Like always, I spent a good chunk of this month thinking that I wouldn’t have too much to mention in my Stacking the Shelves post. I added around 90 books to my TBR, many of which were added in the past couple of weeks because I saw them mentioned on blogs and/or vlogs that I follow. This time around, I got a lot of new book ideas from Destiny at Howling Libraries‘s posts, and from CeCe at ProblemsOfABookNerd on Youtube, so thank you both! My TBR is currently at 3110 books in total, after going through it today and removing a surprising amount that were on there twice somehow. I have no idea when I’ll be getting around to any of these, but I at least wanted them on my list as a reminder to eventually check them out!
Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme all about the books we are adding to our shelves each week. It is hosted by TyngaReviewsand ReadingReality.
1) After the End by Clare Mackintosh
I added this one because of Clare Mackintosh’s name alone, only to realize that this was quite the departure from the rest of her books so far. To be fair, I’ve only read one with another one planned for some time this year. This book is about a couple, Max and Pip, who seem to have an unshakeable relationship until their son gets sick with a terminal illness, and they are forced to decide what to do. The synopsis for this one is incredibly vague, but it has been compared to My Sister’s Keeper, which is one of my favourite books. This definitely seems like a very different kind of story for Clare Mackintosh, but I really loved her writing in the one book I’ve read so far (I Let You Go). It’s always a bit hit-or-miss when an author decides to go so far outside of their usual genre, but I’m interested to see how she does with this one. Clare Mackintosh does seem to be good at writing character-driven stories, so I’m hoping this one will be just as strong.
2) The Warehouse by Rob Hart
I can’t even remember where I first saw this one, but something about the cover drew me to it. It is about a man named Paxton who works for Cloud, a giant tech company that has taken over the American economy, and is moving into one of their facilities where employees can live. It is also about a woman named Zinnia who is working undercover to find out and expose Cloud’s secrets, only to realize that Paxton might be the employee she needs to get the information she needs. I’ve seen several reviews comparing this one to both 1984 and Brave New World, which seems pretty interesting. I don’t read science fiction very often, but this one intrigues me enough to consider giving it a chance. It has just come out this August, so I’m very interested to see more reviews for it as more people pick it up. So far, it does not seem very well-known on Goodreads, so I’m curious to see if interest picks up given the potentially very interesting plot.
3) You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
I’ve definitely started to add more adult romances to my TBR over the past year or two, even though it is a genre I don’t pick up too often. They are the kinds of books that I need to be in the right mood to try, but I often end up enjoying them. It is about a woman named Naomi who has a seemingly perfect life, including a fiance, Nicholas who she is set to marry in three months. Unfortunately, Naomi decides she is tired of Nicholas and his family’s ridiculously high standards, but can’t call off the wedding because whoever is the one to walk away will need to foot the bill for everything they paid for the wedding so far. She soon realizes that Nicholas also wants to call things off, and the two of them battle it out to see who can make the other walk away first. This sounds like such a fun, though likely predicable, rom-com, and it is something I could easily see watching as a movie. I have seen a few mentions of comparisons to The Hating Game, which also sounds promising. This book is not out until next April, but it sounds like it will be a lot of fun!
4) Here to Stay by Mark Edwards
I have so many of Mark Edwards books on my TBR, and I really enjoyed the one of his that I have read so far (The Magpies). This one is his most recent release, due out this month, and it definitely plays into my random pattern of being drawn to books with houses on the cover. It is about a man named Elliot who marries Gemma, and quickly agrees to let her parents stay with them for a couple of weeks, without really realizing what he has agreed to. Along with her parents is also Gemma’s sister Chloe, a mysterious young woman who won’t speak or leave her room, causing Elliot to wonder if his in-laws are hiding some kind of dark secret. As they become more entrenched in the house, it starts to become clear that his in-laws have no intention of leaving, and Elliot decides to dig into the family’s past in attempt to protect his wife and preserve their marriage. If this book is anything like The Magpies, it is something that I’m very likely to enjoy. I tend to love these kinds of domestic thrillers, and this one seems to have a bit of a different angle compared to others that I’ve read so far.
