August Bookhaul!

Once again, I have accumulated too many books for my bookhaul and wrap-up to be in the same post (unless you want an extremely long post). In one month I managed to buy 22 books. 22! I'm 100% going on a book-buying ban in September.

Books for school:

I start school again in September and in English Literature we're studying four texts, so I went out and bought the ones that I could, only for one of my friends to tell me that I didn't need to buy two of them! They were:

• 1984 by George Orwell - This is featured in my August wrap-up post, which can be found here.
• A Streetcar Named Desire - I don't know if you've ever seen a copy of this, but it's the size of one chapter of a normal book. Why did it cost £9.99??? (This was one of the books I didn't need to buy, so I'm a bit annoyed about it!).
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare

I don't really have an excuse for the other nineteen...I did find out my exam results and they were really good, so some of them were yay-I-passed purchases. And then one of my best friends and I went shopping, and we both have out of control TBR piles, and we both bought loads of books (and now we both are on bans!)
Anyway, here are the many, many books I've acquired in August:

• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
• Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
• Get Even by Gretchen McNeil
• Darkmere by Helen Maslin
• The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
• The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle
• The Glass Sentence by S.E. Grove
• Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid
• Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
• The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak by Brian Katcher
• The Archived by Victoria Schwab
• Fairest by Marissa Meyer
• Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender
• Famous Last Words by Katie Alender
• Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
• For Real by Alison Cherry
• The Fixer by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman

I won't do summaries of each book as otherwise this post could last forever! But if you want to know what a book is about, tell me in the comments and I'll reply.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think (no spoilers please!)? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading(:

July Bookhaul

July has ended, and I've managed to accumulate a crap-load of books.
Oops.
But it was to be expected, as July was YALC month (read about my YALC plans here), and I bought eight books at YALC alone. And then I had already bought a few books before YALC. And then it is possible that I ordered two other books off of Amazon after YALC. Possibly.
Oh well! I'd rather have lots of books to read than none.
Because I've bought so many books, and read a lot as well, I'm splitting up my bookhaul and wrap-up, so here is my July bookhaul!

The Haul:

• 1984 by George Orwell - This is one of the books I have to read for school in September, so I thought I would buy my own copy, as I'd feel more comfortable writing thing in a book I own (although even that will be awful!).
• Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan - This is the book that has made me realise that I have to really think about the word 'lightning' before I spell it!
• The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon - I have been really excited to read this book. I read the summary and thought it sounded amazing, and there are so many good reviews of this book.
• Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer - After seeing this book just about everywhere thanks to Booksplosion, I decided to cave and buy it as the premise sounded great: a fictional character coming out of their book. How many times have we wished that could happen?
• Scarlet by Marissa Meyer - I loved Cinder (my review is here), and badly wanted to continue on with The Lunar Chronicles, so I bought this and....
• Cress by Marissa Meyer - Now I can read these and be up to date by the time Winter is released!
• The Good Girls by Sara Shepard - The second (and final) book in The Perfectionists series, The Good Girls picks up right where The Perfectionist left off. Being a huge fan of Sara Shepard, I had to buy it and read it straightaway!
• Trial By Fire by Josephine Angelini - I've been meaning to pick up this trilogy for a while, as it seems to be about magic and time travel, and I love books about time travel.
• Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid - This sounds like the perfect summer read, and the cover is gorgeous, so I bought it!
• I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson - Everyone seems to love this, so hopefully I will too!
  

The books I bought at YALC are mentioned in my YALC Adventures post, which you can find here.

I have actually read four and a half of the books I've bought in July already, so if you weren't going to check out my wrap-up, you should as I had a great reading month! Have you read any of the books I've mentioned? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading(:

YALC Adventures!

On Saturday, I went to the Young Adult Literature Convention in London, and oh my gosh, it was amazing! This was the first convention I had been to, so I wasn't sure what to expect; a part of me was terrified that this event - the event I had been looking forward to for three months, the event that had made me happy when exams were bringing me down - would be a let-down. But thankfully, YALC surpassed my expectations and the trip was worthwhile.

My friend and I had to get up at 5:30 AM. I am not good on a morning. Really, I'm grumpy if I wake up at nine, let alone five, but then I remembered where I was going and my mood instantly improved! Our train ride was uneventful - apart from a woman complaining very loudly about croissants - and we arrived at Olympia in what we thought was good time: about twenty past ten.

