New Books: The Christmas and Upcoming Semester Edition

I'm trying a new thing! A book haul, obviously, of the books I acquired/received within the last months. Honestly, these are a lot of books, especially for my standards. I usually get 2-3 new books every couple of months (unless I find some on the street/go to a secondhand bookstore but then again those aren't "new" books A bracket presented to you by: me justifying excessive book-buying) but my family is awesome and likes to give me lots and lots of books as presents. Also this haul includes the books I knew I'd need to get for the next semester. (Plus three more books I purchased for various other reasons.) So, yeah, I don't know whether people are actually interested in this but I thought I'd give it a shot, it's not like I could do this often. 

Christmas Presents

Fun fact: These are all books I'm suuuper excited about. My family made me create a list of books I really want to read so they could have a reference for presents (though there is one book here they picked out on their own volition) meaning that I'm expecting to love all of these books.

 

• Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A. S. King: I've been interested in reading books by A. S. King for quite a while and I, pretty randomly, decided on trying this one first. I have no idea what it is about (that's how I like it) but I'm EXCITED!
• All the Rage by Courtney Summers: Last year I read my first Summers book and absolutely loved it. Naturally, I immediately decided that I want to read all of her books super urgently (well, actually I already had about 3 of her books on my goodreads "tbr" shelf so I've been interested in her for a while, this was just the last straw for me to be uber excited for this particular book). I think it is about rape? I'm pretty sure it'll break my heart.
• Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston: First of all: I love both the title and the cover. Secondly: I'm really interested in E. K. Johnston. Thirdly: I also think this is about rape but I think it won't just break my heart but also heal it again afterwards? 

Come to think of it: Rape seems to be an almost unofficial theme throughout a lot of these books. I don't even know how that happened. I mean, even The Handmaid's Tale has lots of rape in it. Do I want to be depressed for the rest of my life?

• Through the Woods by Emily Carroll: This book, omg, it's so gorgeous. Honestly, I could just stare at it for hours on end. It's a graphic novel so it won't take much time to read but I'm waiting until after I'm done with exams/essays for this (or rather last) semester so I can just fully immerse myself in it without feeling guilty for not studying.
• More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera: If you've been keeping up with new releases for the last couple of years I won't have to tell you why I want to read this. Which is great, because I purposely forgot what it is about so I couldn't tell you anything about it besides: Everyone loves it and I want to love it, too.
• The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis: I've heard amazing things about this book and ever since I've tried to blank out all the plot-information as I like to do because going into a books without knowing anything about it is how I roll (as I have repeatedly explained by now). Fun fact, though: I somehow had the idea in my head that this was a play and I don't know why?

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J. K. Rowling, illustrated by Olivia Lomenech Gill: This is the book my family picked for me without "consulting me first", wich is great because, although it is fantastically (haha!) beautiful I would never have asked for it (I'm annoyingly pedantic sometimes).

Presents From Me to Myself

• Der Elefant verschwindet by Haruki Murakami: This book I "had" to get for bookclub but, frankly, I've been wanting to read Murakami for a while so I'm very excited for this.
• Demons in Disguise by A. & E. Kirk: If want to know why I can't wait to get to Demons in Disguise read this review. And then read the Divinicus Nex Chronicles, if you like fun and laughing.
• Restmensch by Daniel G. Spieker & Devon Wolters: So, you know how I just said that I'm going to read Murakami for bookclub? Yeah, so, two of the three people from bookclub are the authors of this one. Need I say more?

Reading List

(Sidenote: I'm not including obvious textbooks in this. Because no one is interested in The Norton Anthology of English Literature unless you need it and, in that case, please get the edition that splits the two parts into six books because having two 3000+ words books are such a pain. You can't even carry them around with you - well, you can and I've done that with part 1 but it's stupidly heavy and also takes up all the space.)

• Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner: I have no idea what this is about but the chapters are suuper long. Yes, that is all I know about it (well, and that the cover is pretty). 
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: We had to get a special edition for this one and I'm not sure whether this is it (that actually applies to all of these books) but it is ... an edition. I've listened to an audiobook of this before so I'm looking forward to actually reading it. 
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: I've already read this, yay me! And I was surprised by how much I liked this. I do prefer the Easy A movie (it's just so funny? I quite recently re-watched it and I thought it might have "turned stupid" since I last saw it years ago but it was still so funny because I actually understood the jokes and references.), though, as would most people (in case you're wondering: yes, I'm recommending you don't read this book).

 

• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: I'm currently reading this (I had planned on finishing it yesterday but biology currently takes up 3/4 of my day and Dickens will just have to take the backseat for a bit) and, once again, I'm surprised by how much I like this book. The beginning was super funny then it entered into a brief 100-200 pages phase of boredom but it gets back on track about 2/3rds in.

And that's it, which is perfect because I really need to get back to studying. I hope you enjoyed and happy reading!