Book Box Club September Unboxing!

I have been wanting to try a book box subscription for months now – a while ago, I did a post on different YA book box subscriptions, and decided that my favourite was Book Box Club! At YALC in July, I ordered the September box, and have been looking forward to it all summer long – it was a wonderful surprise last week when I got home from school and it had arrived! This month’s theme was ‘Outlaws’, and I was so happy with everything in the box.

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Review – The Upside of Unrequited

Title: The Upside of Unrequited
Author:  Becky Albertalli
Published by: Puffin
Publication date: 11th April 2017
Pages: 336, paperback
Genre: YA, romance, contemporary, LGBTQ+

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love-she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness-except for the part where she is.
Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny, flirtatious, and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.

There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker, Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

***

Having loved Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, this was one of my most anticipated books of this year. Since the release of this book, I have heard so many amazing things, particularly to do with the outstanding representation in this book. I bought my copy a few months ago, and now I have finally managed to read it!

Review – Lord of Shadows

Title: Lord of Shadows
Author:  Cassandra Clare
Published by: Simon & Schuster UK
Publication date: 23rd May 2017
Pages: 701, paperback
Genre: YA, fantasy, romance

Emma Carstairs has finally avenged her parents. She thought she’d be at peace. But she is anything but calm. Torn between her desire for her parabatai Julian and her desire to protect him from the brutal consequences of parabatai relationships, she has begun dating his brother, Mark. But Mark has spent the past five years trapped in Faerie; can he ever truly be a Shadowhunter again?

And the faerie courts are not silent. The Unseelie King is tired of the Cold Peace, and will no longer concede to the Shadowhunters’ demands. Caught between the demands of faerie and the laws of the Clave, Emma, Julian, and Mark must find a way to come together to defend everything they hold dear—before it’s too late.

***

Lord of Shadows was, without a doubt, my most anticipated release of 2017, and I have been looking forward to reading it for so long. My excitement for this book is older than this blog, in fact. So when I finally sat down to read it this September, I had high hopes, and was ready to delve back into my most-loved fictional world.

Bookshelf Tour!

At the end of the summer holidays, I redid my bedroom; nothing huge, just some new bedding, fairy lights, some pictures to collage my wardrobe – and three new bookshelves above my bed!

Until about two weeks ago, I had five stacks of books on my floor, that had just gotten bigger and bigger all summer, and it was seriously stressing me out. Now, however, I have reordered everything so that all my books have a shelf to go on, and it has made me like my bedroom so much more. I thought I would take you through my different shelves in this blog post, and talk about the ways I have organised each one!

Favourites Shelf

This is definitely my favourite shelf of all – it makes me so unbelievably happy to see my favourite books all lined up like this. I did not include my favourite series’ in this, because there are a number of trilogies I adore, plus the entire Shadowhunters franchise, so there simply wouldn’t be space for all of them (although, if I’m being completely honest – I haven’t actually read the whole of The Upside of Unrequited yet. I thought it looked nice on the shelf, and I’m really hoping it will be a favourite. From what I’ve heard, I’m almost certain it will be!). As I don’t have any bookends yet, I’m using a money bank on one end of the shelf, and this picture of Taylor Swift my (amazingly talented) friend Anna drew for me a few years ago!

A Most Exciting Autumn: 2017 Releases

I’ve never been one to blog about upcoming releases – in the Spring, one of my first ever blog posts was on Autumn releases in 2016, but I never really made it a Thing. However, this Autumn marks the release of some books that I have been excited for all year round, and so I couldn’t help but share them all with you!

Rapid Fire Book Tag

Today I am taking part in another book tag – this is one my sister Jess did over on her blog, Bookends and Endings, and although she did not tag anyone, I thought it looked like a lot of fun! The point of this tag is that there are lots of questions, but the answers are short and to the point, which I think will be quite refreshing (especially as I think I tend to waffle on a bit sometimes, accidentally). So on with the tag!

Reading goals: productive or limiting?| discussion

Hello, lovely readers – it feels as if I’ve been very absent on this blog, and on Twitter the past couple of weeks. That is because, due to my outstanding organisation skills, all of my holiday work was left until the very last minute (and I am now back at school, starting A Levels. But more on that in another post, maybe?). But now I’m back, writing another discussion post!

I’ve been thinking recently about reading slumps, and how having a TBR for each month may help prevent one. I know that, for me, a reading slump can often be brought on by not knowing what to read next – that is, what I feel like reading, what I should be reading, and so on. There’s too much choice, and that makes it feel like there is no choice at all. Therefore, by having a TBR every month, you can decide beforehand and then continue on from there. I also think that, if you set yourself a goal, you may strive harder to read the books you have set out to read, especially if you’ve blogged about it at the start of the month.

On the other hand, you may decide that you really don’t feel like reading a book on your monthly TBR, which could maybe lead to you not reading at all! If you’re struggling to read them all, wouldn’t that be stressful, and at the end of the month, kind of demoralising?