Oh, how wrong we were! The queue just to get into LFCC (as the YALC was only open until ten) must have been at least two miles long, and we ended up stuck pretty close to the back in a leafy suburb of London! This made us both very worried, as one of the main reasons we came to YALC was to see the Shadowhunters talk with Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan. The talk started at half eleven; by ten past we were only just turning the corner onto a street where we could actually see Olympia. This resulted in a lot of frantic time-checkings, complaints (on my part, I'm not a patient person!), and about three extra runes on our arms and legs. There were some good things about the queue, though. For one thing, it was a lovely Summer day so we were nice and warm, and we moved quite quickly. It also meant that we could see some of the incredible costumes people were wearing, and every time we saw a fellow Shadowhunter we flapped a bit!

This outfit gets five stars at least!

We arrived at the YALC entrance at 11:24, but we sprinted up the staircase and managed to slide into some seats for the panel just in time. The actual panel was great, as you could tell that Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan were really good friends, and they kept making jokes. I liked how Sarah knew so much about the Shadowhunting world as well, and how she had opinions about all of the characters. The panel gave an insight into how co-writing works, and what lies ahead for the characters in The Dark Artifices and The Last Hours.

The Shadowhunters Panel

Then came the next problem. As we had literally just aimed for the panel, we hadn't found the person with the tickets for the virtual queue for the Cassandra Clare signing. This meant that when we did take our tickets, we were far behind. Like, really really far behind. 358 and 360 out of 400 to be exact. The end time of the signing came, but Cassandra Clare decided that she would take a break and then come back and sign one of everyone remaining's books! It was so kind of her, and I just hoped that I remembered to say thank you, as I think I was a bit star-struck and I can't exactly think of what I said! I know that I said Will was my favourite character, which resulted in the two authors joking about what Will and Jem would do if one was ahead of the other.

Apart from those two times when we were scared we would miss something, YALC was EXCELLENT with a capital everything! There was such a variety of books for sale at the YALC bookshop, and the publisher stands were well-stocked too. There was also two tables full of freebees, so now I have various samplers, badges, bookmarks, and lanyards! Near the line for the Cassandra Clare signing there were two Shadowhunters giving out postcards of the beautiful new UK covers of The Mortal Instruments, which I've stuck on my bookcase.

All of the free things I collected

Overall, the one thing that really made me enjoy YALC - aside from meeting Cassandra Clare - was the sense of community in it. When I was walking around, I just felt like, ah, I have found my fellow booknerds! I had a great conversation with one of the sellers at Hot Key Books about Vivian Vs the Apocalypse, and another about Shadowhunters with someone at Atom Books, and it was refreshing to know that everyone in the room shared a love of books. There were so many people buying books, talking about books, reading books, which was wonderful to see!

However, there were some things that could have been better. Personally, I feel like the YALC should be open until eleven, as some people (i.e. Me and my friend) live miles away from London and I don't think we could have gotten to London any sooner! Also, I think that the Reading Zone could have been a bit bigger; by the end of the day people were sat everywhere.

This bookhaul could have been a lot, lot bigger.

Next time, I plan on going for the full weekend, and I plan on being braver! There were so many times when I wanted to strike up a conversation with someone about books, but I felt too shy to do it. Were you at YALC? What did you think?

Overall, YALC was fantastic, and I couldn't stop smiling and talking about it until at least eleven! The next day, I read the tweets about Sunday and just wanted to be there. For those thinking of going next year, I would definitely definitely definitely recommend it, and I hope to see you there next year!
Thanks for reading(:

June Book Haul & Wrap-Up!

Another month has been and gone, and now we're past halfway through the year...that's scary! But, on a lighter note, I read (and bought) some great books in June that I can't wait to show you!

The Haul:

So, technically I wasn't meant to buy any books in June, but I finished my exams and went to a place with bookshops and lost all willpower. However, all of these books were on my big 'Books After Exams' list, so that kind of justifies them (it does not, but saying this makes me feel better
!).

• PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han - How could I not buy this? I need more Lara Jean and Peter feels! PS is the sequel to To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which I read last year (I think) and loved.
• Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas. I read Dangerous Girls at the beginning of the year, and it was AMAZING. I absolutely loved it, and I've been meaning to pick up Dangerous Boys for ages. When I saw it in not one but two bookshops, that was obviously a sign for me to buy it.
• The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith. I haven't read a book by Jennifer E. Smith before, but this sounds so wonderful and sweet and a perfect summery contemporary.
• The Dream Thieves and Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater. That's right! I finally own the other two books in the Raven Boys series (that are published). I really liked The Raven Boys and gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how the series continues.
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. This was not on the 'Books After Exams' list, and I wasn't intending on buying it, but I was at a car boot sale, and amid all the pottery and plants, I found a decent copy of Shiver in a box which was being sold for 20p. 20p! That's like...(*attempts maths to work out a percentage* *fails at maths and worries about exam results*) really cheap!

The Wrap-Up:

I read some fantastic books this month!

