MY BIGGEST BOOK HAUL EVER! (40+ Books!).

hey what's up hello my name is emma and today i am doing my biggest book haul ever my last book haul wrapped up all of the books i got in 2020 so today i am focusing on all of the books that i have bought received since the beginning of 2021. i have somewhere between like 45 and 50 books to show you so there is no time to waste let us just dive in and start off by thinking today's video sponsor which is book of the month i just thought what if i did it like my unboxing voice book of the month ew goodbye book of the month is an incredible subscription service that sends you your choice of one of five different upcoming amazing new releases sent directly to your door every month they feature a wide range of genres from romance to contemporary science fiction historical fiction fantasy mystery thrillers everything you could want in my opinion it is the best price you can get for a brand new adult fiction hardcover book and they have a risk-free skip policy so anytime you maybe don't like the choices or you can't afford it that month you can skip it and come back when you're ready for more books if you are interested in trying out book of the month for june you can choose from one of these five options the first being one of my most anticipated books of the year malibu rising by taylor jenkins read taylor jenkins reid is one of my favorite authors and the third book i've read from her did not disappoint this follows four siblings living in malibu california around like the 1980s and every year they throw this massive party and it details them over one day when in the morning malibu goes up in flames another book i am looking forward to which is instructions for dancing by nicola yoon have also read other nicola yoon books and loved them this one follows a ballroom dancer who suddenly gets the ability to see the past and future of people's relationships as she is starting to fall in love herself we also have sky falling by mia mckenzie and this is a story of queerness race and family as it follows a woman who has spent her whole life so low until one day she finds out that the eggs she has donated when she was younger have turned into a person namely a daughter that has sought her out for the very first time then we have the maidens by alex michael leeds this suspenseful story follows a group therapist who becomes obsessed with one member of a secret society at cambridge university after they are found murdered and she believes it is the handsome greek tragedy teacher and the final choice for book of the months june box is half sick of shadows by laura sebastian another author i love and this is like an arthurian camelot fantasy that tells a story of a girl who is able to see the future and all of the magic and whatnot that comes along with it i feel like book of the month really popped off with their choices this month there are just so many good books i number one loved or i'm interested in reading and if any of these books sound interesting to you you should definitely check out book of the month and get your first box for only 9.99 now using the code emma books so thank you to book of the month for sponsoring this video and for always providing me with the best new releases to read and now let's get on with the rest of this book haul so at the beginning of this year i received a belated christmas gift from my boyfriend's mother which was a 100 gift card to barnes and noble truly one of the best gifts i have ever received and naturally i spent it all in one go the first book i bought is last night at the telegraph club by melinda lowe and this is a historical fiction novel set in the 1950s of san francisco following a young girl named lily as she is coming to terms with her identity as being a lesbian and really begins to find herself with a new friend at a lesbian bar called the telegraph club last night at the telegraph club was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it will definitely be on my list of favorites because i adored this book so deeply as a queer person it felt like a really great fiction story about our queer history and what life was like in america before we had made all of the progress that we did today lily is first generation chinese american and we have some flashbacks to her parents as they were coming to america as immigrants and it was just a really heartwarming and heartbreaking story of coming of age finding yourself believing in yourself and stepping out of other people's expectations for you so i love it it was gorgeous highly recommend to anyone next i have a book that made it on my honorable mentions list of 2020 and that is the vanishing half by brit bennett i listened to the audiobook of this and i loved it so much that i knew i had to have my own physical copy this is a generational story about two sisters who grew up in the south and they are black but very much white passing and it is a story of one of them who has to return back to her old hometown and another who goes off and ends up living her life as a white woman and then it follows the stories of their daughters and how these very separate lives all end up interconnecting this was an absolutely fantastic book it had beautiful writing and although i felt that the pacing was pretty slow at some points it just has fantastic commentary on racism colorism identity family and so much more this book is full of incredible themes complex family dynamics it is just there's so much jam packed in this book that i feel like whenever i talk about it i don't do it justice it's just definitely a story you have to experience yourself and it was one i really didn't think that i would like it almost didn't pick up but i'm so grateful that i did next up i bought the silent patient by alex micheladis is that that's the author of the maidens that i just talked