Even though I'm moving in a couple of months, I seem to have a penchant for buying books. I mean, my bookshelf is teeming with books that I still haven't read and WHAT DO I DO? I BUY EVEN MORE BOOKS. Ugh, I dread when I'll have to lug these sluggers with me to the Post Office for shipping. BUT ANYWAY LET'S BE CHEERFUL. LET'S LOOK AT THE AWESOMENESS I BOUGHT AND HAVE READ!

The Books That I've Read:

1. The Winner's Kiss - Marie Rutkoski

I LOVE the Winner's trilogy. The Winner's Crime was on my Best Books of 2015 list, The Winner's Curse was onmy Best Books of 2014 list. I nominated The Winner's Crime in the Epic Reads Book Shimmy Awards and probably have mentioned these books at multiple points, in multiple posts in this blog (5 Fantasy Authors I Fangirl Over,Preview of 2015 Books, Review: The Winner's Curse, TBR: Releases to Watch Out For, Review: The Winner's Crime, My Reading Profile, & more). It should thus come as no surprise to you that I pre-ordered The Winner's Kiss and spent the 29th reading that book. Also spent the weekend and week before trying to sneak peeks at the book through Amazon excerpt, which is an obsessive habit I have when I reaaaaaally want to read a book (until I shake and distract myself by doing something else).

Ahem, anyways. This book surprised me in a lot of ways, all of them good. I also understand why they changed the covers -- the girl in the ball gown no longer fits the horrific scenes of war. If the first book set the grounds for the differences between the two countries and the romance, establishing our link with Arin and Kestrel; and if the second book delved deeper into strategy, games, political intrigue, alliances and quiet rebellion amid heartbreaking loss; then the third book was about all of that coming to head. War. Violence. The consequences of the politics between these three major countries. The differences in beliefs and how they've shaped our characters' attitudes and hopes but how there's still common ground to be had. The power of love and stories, forgiveness and new life amid an onslaught of death. As always, lots of character development, beautiful writing, romance, political intrigue, strategy, intriguing world-building, and more. Yes to these books.

I have seen most of the films but I haven't read any of the corresponded books, apart from Stardust. As far as that book is concerned the movie was indeed better. (And the graphic novel)

The list:

-Room with a view

-Julie and Julia

-About a boy

-The painted veil

-Wicked

-Fight Club

-Stardust

-The Devil Wears Prada

Do you agree with the list? Do you have a book in mind that turned out to be better in film?

Wow, it's been a really long time since I did a recap post. In October, I wrote a book talk, but I didn't even mention my blog posts. The last time I did a recap, then, was in September! So much has happened here on the blog, I've read so many books and gone to some great book launches, and I've received and purchased quite a few books as well!

Ah, well. This post was supposed to go up two weeks ago, along with a video that I had recorded in the usual recap way. :/ But basically I'm still trying to catch up with the posts that were scheduled for my time off but didn't go up.

 

On the blog, I have been maintaining my bookish rounds posts, which are round-ups of the latest MG/YA/NA book news in terms of book deals, cover reveals, discussions in the book community, tv and movie adaptations, and new YA releases. Since September, you'll findedition 88, edition 89, edition 90, edition 91, edition 92, edition 93, edition 94, edition 95,edition 96, edition 97, edition 98, edition 99, and edition 100. And, in fact, in terms of the book news, I gathered half of last year's adaptation news for a round-up post, and I made a calendar with 2016 Adaptations relevant to the YA community, so we could keep track of them. I discussed Mockingjay Part II, my New Year's Bookolutions for 2016, 2016 YA Debuts on my TBR list, 2016 YA Books (Non Debuts) on my TBR list, blogging and booktubing, the effect of awards in the YA community, my reading profile, reader loyalty, and 5 fantasy authors who I fangirl over. I reviewed Dreamstrider by Lindsay Smith, the Eon duology by Alison Goodman, the Mapmaker's trilogy by S.E. Grove, Passenger by Alexandra Bracken, and The Mirror King by Jodi Meadows, and gushed about my Epic Reads Book Shimmy Award Nominations and the best books that I'd read in 2015. I also asked for read-along buddies, and answered 15 weird questions about myself so that y'all could get to know me better.

Fall 2015 & Winter 2016, I didn't blog or booktube more frequently because in the fall, I’d been applying to graduate schools, and then there were the holiday breaks (aka laziness at home), and throughout February, I had a bunch a few graduate school interviews to attend (aka why you didn't hear from me much on social media then either). Maybe one day soon, I'll have actual big news to celebrate on that account. (Pray for me! Cross your fingers! Whatever you do.). In January, I attended the book launches for Truthwitch by Susan Dennard/Passenger by Alex Bracken and This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp. I appreciated Marieke’s discussion on how the story was inspired, in part, by a yellow school bus, and the discussion of American gun culture vs. in the Netherlands. I appreciated the easy banter between Susan and Alex, and their personable approach to describing their writing styles and their experiences (e.g. researching ships in the eighteenth century). I loved how both events were moderated by other YA authors as well (Sona Charaipotra (Dhonielle Clayton was supposed to be there but I forget what happened) and Erin Bowman). And I ended up purchasing all three books for the book launches, as well as books by the author hosts. Here's to hoping grad school fares well too, so that I can say the season was an all around success :D.

