The Whoops I Went To The Library Even Though My TBR Pile Is Drowning Me Edition

Someone buy me a straight jacket, I have no self control. On my Discord group, a few people were discussing trips to the library and my obsessed brain immediately went, 'ooh I could do that, I have a library'. I also have a TBR pile of over 100 books, so naturally I did the sensible thing and went to the library.

Well the library proved to be a treasure trove of YA books, with the YA books section being ALL. OF. THIS. I swear at once point I started picking up books and humming happily to myself.

I mean look at all that. And most of them are fairly recently releases from the last couple of years! I spent a good hour browsing and picking books and left with a very reasonable five books.

Not pictured: The Wind In The Wall. So this is a perfectly reasonable stack of books. 

And I've already read all of them except A Curse So Dark And Lonely.

Not A Problem At All.

So anyway I went back a week later and got these too.

(And yes I did make a blog post about how great I am now at managing stress let's just pretend that didn't happen)

Many Covers Monday: Why Are The UK Harry Potter Covers So... Spoilery?

Spoilers. Obviously. In fact let's do this whole post as if we were CinemaSins on Youtube.

The UK Harry Potter book covers are my favourite, they're colourful, exciting and the art completely captures my vision of Harry Potter. There's just one problem.. Huge, HUGE spoilers.

What does this spoil? Well, absolutely nothing. This cover is great!

What does this spoil? WHAT DOESN'T THIS SPOIL. As you must know at the end of the book it's revealed that the culprit is a giant basilisk *ding* which Harry finds in the Chamber of Secrets when he's looking for Ginny (who you can see in the background so *ding*. He defeats the Basilisk when Fawkes *ding* chucks the sorting hat at him *ding* and he pulls a sword out of it *ding ding ding*

What does this spoil? Well the majority of this book involves Harry trying to defeat the Dementors by producing a fully formed patronus *ding*. When he's lying across the lake being attacked by Dementors he sees his Dad produce a stag patronus *ding* which we later discover was actually Harry, after he went back in time *ding*. It's actually a real shame the cover spoils what form the patronus will take.

What does this spoil? Compared to the previous two this one isn't too bad but it does spoil the entire first challenge *ding* AND the fact that Harry completes it using his broom *ding*

What does this spoil? At least this one isn't immediately obvious what is spoilery and likely any reader will not notice until after reading BUT this does spoil Harry's trip on the Thestrals *ding* that doesn't happen until about 80% into the book (which at 800 pages is pretty bloody far) plus it shows that he has quite a bit of company too *ding*

What does this spoil? basically the scene that's in the last 70% of the book where Harry teams up with Dumbledore *ding* to try and retrieve the Horcrux *ding*. Attacked by inferi (ZOMBIES), Dumbledore throws fire at them via his wand *ding*.

What does this spoil? Well I was going to give this one a free pass because if you didn't expect an epic Potter/Voldy showdown at the end of the series you're MAD. MAD I TELL YOU. However this does giveaway the location of the meeting *ding*

Spoilers: 18
Sentence: DETENTION. OR WORSE, EXPELLED.

Many Covers Monday - ALL THE HARRY POTTER SERIES

After it was not so recently revealed that the classic, original covers were to go out of print and replaced with new, shiny covers, I thought I'd do something crazy this Monday. Harry Potter. But not the first book, no! This Monday I'm showcasing... entire sets of the books. Cool, but a lot of work. And a lot of tabs.

These won't just be the covers you know and love, I've included international sets of the books too, which I've never seen before. Not all of the covers are here, but most of them are.

(Ignore the random pattern for the last image. I wanted to tile them right)

(This post was originally posted back in 2014 and since I'm re-reading the whole series I thought I might as well go for a full Harry Potter week on my blog by sharing my most popular post with new cover sets added.

UK - these are the new covers revealed by Bloomsbury recently. These are my favourite covers, I wasn't impressed initially but the amazing covers won my over. However these covers are REALLY SPOILERY.

US - The original Scholastic covers. Some reprints may have sneaked in here, but the art is all the same. It seems in America they were content with just changing the font colour every so often, whereas in the UK you could walk into a single bookstore and pick out three very different covers. We even had 'adult editions'! I really like these covers. They're not spoilery but very eye catching and I love that the art seems to get better with age. Although, the US felt that changing Philosopher's to Sorcerer's Stone would be best, as apparently you're all too stupid to know what a Philosopher is.

What If Young Adult Books But Fast Food?

Welcome to a post I thought up while washing some pots. I feel like I should be explaining my reasoning behind making this post here but my only thoughts are... um idk.

So yeah.

About three things I was absolutely positive.
 

First, Big Mac was a hamburger.
 

Second, there was a part of me—and I didn't know how  dominant that part might   be—that thirsted for his sauce.
 

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with  him.

What if all the tacos you ever had eaten found out how you

 felt about them… all at once?

Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her old taco wrappers in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t taco wrappers that anyone else gave her; these are ones she’s eaten. One for every taco she’s ever eaten—five in all. When she eats, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her tacos are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret wrappers are mailed.

Finishing them will make you famous.
Losing means certain death.