about cool anyways this book was like one of the hottest thrillers of 2020 i feel like everyone talked about it and like maybe there were some mixed reviews but it follows a criminal psychotherapist who there was just a siren as i said criminal that was very weird this story follows a criminal psychotherapist who begins working with a patient that shot her husband dead and has not spoken since and it just appears to be like a really twisted psychological thriller that i don't know much about beyond it but i heard rave rave reviews of it thrillers are my thing they're one of my favorite genres to read and i feel like i've been missing out not picking up this one yet so i'm very excited to read it soon then we have another book i was really looking forward to this year and that is the project by courtney summers this story follows a girl whose sister has been living with this community that she believes is a cult and so she begins working with a man who believes that the cult killed his son as well and it is just all about them trying to expose them this was one of those books that i absolutely loved the first half and really believed it was going to be like a new favorite of mine and the second half was very disappointing for me this story took a twist that i understand where the author was going but it was just nowhere near as exciting or interesting as the first half in my opinion and i just didn't really like the direction it went in it was good i'm glad i read it for that first half but it just didn't blow me away as much as courtney summer's other book sadie did so i'm a little disappointed by it next up we have my current least favorite book of 2021 which i'm very disappointed i bought a copy of and that is if i disappear by eliza jane brazier this story sounded like a match made in heaven for me it follows a young woman who is obsessed with this true crime podcast when the host of the podcast goes missing and she makes it her mission to go to where she was last seen and try and solve her disappearance this book was just plain bad it is impossible to feel empathy for this protagonist she was just so dumb and made all the worst decisions and every other character in this book was just like equally bad and uninteresting the story itself was so freaking boring i feel like nothing happened for the most of it and it was supposed to be full of all the suspense that i just could not care about and the ending was incredibly disappointing i really wasted my time with this one i will definitely be selling it on my depop to someone who's maybe more interested but damn i really hated this one next up a book i am really looking forward to reading is the revolution of bertie randolph and this is by brandi colbert and i've read a couple of randy called bert books and i've loved them so i've definitely been wanting to pick up one of her newest releases this story follows your typical teenage girl trying to be the perfect daughter when she begins to fall for a boy with a troubled past that her parents wouldn't approve of when her estranged aunt comes to live with her family and her aunt has spent most of her life in and out of treatment facilities for addiction so it just seems like a really heartwarming story about first love and family and kind of overcoming some difficult truths and secrets i've read both little and lion and finding yvonne by brandy colbert and they were just all around well-rounded stories so i'm very much looking forward to this one as well and then the last book that i spent that barnes noble gift card on and actually went a little bit over on is the mortal instruments graphic novel and i believe that this is the fourth installment we all know that the mortal instruments is my favorite series of all time so naturally whenever a new edition or new type of book from the shadowhunter world comes out i have to have it it is illustrated by cassandra jean who does like all things shadowhunter artwork with cassie claire and i have not read any of the graphic novels yet but i definitely would like to at some point maybe when like all of them are out i think volume four is the second half of city of ashes so i think that they're trying to do like two graphic novels per book which is something good to know great segue into more cassandra clare content so next i am going to be going into all of my editions of chain of iron i went a little nuts and ordered like every edition of chain of iron that i could get my hands on because of course it was my most anticipated book number one for the year and if you also are a shadowhunters fan and have not checked it out yet i have my entire reading blog of chain of iron where you can follow me along for all the spoilery goodness first up i have my advanced reader copy that was sent to me by simon teen before the release of the book then i have the us hardcover collector's first edition of chain of iron which has a short story featuring magnus and gem in the back of it then i have the water stones exclusive edition that has this gold foiling on it with all of the death moths and angelic runes this one also has the same short story in the back and a stamp with cassie claire's signature in it i believe all of these have this stamp and the short story in the background but the next is the fairy loot exclusive edition which was kindly sent to me by fairyloot and it has jessie's locket on the front secrets consume even the truest love on the back and these death moth stenciling on the sprayed edges then we have the illumicrate exclusive edition which also has the gold foiling and plain sprayed edges it has the synopsis printed on the back and then my favorite part is i believe it is the only book in my collection that does not have the title on this fine but it has the tagline secrets consume the truest love and then finally i have the uk tour edition