 

In terms of what I've read this past fall and winter.... oh, what a varied list. I’m going to just list them out, and say a few things at the end!

Middle Grade:

1. The Golden Specific - S.E. Grove (review here).

Young Adult:

1. Passenger - Alexandra Bracken (review here)
2. Dreamstrider - Lindsay Smith (review here)
3. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
4. Eon - Alison Goodman (review here)
5. Eona - Alison Goodman
6. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Newt Scamander
7. All of Rosamund Hodge's listed short stories.
8. The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness
9. Vengeance Road - Erin Bowman
10. Glory O'Brien's History of the Future - A.S. King, audio
11. A Creature of Moonlight - Rebecca Hahn
12. Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke (review to come!)
13. The Star-Touched Queen - Roshani Chokshi (review to come!)

Adult Romance:

1. Wallbanger - Alice Clayton
2. Rusty Nailed - Alice Clayton
3. Screwdrivered - Alice Clayton
4. Mai Tai'd Up - Alice Clayton
5. A Lady of Persuasion - Tessa Dare
6. Goddess of the Hunt - Tessa Dare
7. Surrender of a Siren - Tessa Dare
8. The Rogue Not Taken - Sarah MacLean
9. A Gentleman in the Street - Alisha Rai
10. Once Upon a Marquess - Courtney Milan

Adult Fantasy

1. Feverborn - Karen Marie Moning
2. Captive Prince - C.S. Pacat
3. Prince's Gambit - C.S. Pacat
4. Kings Rising - C.S. Pacat

Nonfiction:

1. The Silk Road: A Short Introduction - James A. Millward.
2. The Madame Curie Complex - Julie Des Jardins
3. Bossypants - Tina Fey, audio
4. Yes Please - Amy Poehler, audio

What’s the deal with all the romance novels? Well, I’ve mentioned this before, but I share my Kindle account with my mother. You’d think this means she’d be more willing to read YA novels—alas, those are all just mine. Anyway, she loves contemporary and historical romance. The majority of the romance novels I read this past fall/winter, I read when I was at home with her. Usually when we’re together I remember that oh shit, I’m supposed to buy more romance novels for her to read. But it doesn’t feel right to just buy her anything out there – in some ways, I get caught too because then I want to make sure I’ve gotten her books that she’ll like. Like Alice Clayton. I read Alice Clayton’s book because I’d posted her cover reveal sometime ago, and I remembered writing that this was a new NA series for her, or she was continuing on Wallbanger, and it was pretty popular. So I tried the books out – I liked them, and my mom loved them. My mom also loves Tessa Dare, and Sarah MacLean and Courtney Milan are automatic pre-orders for her as well.

The young adult and middle grade books went pretty well, and I looooooove the Captive Prince trilogy, so yaaaaaas. And hey, look, I read about 32 books from late November to the end of February. Not too shabby, eh? And now interviews are over… :D :D

In terms of the books I received:

1. The Voyage to the Magical North by Claire Fayers
2. The Treasure of Maria Mamoun by Michelle Chafoun
3. The Wrong Side of Magic by Jannette Rallison
4. Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke, which was in my 2016 YA Books on My TBR List (and which I now read -- expect a review soon!)

The Voyage to the Magical North is about a girl and her friend who join a pirate’s quest to find the Magical North, which sounds like a place of secrets and myths and lots of fun. The Treasure of Maria Mamoun is an island adventure about a girl from the Bronx on a journey of mystery and discovery. The Wrong Side of Magic is a modern-day retelling of The Phantom Tollbooth, and all three are Middle Grade titles. I haven’t requested many ARCs as of late, and well, I’ve been more in the mood to read MG, as if it’s easier to review MG because I’ve read so much YA at this point, I almost feel saturated. Have you ever gotten that feeling? Do you think that that’s just a part of a reading slump or something more lasting? I was excited for Wink Poppy Midnight, and it was great – the book was also my first ARC from Penguin Random House. I’m a kind of a passive blogger uninterested in emailing publishers for ARCs, but if I’m sent the request form, I do look through the catalog. It’s always unexpected for me when any of that turns out, and I was doubly excited for Wink Poppy Midnight since it was in my 2016 YA Books on My TBR List. Did not disappoint!