• (The Rest of) Night School by C. J. Daugherty. This only just makes it onto the June Wrap-Up as I finished it very close to the beginning of the month. I liked Night School, although it wasn't one of my favourites. My full review is here. 3 stars.
• A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. This was a favourite! I adored this book; the world was so unique, as was the magic. I can't wait to read more about Kell's world and more books by V. E. Schwab! My full review is here. 4.75 stars.
• City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. This was a reread, as I read City of Bones last summer, and I have to say that it was more enjoyable once I'd read the other books in the series. I cared about the characters more knowing all the things I knew after City of Heavenly Fire, and I was more interested in the story because I knew where it would go, whereas before I had no idea. 4 stars.
• The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough. This, like ADSOM is now one of my favourites! I loved almost everything about it. My full review is here. 4.75 stars.
• Rook by Sharon Cameron. I had very high expectations for this book. First of all, it has one of the prettiest covers ever. Second, one of the first lines of the blurb begins with 'In the Sunken City that was once Paris'. I love books set in France, and I love books set in the French Revolution especially, so I really thought I would love Rook. Which I did...kind of. The concept was so interesting; a future that had returned to the ways of the past. And I did love the way that Diet Coca Cola bottles were treated as valuable antiques, and that the A5 was a deserted road. I thought the plot was strong, although at the end it did feel a little messy. I now want a pet fox like Sophia, our protagonist, has, and I admired Sophia for being very strong, independent, and smart. But Sophia and Rene's relationship felt odd, the viewpoints changed too often towards the end (although I liked how Cameron linked them together), and Spear was Gale. HE WAS ACTUALLY GALE (if Gale lived in the future in Europe). Overall, I am glad I read it, as I want to now read more of Sharon Cameron's books, but there were issues. 4 stars.

I would say that my favourite book of June was A Darker Shade of Magic, but it was a hard choice to make! That concludes my June Book Haul and Wrap-Up! June was a great reading month for me; how was it for you? Have you read any of the books mentioned? What did you think? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading(:

May Book Haul & Wrap Up!

Despite being in the middle of exams, May has been quite a good reading month for me! I read four and a half books, and all of them were really good. I also seemed to have been in a reviewing mood this month; I reviewed three out of the four books I read! And yes, I know I said I was on a book-buying ban, and yes, it does say book haul in the title. BUT, I only received two books: Rook by Sharon Cameron, which I pre-ordered in April and looks STUNNING, and Night School by C.J.Daugherty, which I received from Atom books. So that's progress, right? Let's be honest, fellow booklovers, when we say, "I'm on a book-buying ban", we really mean, "I will be less books this month, but not none."


Onto the books I read in May!

• Cinder by Marissa Meyer. I LOVED this book. At first, I was a little unsure of what to expect as there has been so much hype around The Lunar Chronicles; I was worried that I wouldn't love it as much as everyone else. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised! I gave this 5 stars, and my full review is here.
• Fire With Fire by Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian.  It had been a while since I read Burn for Burn, but I really enjoyed it when I did, and this sequel did not disappoint. 4.5 stars. Full review here.
• And then I read Ashes to Ashes by Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian, the concluding book in the Burn for Burn trilogy, and...wow. 4.5 stars. Full review here.
• The final full book I read in May was The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, and Sarah Rees Brennan. Overall, I loved each story, and it was so nice to be back in the Shadowhunting world I love. The Bane Chronicles was humorous and full of the fantabulous High Warlock of Brooklyn, before he became the High Warlock of Brooklyn. The writing styles of the authors mostly blended together well, and there were malec feels, which made me very happy! And a certain wonderful Welsh Herondale in it, which made me VERY happy. I would have done a full review on it, but school got in the way. Anyway, I gave this book a 4.5 stars, which seems to be my average review rating of this month! What can I say? I read some great books in May!

The book I'm currently reading is Night School by C.J. Daugherty, and a review of it will be up as soon as I can!


What books did you read in May? What was your favourite? Let me know!
Thanks for reading(:

April Book Haul & Wrap Up!

The end of April is upon us, and I have sadly only read 3 books (well, technically three and a half). But I gained lots of books (about 10 or 11), so yay for that!


The first part of this post will be my book haul. As it was April, I was allowed to buy books, which was good because it meant I didn't have to feel guilty when I splurged in Waterstones! These were the books I bought:

• Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver - I have managed to almost buy this book quite a few times, and I finally decided to give in and get it!
• The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson - I've already read this, but I didn't have a physical copy, until now!
• The 100: Homecoming by Kass Morgan - It annoys me how none of The 100's covers match, but I want to see how the series ends.
• Dracula by Bram Stoker - Having read The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters, I really wanted to read Dracula so I could understand the references, and the copy I have is the gorgeous Vintage one!
• The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough - I found this book watching Katytastic's video on April Releases, and the synopsis sounded like The Night Circus. Therefore, I had to buy it, because The Night Circus is amazing and seems to appear in every post I do (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not).
• The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey - because why do you need to have read the first book to buy the sequel?
• We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach - The summary of this with all the labels of people was what made me want to pick this up. I think it'll be different to what I originally thought it would be like, but I'm still excited to read it!

