End of the Year in Books

Hi, everyone! We’re now down to the last month of the year and, wow, did time fly way too fast. At this point, I’m not even sure if that’s a good thing because it sure felt like I’ve lost a year of my life at home. Haha But despite this year being a pain in the arse, it sure as heck been one of the greatest reading year I’ve had since 2017. 2017 was a very challenging year for me, and one thing I realized now is that I do turn to books for comfort whenever life becomes too hard for me to bear.

So today, I’m doing the End of the Year Book Tag which I’ve been seeing around the booktube community and saw that one of my bookish friends here in the internet did it on her blog, too. I remember doing a similar post to this one at the first half of the year, so I decided to do it now, too: Continue reading

Stuff I’ve Been Reading Lately #14

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BOOKS READ:

  • Slasher Girls & Monster Boys
  • Swimming Lessons by Lili Reinhart
  • One-Punch Man Vol. 8
  • Becoming by Michelle Obama

BOOKS BOUGHT:

  • The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary
  • Night Film by Marisha Pessl
  • Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
  • The Passengers by John Marrs

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Book Review: Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks

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Title: Pumpkinheads 

Author: Rainbow Rowell, Faith Erin Hicks

Publication Date: August 27, 2019

Number of Pages: 211

Publisher: First Second

Genre: YA, Graphic Novel, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.

Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye every Halloween, and they’re reunited every September 1.

But this Halloween is different—Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last good-bye.

Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: What if—instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut—they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he’s been mooning over for three years.

What if their last shift was an adventure?

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Stuff I’ve Been Reading Lately #13

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BOOKS READ:

  • The Poppy War (Poppy War, #1) by R.F. Kuang
  • Wilder Girls by Rory Power
  • Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell
  • Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Vol. 3

BOOKS BOUGHT:

  • The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
  • Final Girls by Riley Sager
  • The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
  • Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
  • The Toll (Arc of Scythe, #3) by Neal Shusterman
  • The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archives, #1) by Brandon Sanderson
  • Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archives, #2) by Brandon Sanderson
  • The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
  • A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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Book Talk: Mass Market Paperbacks

Hi, everyone! Today I’m introducing a new segment on my blog for bookish discussions. It’s been on my mind for a while now and have been thinking of topics to talk about for my pilot post. I recently got a job promotion, so what better way to reward myself than to buy new books, right? I bought five on-hand books and preordered three others, three of the on-hand books that I bought are in mass market paperback formats. So I thought of talking about mass market paperbacks on my blog as there have always been some discussion about it going around the community.

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To be perfectly honest, I’m not a big fan of mass market paperbacks myself. They aren’t my type of book format not only because their spines break so easily but also because the font is smaller compared to trade paperbacks and hardbacks. I wear glasses and have astigmatism, so I find it a little bit hard to read from this format especially when it comes to fantasy series chunkers!

Regardless, I still do have quite a number of mass market paperbacks on my book collection — mostly standalone thrillers, romance, and suspense books. What I like most about this format, though, is that it’s lightweight and handy so it’s easy to bring them during travels and overnights — basically, anywhere! It’s also much cheaper than other formats. Also, most of my Nicholas Sparks books are in this format because back in the day, I can only find mass market paperback versions of his works in my country. It was only just a couple of years ago when my local bookstores started selling out other formats of his novels — this is also similar to other authors like Dan Brown, Gillian Flynn, James Patterson, etc.

I also prefer mass market paperback format more than e-books as they tend to strain my eyes easily given that I am already required to sit in front of the computer 8 hours a day for work.

How about you? What are your thoughts on MMPBs?

Book Review: Wilder Girls by Rory Power

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Wilder Girls cover

Title: Wilder Girls

Author: Rory Power

Publication Date: July 9, 2019

Number of Pages: 357

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller, Mystery, YA, Queer

 

Synopsis:

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty’s life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don’t dare wander outside the school’s fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there’s more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.
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Autumn Book Recommendations

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Hi, everyone! Today I’m going to share with you some of the books that I think is perfect for Fall. We don’t really have Fall in my side of the world, but, well, I still get the vibes. ☺

I’ve been seeing a lot of people posting about their Fall TBRs (and since I am not really doing well with my attempt of a September TBR haha), I figured why not do a recommendations post instead? So I scoured around my room looking for the perfect Fall books to recommend to all of you only to realize that I haven’t really read a lot of spooky or creepy books. I did find a few titles that are atmospheric enough to recommend, so let’s go ahead and dive right in: Continue reading

Stuff I’ve Been Reading Lately #12

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BOOKS READ:

  • Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
  • Please Pick Me by Reina Regina
  • One-Punch Man Vol 8 by ONE
  • Cardcaptor Sakura Vol. 5 by CLAMP

BOOKS BOUGHT:

  • An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
  • Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto
  • Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen
  • Wilder Girls by Rory Power
  • Wink, Poppy, Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
  • Dragon Republic (Poppy War, #2) by R.F. Kuang
  • See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng
  • The Keep of Lost Cities (Keeper of Lost Cities, #1) by Shannon Messenger
  • Exile (Keeper of Lost Cities, #2) by Shannon Messenger
  • The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1) by Brandon Sanders
  • The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2) by Brandon Sanderson
  • The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3) by Brandon Sanderson

ARC/s:

  • Please Pick Me by Reina Regina

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Book Review: [ARC] Please Pick Me by Reina Regina

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Title: Please Pick Me

Author: Reina Regina

Publication Date: November 11, 2020

Number of Pages: 124

Publisher: Moonchild Press Publishing

Genre: Poetry

Synopsis:

In a garden of a thousand other volumes, my little yellow book with its earnest plea and hopeful flowers on the cover sits waiting for you to pick it up. It’s got a heart it wants to give away.

These haikus, poems, and prose pieces are about

the miracle of being wanted back by someone we want,
the desperation of hoping they’ll fight harder when they waver,
the rawness of seeking reassurance that we are loved as we are, and
the tenderness we feel when we’re sending love out to others

—all those moments when we are making our need to be accepted plain and praying, please pick me.

This book was born after twenty-six years of learning that it’s okay to want to be wanted, that vulnerability is merely throwing open the gateway to honest connections, and that fighting to be loved the way you deserve is bravery and not weakness.

I hope you open it. I hope it invites you to be open too.

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10 Books On My Priority List

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Hey, everyone! I’m back with another book list and today I’ll be talking about the top ten books in my physical TBR that are on my priority list. I may have mentioned in one of my previous posts that I am a mood reader which is why I don’t post monthly TBRs here or on Instagram (except for my readathon books). My being a mood reader is also the reason why I do not have a specific date set for reading each of the books that I will mention in this post, but hopefully, I can get to them before the year ends. Continue reading