5) Lost You by Haylen Beck
I think this was another one that I found while browsing for new and upcoming thrillers. It was released at the beginning of August, and focuses on a woman named Libby who is a single parent to three-year-old Ethan. Having just sold her first novel, Libby and Ethan are set to go on a long-awaited vacation with Libby seems paranoid about her son’s safety, worrying that something might happen to him because of what happened shortly after his birth — a story which she has never shared with anyone. Three days into their trip, Ethan wanders into an elevator alone and disappears before Libby can reach him. After several hours of searching, the police and Libby manage to track down a woman seen with the child and corner her, only for this woman to claim that she is the child’s mother. To be clear, none of the above is spoilers since it is all revealed in the Goodreads synopsis, but it sounds like a very interesting thriller with the potential for a lot of twists.
6) What You Did by Claire McGowan
This is another one that I must have found while looking for thrillers. It is about a group of six university friends who reunite after twenty years. The host of the evening, Ali, finally has the life she’d always wanted and is married to her college boyfriend, Mike. However, the evening takes a dark turn when Ali’s best friend Karen stumbles out of the garden claiming that she has been assaulted by Mike. Ali is forced to take sides and figure out which of them might be lying and why. The incident also forces her to look back on their college years and realize that the time there might not have been the golden years that she once thought. I’ve seen quite mixed reviews for this one so far, which is not really unexpected given the subject matter and the fact that thrillers in general seem to get mixed reviews overall. It sounds like a very interesting story, and exactly the kind of mystery/thriller that I tend to enjoy.
7) This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
I came back to this book a few times before finally deciding to add it to my TBR. It is a middle grade graphic novel, which is not something that I often read, but it somehow kept catching my attention. It is about a boy named Ben who sets out with his classmates to find out what happens to the paper lanterns that are released at the annual Autumn Equinox Festival. The friends make a pact that no one will go home and no one will look back. They set out to follow the river by bike for as long as it takes to find out what happens, but it doesn’t take long for everyone but Ben and another boy, Nathaniel, to break the pact and go home. Together, they travel down the road and discover an unexpected friendship, and apparently a talking bear, according to the synopsis. To be honest, it was mostly the mention of the talking bear that put me off this one in the first place since it seemed so random and out of place, but the rest of the story intrigues me enough to give it a chance.
8) Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon
I really enjoyed When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon and have several more of her books on my TBR, but I was surprised to see that this one was set to be a fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It is about a princess named Jaya, who is seeking revenge against the Emerson clan for targeting her younger sister. When Jaya learns that she will be going to the same boarding school as Grey Emerson, she plots to make him fall for her and then break his heart, only to realize that she may be falling for him for real. Grey, on the other hand, is misanthropic and isolates himself due to an ancient curse that he knows will doom him once he turns 18. He plans to live an isolated life until he meets Jaya, and can’t shake the feeling that she must be hiding something. Although I think this book might be a bit predictable, I really like Beauty and the Beast retellings and I generally love boarding school settings as well. it sounds like a great setting for this kind of story and I’m curious to see how it plays out. This book is not due out until February though, so it will be quite a while to wait.
9) Ghoster by Jason Arnopp
I was drawn to this one because it is a social media-related thriller, which is something that always captures my interest. It is about a woman named Kate who was supposed to move in with her new boyfriend Scott, only to find that he has disappeared by the time she arrives, leaving nothing but his cellphone. She decides to hack into his phone to try and find out what happened, which seems to spark a series of creepy events, including whispering phone calls and weird marks on the walls. Kate refuses to leave the apartment until she finds out what happened to Scott, but the more she digs into his online history, the more she realizes that she may not have known him at all. I’m a bit nervous about this one since it is also tagged as horror, which is a genre that I don’t often read since they really freak me out, but the rest of the synopsis sounds intriguing enough that I’d still like to give it a try. This book is coming out in late October, so I definitely won’t be getting to it this year, but it is one I would like to look out for.
10) Gloom Town by Ronald L. Smith
I’m not entirely sure how I ended up adding several middle grade books to my TBR this month, but somehow they all seemed so interesting. This one is about a 12-year-old boy named Rory who applies for a job at a spooky mansion to help earn money for his family. Rory soon finds out that his new boss is not just unpleasant, he is not even human! Together with his friend Isabella, Rory sets out to uncover what his boss is planning and try to stop him before he can cause too much trouble. I can’t say that this book is particularly high on my priority list, but it seems like it might be fun to read. It reminds me a bit of Scooby Doo, although it seems like the mystical elements might be more than just a man in a mask in this case. I don’t read middle grade very often since I am not the target audience, but some of them can be a lot of fun to try. This one seems like it has some potential, and I’d be interested in giving it a chance at some point.
11) Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
This is one that I know for sure that I saw on Destiny’s blog (linked above), and I’m pretty sure the previous two books I mentioned were as well. It is about an expelled PhD candidate named Nell who is working on studying the line between poisons and antidotes. Nell idolizes her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas, and the two of them soon find themselves at the center of a web of complicated relationships involving the other people closest to the two of them. At the same time, Nell begins to fill her apartment with dangerous plants, and keeps a series of notebooks dedicated to Joan, which not only log their research but also seem to become a record of Nell’s obsession. This book is surprisingly short, at around 200 pages, which does not seem like very much time for the story to develop. I’m very curious to give this one a chance because the synopsis sounds so intriguing. It is not out until next March, so there is still quite a while to wait.
12) This Little Light by Lori Lansens
I saw this one mentioned in my local newspaper recently, and I was both intrigued and a little skeptical. I have only read one other of Lori Lansens’ books and I didn’t like it that much, but the premise for this one sounds so interesting. This book is set in a near-future world, told in the form of blog entries written by Rory, a teenager on the run after she and her best friend are falsely accused of bombing their high school during a purity ball. In this world, abortion and birth control have both been re-criminalized, teenagers are pressured to pledge purity until marriage, and there is the Red Market, an underground network that sells illegally aborted fetal tissue to companies. I tend to enjoy books that are written in unusual formats like blog posts, and the concept sounds very intriguing, but I’m a bit apprehensive considering I wasn’t such a fan of the previous book by this author that I’d tried. This one in general does sound a lot more interesting though, so I’m willing to give it a fair shot.
13) Destroy All Monsters by Sam J. Miller
I saw this book mentioned on CeCe’s channel in a video about upcoming LGBT releases, and it seemed like something I might enjoy. It is about two teens, Solomon and Ash, who both experienced something traumatic when they were 12. Ash has lost all all memory of what happened after falling out of a treehouse, and Solomon has since retreated into a self-created world that protects him from reality but contains many animal and human monsters. As Solomon falls further and further into this world, which he calls Darkside, Ash realizes that her only chance to save him is to remember what happened in that day and for them to face the truth together. Part of what intrigued me about this book is that it has been compared to Patrick Ness, who is an author that I tend to really enjoy. I don’t think I would have heard of this book if it hadn’t been for CeCe’s video, so I’m glad I found out about it because it sounds like it could be very interesting.
14) Wilder Girls by Rory Power
To be honest, I’m still a bit on the fence about how much I want to read this one, but I’ve been hearing about it absolutely everywhere lately. This book is set at a school for girls that is quarantined because of a strange epidemic called the Tox, which mutilates and kills those it infects. The girls at this school, including the main character Hetty, are infected with the Tox and awaiting a cure that has been promised. When Hetty’s best friend Byatt goes missing, she decides she will do anything to find her, even if that means breaking quarantine and leaving the school to search for her. Part of the reason I’m so on the fence about this one is because I’ve seen several reviews mention that it contains gruesome descriptions of what is happening to the girls’ bodies, and I’m not sure that is something I could handle reading. I’ve seen this book compared to a female Lord of the Flies though, which does sound interesting. I tentatively added it to my TBR because of the hype surrounding it, but I’m not sure if it’s something I’d really want to read.
15) Verify by Joelle Charbonneau
I can’t remember where I first saw this one, but it immediately caught my attention. I have a few other books by Joelle Charbounneau on my TBR already, although I haven’t tried anything of hers yet. This book is due out at the end of this month, and it set in a world without lies. It focuses on a girl named Meri Beckley, who begins to question her world when her mother is suddenly killed. While attempting to find out more about her mother’s state of mind during her last few weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world containing facts she’s never heard and a history that she never knew existed. Meri suddenly is faced with the choice between the “truth” that she has always accepted, or this new reality she has discovered. Unfortunately, the early reviews for this one so far have not been the best, but the premise is very intriguing. It definitely seems like a very relevant setting given all the discussion of “fake news” lately. I’ve seen a few comments on Goodreads comparing this book to a YA version of 1984, which sounds like it could be interesting, so although this one isn’t at the top of my list, it’s something I’d like to try eventually.
Abyssal Librarian 