 

  

When Eragon finds an Original Glazed Donut in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the Donut brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and donuts. With only an ancient moldy donut and the advice of an old storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a king whose evil knows no bounds.

 

Can Anna find love in the City of Chicken?

Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a an addiction to popcorn at the movie theater. So she's less than thrilled when her father decides to send her to a fried chicken restaurant in Paris for her senior year.

But despite being a vegan, Anna meets some cool new people, including the handsome Étienne St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately, he's taken —and Anna might be, too. Will a year of romantic near misses end with the fried chicken she's waiting for?

I don't know where my life is heading either.

The Year Of Disappointing Sequels

I can't catch a break this year. I've started catching up on book series I missed but even when I originally loved the first book or the series, there's something missing that stops it from being a fantastic read overall. Let's have a look at what went wrong so far this year:

   

The Chemical Garden Trilogy

I was obsessed with Wither when it was released back in 2011. The writing was gorgeous, the dystopian plot about a girl married to man she did not want (like Handmaid's Tale) really appealed to me and I knew that the next book would be amazing. I finally binge read the series as a whole when I started reading again this February and was so disappointed. Fever completely lost the gorgeous writing, the love interest Gabriel became little more than cardboard and the plot was ridiculous (a carnival brothel only Rhine magically kept her virginity because some reasons). Sever and it's truly awful cover followed (it's a green screen. come on.) and just never really took off, Rhine meandered around for the majority of the book, the Chemical Garden was barely mentioned and the ending was wrapped up as fast as possible. Plus characters were kiled off that shouldn't have been. BOO. HISS.

   

The 5th Wave Trilogy

 In this series defense, I did not think it was mind blowingly amazing when I started it, giving The 5th Wave just 3 stars. However the sequels got 4 stars each so they did pick up the pace. When I started the 5th Wave it reminded me that I'd watched the movie at Christmas and I couldn't help but think that the movie was better, it was less messy. The other two books felt pretty long but there was plenty of banter between the characters to keep me reading. Actually there was probably too many characters, there was a lot of different POVs used. The final book did use a trope that I know a lot of readers can't stand, which I won't mention for spoilery reasons. It's a pretty great sci-fi/apocalyptic story, I just think it could have been done better.

   

The Selection... Trilogy. Sort of.

Officially The Selection is a trilogy however there's a second series, The Heir, making 5 books in total, not including novellas. These three are dedicated to America Singer, a girl who signs up for a dystopian version of The Bachelor after her parents promise her she can start making her own money. With no desire to marry a Prince she doesn't know, she never expects to be selected. Obviously, she is. I did rate these books 4, 3 and 4 but they just didn't have the same wow factor as the first time I read them. I began to depise Maxon by the last book and the love triangle really got on my nerves at times. I probably rated them higher for nostalgia if anything.

   

The Illuminae Files Trilogy

No-one can hear you swearing in space. No, really, because every use of a swear word is blacked out. Which is only about 10 times a page. Each book is about 600 pages long, so that's only 18,000 times I had to fill in the blanks. This space opera romance series is pretty freaking amazing and the use of files and documents to tell a story really works but Obsidio was a complete let down. It introduced two more characters after we already have 5 main characters from the previous books, when instead it should have concentrated on them. I didn't care for the couple and the swearing really started to grate.

   

Ultraviolet Duology

Ultraviolet is another book that I read back in 2011. A big reason I'm doing a sequel catch up now is because Goodreads now allows re-reads, whereas before I couldn't remember the first book when the second was released, so I'd leave it as I wanted it to count towards my goal. Ultraviolet was amazing, the story of a girl trapped in a mental hospital with synesthesia after a girl she fought with disappears. The second book switched the POV to a different girl and the writing just fell apart. It was pretty cliched, there wasn't much plot and I left feeling pretty disappointed after Ultraviolet was so good.

   

 Shades Of London Series

Guess when I first read The Name Of The Star? 2011? Ding ding ding we have a winner! Apparently to stop reading bad sequels I need to just avoid everything off of my 2011 list. I re-read The Name Of The Star and loved it all over again, a bloody tale of a modern day Jack The Ripper. So naturally I couldn't wait to get stuck into the next two books and find out what ghostly mysteries we would be solving. Well that never happened because both of those books and likely the next book which hasn't been released yet is centered around this 1970s cult and ghosts really don't feature that much. I bloody hate cult stories.

   

Everlife Trilogy

I was initially a bit wary of this series as Gena does usually write what looks to be steamy paranormal romances. However the first two books proved to be pretty good, about a girl who has to choose between two realms when she dies, I loved the unique concept. After being let down by second book syndrome so much I was pleased that I really enjoyed Lifeblood. However a dual POV between Ten and Killian, the main couple was a terrible idea because Killian had no personality whatsoever. All he thought about was how great Ten was and that was half of the book. All the of plot advancement was in the last 25% so I was pretty bored.

That's all the series that I've read this year so far and I've been disappointed in every single one of them! I realised that I'm chasing the same high that I got when I finished The Winner's Trilogy and I'm really hoping at least one series this year lives up to that. I'll do a second post later this year with the next series that I read and see if there's any better ones!