I was going to post this in April, but life kinda got in the way so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Edited lightly for blog form.)
Hello and welcome! In my recent wrap up for March, I asked you if you’d be interested in seeing a book haul. And a few of you said yes, so I’m going to go ahead and do that just because. For those who missed that, last month, I went to a huge book sale by Friends of Seattle Public Library, and I ended up getting 14 books. Yes, I know that’s a lot, but I got everything for 28 dollars, so… That’s not bad for nine hardcovers, and five paperbacks. Not bad at all!
When I say big, I mean big. It was so big, they made a map! They had color coded sections: green – non-fiction; yellow – science fiction, poetry, mystery, paperback books; purple – children; orange – foreign languages; blue – DVDs, records, audiobooks, and so on. There are other little sections, but I’m skipping those. That’s the idea. The book sale was so big, they had to make a map so you could find what you wanted to get.
Honestly though? I didn’t really look for any specific book. I mostly just looked at what was available, and if it looked interesting, I took it. If it was on my TBR, I took it. Some of these were already on my TBR, some were random, looking at the synopsis and thinking it looks interesting, looks like something I will enjoy reading, why not get it.
All of these books are originally library books. So for the paperbacks, you will see the stickers on them still. But for the hardcovers, I was able to do a little bit of snipping, and get all of the plastic covers off. So, because of that, most of the hardcovers look good as new! Okay, I’ve been talking long enough, let’s go ahead and look at the books. I’m not going to tell you a lot about the book, because obviously, I haven’t read them yet. I don’t want to tell you too much, because I like going into books not knowing too much about them, so I can really enjoy the story. I’ll start with the hardcovers, and leave the paperbacks on the shelf for now.
First, The Incendiaries. This is basically a romance story combined with a cult, someone who joins a cult, and things happen from the cult. So. Cool. (Editor: don’t know that’s the right word to use, but we’ll go with it.) I’ve been seeing this on a lot of people’s TBRs, people talking about this a lot, so why not?
I just said that I haven’t read any of these, but that’s a lie. I’ve read the next one, Every Heart a Doorway. This is in my March wrap up, so if you want to know more, go watch that. But this is kind of a magical fantasy kind of book. It’s good!
Next, I got Marrow Island. The cover is just gorgeous. That’s one reason why I picked it up. But also, when I was reading the synopsis, I found out that this is set in the Puget Sound. (Which is in Washington, the bay of water from Tacoma to Everett, that whole water area is called the Puget Sound.) The author was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. So, sure! What more do I need?
Next, another book I picked up because the cover is just gorgeous. The Essex Serpent. This is set in 1893, so it’s historical fiction, and it’s about a woman, Cora, whose husband died and she all of sudden has the life of a widow and whatever. And then a mysterious creature shows up, killing people, and people are freaking out. Cora thinks it might be an undiscovered species, so she’s excited. She’s an amateur naturalist, so she’s excited. And there’s another person who’s like, no this is moral panic, people are just making up things. Who knows, this might be good.
For Boy Erased, my friend picked it up and read the synopsis, thinking maybe, I don’t know. When I saw this, I’m like *gasp* I want to read that! She was like okay, take it! I mean, do I have to say more? People know this is a memoir of a gay man who grew up as the son of a Baptist pastor. So I’m excited to read this, and there’s a movie.
Next is one I’ve seen a lot of people talking about, and that is The Immortalists. Basically, four kids sneak out to see a psychic who tells them when they will die. And that’s the story, of their lives, knowing when they will die. Their fate, basically. My friend that I went with is reading that, and she said it’s so good so far, really good.
The next two books are about kinda the same topic. One is more broad, talking about it as a whole, the other one is focused on specific people who were involved with this. I was trying to decide which one to get, and decided eh, why not just get both. Love Wins is more specifically about the couples and lawyers who were involved in this fight. Winning Marriage is more of a broad, overarching story. I think. That’s what I got from reading the synopses anyway. It might be interesting to see two different books talk about the same topic, so why not?
The last hardcover is a book that Kathy, a friend of mine, has talked about a few times and she recently did a re-read. All Our Wrong Todays. The basic story is… There’s a parallel timeline, world, I don’t know, and there’s one person who grew up in like a utopia of our world. The technology is way ahead, whatever. They use time-travel machines to get to our 2016, and see how different it is and whatever. I think that sounds really fascinating. Time travel… Yes.
The hardcovers are done, now to the paperbacks.
Starting with The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin. I don’t think I’ve actually read any of this author’s books. But from what I’ve seen, she is a really good author. So I’m excited to finally read one of her books. This… I don’t even know what it’s about. From what I remember of this, it’s a little bit of a magical, fantasy kind of book. Sure!
Next is The Orchardist. It’s set in the Pacific Northwest. A man who has an orchard. Obviously. And then two girls show up on his property. They end up staying, and whatever. This story is… set before trains I think. That’s what I remember anyway. At the turn of the 20th century.
I’ve seen a few people that I follow on BookTube talk about The Kiss Quotient for a while now, so when I saw it, why not? If I remember right, this is about a woman who has autism. And she’s clueless about love, so she decides to hire a male escort to teach her. So she can learn, and then it kind of turns into a little bit more romance. That’s what I remember anyway, so it’ll be interesting to read.
The next book, Her Body and Other Parties, is one that my best friend has been bothering me to buy ever since he read it. No. Pestering me to read AND buy it, since he got it. I’m like okay, okay. I’ve read it. It’s really good. When I saw it for really cheap, two dollars, sure. It is good, yes. I don’t remember which month I did a wrap up with this in it, but it’s an anthology of short stories written by Carmen Maria Machado. They’re all different, but they’re all about women. Period. Some of them are queer, some aren’t. Overall, really good.
And we’re on the final book, The Wedding Date. I don’t know how much I will actually like this, but… Basically, a guy asks a woman to go with him to his ex’s wedding and pretend to be his date, because his date bailed out on him or something. So… Why not? Oh, and the cover, the colors are literal. A black woman and a white man. So that’s an interracial dating story. Yeah. I know some of my BookTube friends love this, so I’m hoping I will love this as much as they do.
That’s it for the fourteen books that I got from the Friends of Seattle Public Library book sale. Let me know if you’ve read any of these books, and if you… Think yes, I need to read or eh, don’t really like it, whatever. Let me know down below.
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