And now for the three books that my dear mum gave me for Easter:

• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater - There have been so many good reviews of this. I kept seeing graphics of it on Tumblr and I wanted to be a part of the fandom!
• The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House by Stephanie Lam - It's set in 1924 and 1965, which immediately intrigued me.
• A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab - I've seen this everywhere, and I loved the idea of parallel worlds. This also seemed like a good VE Schwab book to start with, as I've never read anything by this author before.

Onto my April wrap up! This month has not been particularly fruitful reading-wise, but the books I read were:

• The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters.This was as strong as Cat Winter's debut (In the Shadow of Blackbirds) and the world-building was once again powerful. I loved the characters (Henri especially), but didn't like the ending as much as I wanted to. For a full review, click here). 4.5 stars.
• A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. This was partly a cover buy, and for the most part it didn't disappoint! While Gemma and the others were not initially likeable, they eventually grew on me. The magical elements felt unique to me and there were no weak points in the plot in my opinion. I'm looking forward to reading Rebel Angels, whenever I buy it! 3.75 stars.
• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. It took me a while to adjust to Maggie Stiefvater's writing style, as it's more descriptive than other books I've read, but once I had done that I enjoyed it. The parts about ley lines were a bit confusing, but I was ill when I read it so not everything will have sunk in! The characters were what made this book; each was individual and interesting. My favourite was Noah or Ronan (every moment with that bird was sweet, and that is a hard thing to achieve when said bird is called Chainsaw and it's Ronan Lynch). 4 stars.
• 1/2 of The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House by Stephanie Lam. Now, this was the first adult book I tried to read, so that could have been why I didn't like it. There were certainly points where I felt it was a bit too...graphic, shall we say, which made me feel uncomfortable, but there was also a few plotlines that I felt were unnecessary and pointless. The whole book felt like two stories shoved into one, and while the central plotline was interesting and made me want to continue, every time something was revealed in one of the time periods, it would dart back to the other, which was really annoying. I put this down at about 51 % (I worked it out because my Goodreads doesn't seem to do it anymore). There's a chance I may pick this up again later on now that I know what to expect, but for now it felt better to put it to one side and start another book that I'm looking forward to reading, which is Cinder by Marissa Meyer!

Those were the books I read and the books I bought in April! Have you read any of the books featured in this post? What did you think?
Thanks for reading(:

Book-buying Bans, TBR Jars, and Camp NaNoWriMo Confusion

Somewhere on this page is (hopefully) a picture of my latest book haul, containing: Cinder by Marissa Meyer(I WILL read the Lunar Chronicles before the fourth book comes out!), The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton(I'm not going to lie, I bought it mainly for the cover; I know it's set in Amsterdam and everyone loves it, and that's it), Lola & the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, and These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner.

For those of you who don't know(probably most of you), I'm currently on a book-buying ban, as my TBR books have gone from one small pile to three rather large piles in a worryingly short space if time. Well, I'm meant to be on a book-buying ban, but I broke it(again) at the weekend. Now, I thought I'd share how I plan on changing my ban so it's easier to keep, along with my TBR jar rules.

My book-buying ban was originally meant to be all year, with exceptions towards any books I've been waiting for for ages (like Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray-roll on July!). This failed within...well, by February, because I apparently have no self-control! Now, however, I've come up with a new plan which will hopefully be easier to keep up with.
March-on the ban (we'll just let my most recent book haul...*shoves books to bottom of back pile of TBR pile* what book haul?)
April-off the ban
May-on the ban(probably for the best...I need to focus on exams:/)
June-on the ban(exams again:/)
July-off the ban
August-off the ban
September-on it
October-off it
November-off it
December-on it

I will no doubt break this by the second of May, but at least I can say I tried! For my TBR jar, I use the system of reading five books picked by the jar and then choosing one myself. I also give myself two or three picks from the jar if I don't feel like reading the first one.

And finally, onto Camp NaNoWriMo! I am doing it for the first time this year, which I'm quite excited about. I've set up my account, but I can't change it from April to July, when I'd like to do it. Any suggestions?
Have any of you read the books I've hauled today? If anyone is on a ban at the moment, how is it going? Let me know if you're doing Camp NaNoWriMo, and if you know how to change the dates!
(: