Everything I Read in October | WRAP UP

I totally forgot that a wrap up was a post I needed to write so here I am, at 7pm after work, writing this. I’m also listening to Christmas music because it’s almost my favorite time of the year. It was below 65 today and it was glorious. October is finally over so here’s all the things I read in the last month:

  • The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

This year I realized how much I love Gillian Flynn’s books. I read Sharp Objects and Gone Girl and loved them both. I decided to give this short story a chance because it was all they had by her at my library. It was SO good. I’m not huge on short stories but this one is worth the read, especially if you want something short and spooky.

My rating: ★★★★ out of ★★★★★ (4/5 stars)

  • Why I March: Images from the Woman’s March Around the World by Emma Jacobs

I got this at my library because I wanted to buy it when it came out but couldn’t. It’s essentially just pictures from the Women’s March but I sat and read all the protest signs and it was lovely. I don’t quite know how to rate a book that’s only pictures but I liked it!

My rating: ★★★★ out of ★★★★★ (4/5 stars)

  • the Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

I got a bunch of graphic novels from the library and I loved this one the most. The illustrations are gorgeous and the story is the cutest thing in the world.

My rating: ★★★★ out of ★★★★★ (4/5 stars)

  • Carrie by Stephen King

I wanted to get in the spooky mood so I read Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie. I wish I had read the book before the movie. I knew what was going to happen and the movie didn’t seem to differ much. Glad I can say I’ve read Stephen King now though!

My rating: ★★★ out of ★★★★★ (3/5 stars)

  • the Library Book by Susan Orlean

Ugh, I loved this book so much. I really wish I had my own copy because I loved it so much. It’s about the Los Angeles library fire, the mystery of it all, and the history of libraries as well. I learned so much from this book and her writing is impeccable. There’s some passages from this book I just want to read over and over again because they’re so good.

My rating: ★★★★★ out of ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

  • Aphrodite Made Me Do It by Trista Mateer

You can read my review for this book here.

My rating: ★★★★ out of ★★★★★ (4/5 stars)

  • Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

I really wish I could give this five stars and obsess over it like everyone else is. I just couldn’t get into it. I was bored most of the time and I barely wanted to pick it up when I had time to read. Personally, I don’t think enough happened in this book for me. It’s not bad writing and the story itself isn’t bad, but the pacing wasn’t my favorite and I struggled with it because of that.

I also don’t agree with people saying this is an “adult Harry Potter” (lol I think Stephen King said that) but to me, it’s not. Just because it has magic in it doesn’t make it comparable. Also, I was kinda thrown off that this entire book essentially about drug use and selling? lol

My rating: ★★★ out of ★★★★★ (3/5 stars)

  • To Drink Coffee with a Ghost by Amanda Lovelace

I read this at like 11pm last night because I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t my favorite work by her but I think that’s just because I couldn’t relate to it. It’s not bad by any means — Amanda is a great writer and I think if you’re grieving, you’d find immense solace in this book.

My rating: ★★★ out of ★★★★★ (3/5 stars)

 

and that’s it! I read 8 books in October. What did you read this past month? I’d love to know. 🙂

 

Find any of these books as your local bookstore!

 

To hear my thoughts elsewhere, follow me on social media: Goodreads | BookTube | Instagram | Twitter

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October Book Releases | 2019

Ah, it’s finally October. The best month of the entire year. With the wonderful season of Fall comes amazing book releases. October is no exception! Here’s a list of some popular book releases coming out in October, 2019:

ADULT

  • Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) by Leigh Bardugo [October 8th, 2019]
  • Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky [MY REVIEW] [October 1st, 2019]
  • Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren [REVIEW TO COME] [October 22nd, 2019] 
  • Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris [October 1st, 2019]
  • Find Me by André Aciman [October 29th, 2019]

YOUNG ADULT

  • The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh [October 8th, 2019]
  • The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys [October 1st, 2019]
  • Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett [October 29th, 2019]
  • Rebel by Marie Lu [October 1st, 2019]
  • I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi [October 22nd, 2019] 

 

Pre-order any of these at your local bookstore

 

To hear my thoughts elsewhere, follow me on social media: Goodreads | BookTube | Instagram | Twitter

5 Books I’m Extremely Excited About

Good afternoon! Here’s a little list of all the books I am EXTREMELY excited for. I have pre-ordered almost all of these books and I am just awaiting their release. Are you looking forward to any of these? Let me know!

 

  • Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

44017627“The story is supposed to be over.

Simon Snow did everything he was supposed to do. He beat the villain. He won the war. He even fell in love. Now comes the good part, right? Now comes the happily ever after…

So why can’t Simon Snow get off the couch?

What he needs, according to his best friend, is a change of scenery. He just needs to see himself in a new light…

That’s how Simon and Penny and Baz end up in a vintage convertible, tearing across the American West.

They find trouble, of course. (Dragons, vampires, skunk-headed things with shotguns.) And they get lost. They get so lost, they start to wonder whether they ever knew where they were headed in the first place…

With Wayward Son, Rainbow Rowell has written a book for everyone who ever wondered what happened to the Chosen One after he saved the day. And a book for everyone who was ever more curious about the second kiss than the first. It’s another helping of sour cherry scones with an absolutely decadent amount of butter.

Come on, Simon Snow. Your hero’s journey might be over – but your life has just begun.”

Release Date: September 24th, 2019

Carry On is one of my favorite books and I’m so excited that it’s getting a sequel. I wrote all about why I love this book in this blog post dedicated to it!

  • House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

44778083.jpg“Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life. By day, she works for an antiquities dealer, selling barely legal magical artifacts, and by night, she parties with her friends, savouring every pleasure Lunathion—otherwise known as Crescent City— has to offer. But it all comes crumbling down when a ruthless murder shakes the very foundations of the city—and Bryce’s world.

Two years later, her job has become a dead end, and she now seeks only blissful oblivion in the city’s most notorious nightclubs. But when the murderer attacks again, Bryce finds herself dragged into the investigation and paired with an infamous Fallen angel whose own brutal past haunts his every step.

Hunt Athalar, personal assassin for the Archangels, wants nothing to do with Bryce Quinlan, despite being ordered to protect her. She stands for everything he once rebelled against and seems more interested in partying than solving the murder, no matter how close to home it might hit. But Hunt soon realizes there’s far more to Bryce than meets the eye—and that he’s going to have to find a way to work with her if they want to solve this case.

As Bryce and Hunt race to untangle the mystery, they have no way of knowing the threads they tug ripple through the underbelly of the city, across warring continents, and down to the darkest levels of Hel, where things that have been sleeping for millennia are beginning to stir…”

Release Date: January 28th, 2020

I’m SO happy that Sarah J. Maas finally decided to write an Adult fantasy series. I used to love Throne of Glass but was kind of sad about the direction it went. I haven’t read the final book, Kingdom of Ash, but will try to get to it sometime this year.

  • Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks

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“Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.

Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye every Halloween, and they’re reunited every September 1.

But this Halloween is different—Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last good-bye.

Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: What if—instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut—they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he’s been mooning over for three years . . .

What if their last shift was an adventure?”

Release Date: August 27th, 2019

I will buy literally anything written by Rainbow Rowell but this Fall theme SENDS ME! I am so pumped.

  • Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

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“The mesmerizing adult debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.”

Release Date: October 1st, 2019

Listen, I love Leigh Bardugo’s writing but I cannot wait for this adult NON-GRISHA (Yes, you heard that right) book. I am living for the cult theme that seems to take place in this novel. I have it pre-ordered already because I’m beyond excited to finally read something by Leigh Bardugo that’s not the Grisha-verse. I’m also so happy so many YA authors are going out of their comfort zones to write books like these. Expect a review for this book!

  • Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

31373184“The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .”

 

Release Date: November 5th, 2019

If there’s anything I needed from Maggie Stiefvater, it was another Ronan centered book but instead, I’m getting a whole trilogy! This sounds fantastic and you bet I already have this book pre-ordered.

7 Novels Coming to the Big Screen

There’s been so much book to movie adaptation news recently that I couldn’t help but make a list of some that I’m incredibly excited for.

 

1. Moxie by Jennifer Matthieu

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About the Movie: Moxie by Jennifer Matthieu was recently Paper Kite, a production company owned by both Amy Poehler and Brooke Posch. To get familiar with the production company, try watching Broad Girls on Hulu. It’s the best. Right now, the movie stands in the pre-production stage and it hasn’t been shared who is writing the screenplay. The release date is unknown.

To learn a little more about Moxie, here’s the book description:

“Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with her small-town Texas high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes and hallway harassment. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.

Viv’s mom was a punk rock Riot Grrrl in the ’90s, so now Viv takes a page from her mother’s past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. Pretty soon Viv is forging friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, and she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.”

 

2. On the Come Up By Angie Thomas

downloadAbout the Movie: As you might already know, The Hate U Give was released in 2018 and raised 34.9 million USD in the box office. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas was picked up Fox who also adapted the Hate U Give. George Tillman Jr. is directing On the Come Up but there’s obviously no set release date yet.

To learn a little more about On the Come Up, here’s a description:

“Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least make it out of her neighborhood one day. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died before he hit big, Bri’s got big shoes to fill. But now that her mom has unexpectedly lost her job, food banks and shutoff notices are as much a part of Bri’s life as beats and rhymes. With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it—she has to make it.

On the Come Up is Angie Thomas’s homage to hip-hop, the art that sparked her passion for storytelling and continues to inspire her to this day. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; of the struggle to become who you are and not who everyone expects you to be; and of the desperate realities of poor and working-class black families”

3. Looking for Alaska by John Green

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About the Show: Looking for Alaska was picked up by Hulu to be adapted into a mini-series. The main characters including side characters have already been cast. John Green has even made a video about them and with them on their Youtube channel, the Vlog Brothers. I’ll link them here. Miles is set to be played by Charlie Plummer and Alaska to be played by Kristine Froseth. Looking for Alaska had been owned by Paramount but they were apparently terrible towards John Green so now it’s not being made into a movie. It’s now being done by Hulu and I couldn’t be more happier. As for a release date, there isn’t one yet.

To learn a little more about the book, here’s a description:

“Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .
After. Nothing is ever the same.”

4. Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

reid_9781524798628_jkt_all_r1.indd About the Show: Amazon has picked up Daisy Jones & the Six to be a limited series on their streaming service, Amazon Prime TV. It has plans to be a 13 episode series made by both Amazon studios and Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine banner. To get a feel of Reese Witherspoon’s production, watch Big Little Lies. As for the music, it’ll be made exclusively through Amazon Music. I can’t wait to hear Daisy Jones & the Six! This was recently announced so there’s no casting yet or release date.

Here’s a little bit more about the book:

“Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.”

 

5. Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo

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About the Show: The Grisha trilogy is coming to Netflix! This was announced earlier this year. The two books that were mentioned specifically are both Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. I’m not sure how they will connect but they plan to have a series set in the “Grisha-verse.” As far as I’m concerned, the series will be around eight episodes. It’s being produced by Eric Heisserer, Shawn Levy, and Pouya Shahbazian. There’s no release date or no set cast yet.

Here’s the book description: 

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.”

 

6. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

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About the Movie: I’ve been following this movie announcement for so long. I read this book whenever it had come out in 2014 and I was so nervous when I heard the movie was going to be released. It’s currently in post-production but has a cast, director, etc. It’s being produced by Echo Lake Entertainment and FilmNation entertainment but is to be distributed by Netflix. Elle Fanning was cast to play the main character back in 2014 but recently, Justice Smith was cast to play Theodore Finch. Jennifer is co-writing the screenplay with Liz Hannah. There isn’t a set release date but I’m guessing sometime this year or 2020?

Here’s a little more about the book:The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.
 
Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.”

 

7. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

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About the Movie: Fox announced they own the rights to Turtles in December of last year. This is John Green’s most recent book release and apparently, his most personal. I read this book and loved it dearly so I can’t wait to see how it’s done in movie format. Hannah Marks, the youngest studio director in history, is directing this film. She’s 25. This is very early in the process so there is no set cast or release date!

If you haven’t read Turtles, here’s the description: “It all begins with a fugitive billionaire and the promise of a cash reward. Turtles All the Way Down is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and tuatara. But at its heart is Aza Holmes, a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

In his long-awaited return, John Green shares Aza’s story with shattering, unflinching clarity.”

 

 

Now, movies are always uncertain so some of these projects could fall through. I have faith in them, though! I also want to note that there’s obviously so many more adaptations coming out but I’m most excited about these ones. I might end up making another post to share the rest.

 

Have you read any of these books? Are you more excited or nervous about the movie adaptations?