That’s what I read, received, and blogged about in fall 2015 / winter 2016. How were these past couple of months for you? Did you read a lot or find a lot of new favorites? Have you been on your blogging/booktubing game?

I use some of these websites and I found some new ones using this list. How about you?

In October, you didn’t see a lot of reviews from me. This is in part because things got hectic with a lot of deadlines and in part because of my reading slump. But, along with deadlines came a lot of monotonous work that was well suited to me listening to audiobooks on the side. So today, I’ve got a bunch of audiobook recommendations for y’all!

First, before I get into my recommendations, I showed on the video a really beautiful art piece I’d received from Cindy Pon, and I’d like to urge all of you to read Serpentine by Cindy Pon again. I’ve talked about why I really enjoyed that book, and I hope that you’ll give it a chance. I also received an updated ARC of Passenger by Alexandra Bracken, so that is something I will be reading this month along with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (which has been on my TBR for yeaaaaaars). If you want to read Passenger by Alexandra Bracken, I’m also currently hosting a giveaway, so be sure to check that out!

Audiobook recommendations –

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier was on offer from audiobooksync (another reason why you should really mark that program in your calendar!) in 2014. I believe it’d been paired with Beautiful Creatures. In the face of monotonous work, I was searching for something to listen to, and voila. I played the audiobook aloud so that my friend could also listen. The narrator is SO TALENTED. There’s this character introduced in the beginning who’s supposed to be a snooty gossip elitist (Mrs. Van Hopper) and the VOICE the narrator used to imitate this character (and really all her voices for all the characters!) was AMAZING. My friend was doing her own thing, her own work, but at the sound of the narrator’s voice for that character, she turned to look at me and was like, “Wow, that is a great voice.” I highly enjoyed the audiobook because of the narrator’s prowess and ability to match the characterization, which was already done well.

Rebecca is about a young, inexperienced woman who had been training to be a companion but who falls in love with and marries a mysterious, brooding gentleman instead. At his giant estate, she finds their new marriage overshadowed by the one he'd shared with his dead wife, Rebecca.

However, it reminded me a lot of Jane Eyre, and I think that was a bad thing for me. I LOVE JANE EYRE. One of my favorite books of all time. This book... I couldn't understand the supposed charm of Mr. De Winter; how on earth was this supposed to be a man in love and ugh the verbal abusiveness, the condescension! (he's calling his wife "child." I'm sorry--what?). The main character also doesn't have Jane's spirit; it's lovely to see her gain confidence once she stops being afraid of everyone, but it's not the same as Jane declaring to Rochester that she is his equal in every way. I have no problem with the main character remaining nameless--rather I have a problem with how that reflects her characterization. It's easy to connect with her feelings of insecurity, jealousy, and shyness, but she also fades away as the only character without a name and she really does have less power and agency than anyone else in the book.

But the atmosphere, the writing, the characterization of Mrs. Danvers and Mrs. De Winter (the first) are all excellent. If you like Wuthering Heights, you'd probably enjoy this.

Set in the seventies, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng is a close character portrait of a mixed-race family beset by tragedy. The first line has to do with Lydia dying (Lydia is the daughter of James and Marilyn Lee, and the sibling to Hannah & Nathan). The book goes through the perspectives of each of these characters in the wake of her death, along with past timelines (i.e. how Lydia ended up dying, how James and Marilyn met). Ng explores the different character relationships and how the characters got to be who they were when Lydia died. Really fantastic – they felt real and completely alive, fears, worries, insecurities, joys and all. And the narrator for the audiobook has this soft voice that worked well with Ng’s writing style and subtle characterization; the voice lent an extra transcendence to the story. It’s no wonder this has been getting a lot of praise. I’m really looking forward to what Ng writes next.

And my last audiobook: The Rose Society by Marie Lu. If you haven’t already heard of The Young Elites, the book has been described as X-men meets Game of Thrones in an alternate fantasy version of Renaissance Italy. It chronicles the character arc of a villain, who is, as Marie Lu said, a sort of female Darth Vader. The Rose Society is the sequel to TYE. I hadn’t expected to listen to this on audiobook, but I’m glad I did. I usually like reading fantasy stories in print because I need time to imagine the worlds and characters etc. on my own, but the audiobook narrators for TRS captured the atmosphere and the emotions of each character so well. When the action and tension were rising, their voices matched the increasing pace. This one, I highly recommend in audio. And as for the actual story, there seemed to be a lot more action in TRS and the plot veered in unexpected directions. There’s more world-building and epicness to the sequel, since you get to explore other countries. So, if you liked TYE, check out the sequel for sure.

So that’s what I listened to last month! I’ve got some other audiobooks lined up along with the print books I mentioned earlier.What will you be reading in November? What did you read in October? Have you read any of the books I mentioned? Let me know!