflower the past few months, and my roots got rooted fairly deep into the carpet.

Not listed, but entirely accurate, the thing I've spent the most time doing these past months has been playing Sims 4. So, there's that.

MUSICALS

• Come From Away: This is a phenomenal musical. It's about this small island just across the northern border of the United States called Newfoundland. There's a huge airport there that, before jet planes, was mostly used for refueling but now doesn't have much use. Except for on September 11th, 2001 when three planes were used in a terror attack on the United States, and all incoming planes were redirected to Newfoundland until the US airspace reopened. It's somehow funny while also consistently moving me to tears. It's definitely a musical that everyone should listen to.
• Falsettos: Perhaps no other play I've listened to has perfected the balance of humor and absolute sob-inducing moments like Falsettos has. Set during the AIDS in the late 70's and early 80's, this is just a fantastic musical that I genuinely cannot stop listening to.
• Dear Evan Hansen: Earlier in this hiatus, I was absolutely obsessed--and I mean, would not listen to anything other than this musical--for at least a solid month. It's more sad than hilarious and kind of got me into a bit of an anxious funk for a while. Even though I've had to distance myself from this musical, it still holds a nice little corner of my heart.  
• Wicked: This was a post-DEH pick-me-up. I got re-obsessed with Wicked for a bit and channeled my inner 12-year-old Monica. 
• In the Heights: Another happy musical I listened to post-DEH. I got obsessed with this last year after Hamilton (because LMM is amazing) and obsessively listened to it again these past few months.

MUSIC

Cleopatra: I haven't listened to a lot of new music because I've been obsessively listening to musicals, but when I'm not listening to Come From Away or Falsettos then I'm listening to the newest Lumineers album.

Star track: Ophelia.

TV SHOWS

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Funny, hilarious, diverse. A cop show that has none of the boring cop show parts and all of the hilarious sitcom parts. 
• Broadchurch: THIS. SHOW. I. AM. A. MESS. If you need a good show with a finite ending, you have got to watch Broadchurch. The third and final season is currently airing on BBC America. The first season is a crime drama, but the show evolves with the town and the characters, and I can't cohesively talk about this show because I'm writing this mid-season two and it's so good.
• Great British Bake Off: (I refuse to call this The Great British Baking Show, it sounds ridiculous.) Now, I've already seen most seasons of this, but in the states, PBS runs old seasons of this during the summer. My mom and I always watch it together, and it's such a relaxing show with nice people who have fantastic accents.

MOVIES

• Spider-Man: Homecoming: It's finally the Spider-Man we've always wanted. It was so good. I need to watch it four more times in theaters.
• Wonder Woman: *screams from the rooftops about this movie for the next twelve years*
• Rewatching Harry Potter: There were about seven Harry Potter weekends this summer, and it finally convinced my mother to start reading the series. It had to make the list.

And that's it! What have your non-bookish favorites been these past few months? Let me know down in the comments so I can obsess over more things before school starts back!

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