of chain of iron which i love because it has this gorgeous dust jacket again with no title on the cover but of these gold foil portraits of cordelia and james and i also like it not just because of the dust jacket but when you take the dust jacket off the cover is actually printed on the book and this is much less common in the us we always have the cover on dust jackets and the inner binding of the book is just plain so i'm very excited about that next up on a mini hall with in the hall i went book shopping with a couple of my friends in new york city recently and we hit up a couple of independent bookstores the first being sweet pickle books which is a bookstore i had no idea existed but they're a used bookstore and they sell pickles so definitely a place to check out i actually found an advanced reader copy of a book that i love so much and we all know that i love collecting early editions of books that are my favorite which is what i lost by alexandra ballard this is my all-time favorite eating disorder fiction novel it's about a young girl named elizabeth who goes into inpatient treatment for her anorexia and it is just the best and most accurate representation of anorexia and fiction that i could read it is written by an author who survived an eating disorder and it is incredibly close to my heart i actually have a super old spoiler free review of this book that is like 20 minutes long i go super in depth but check it out if you're interested and it was actually really nice because this is not a book that people ever know about it is like very underrated but the owner of the store actually read it and so we got to talk about it a little bit while i was checking out and it was just a very nice encounter with a fellow reader next up we went to blue stockings books in new york city which is another favorite of mine it is like a queer and poc owned bookstore and i believe all of the books they carry have to be from like queer or poc authors but the first picked up is freedom is a constant struggle ferguson palestine and the foundations of a movement by angela y davis this book came onto my radar due to the increase in awareness for the violence against palestinians in gaza and the eviction of palestinians in shake draw and i am most definitely not the most educated to talk on this issue i've been doing my best to spread awareness but i have sat in my privileged seat for very long saying i don't know enough about it to have an opinion so i'm done doing that and i want to get educated i started reading this book and i really enjoy what i've read so far it is interviews and essays from the world-renowned scholar and human rights activist angela y davis so this is definitely not a book that's going to like educate you on like the history and events of many of these liberation movements that they're talking about but it uses examples of real-life oppression and fights for justice to talk about activism and the ways that the world needs to move forward in order to have freedom for all very compelling and one i definitely want to read more from i think i might switch to the audiobook if there is one because i feel like i might listen to it better and be more engaged than reading but definitely worth picking up so far and then the next book i picked up from blue stockings is another nonfiction and that is i'm still here black dignity in a world made for whiteness by austin channing brown is it me or do these books look like they could be sisters i really love like the blurb of this book which is from a leading new voice on racial justice an eye-opening account of growing up black christian and female amid white america's expressed love affair with diversity i don't know much about this book other than it is the story of the authors like experience with self-worth and growing up black in america as it says but also talking about how america tries so hard to praise diversity and promote it but they fall so short in their efforts so i've seen a lot about this book in the last year and a lot of people have read it and enjoyed it so i'm definitely looking forward to checking out this one too we got another nonfiction book that i next picked up at mcnally jackson which is one of my favorite book stores in new york city and that is crying in h-mart by michelle zonner so i really had no idea what crying in hmart was about when i first heard of it i just saw this cover everywhere and knew that people were reading it and that day as we were doing our little bookstore walk around with matt and his girlfriend rachel rachel let me know that michelle zonner is actually in a band called japanese breakfast i believe that i've never heard of and while we were walking to mcnally jackson i actually ran into monica from monica kim and reagan from bruce project on the street who i had hung out with like the day before monica had said that she read the first chapter of this book and started crying and then reagan had just picked it up at mcnally jackson herself because they had signed copy so i knew when i was walking into mcnally jackson i had to get it for myself this is another book that i started listening to on the audiobook and i just put it on pause for a second because i wanted to listen to some other things but i really enjoyed what i did read of it so far and i definitely plan to start it over again and read it physically but this is a memoir about a woman and her experience growing up coming to terms with her korean identity being asian-american finding love for music and becoming an actual artist and then also reckoning with grief and loss as her mother died of cancer the next book i bought at mcnally jackson that day was a new release that i've been seeing a lot of hype about online and that is cool for the summer by dahlia adler from what i know about this story the main character is jewish and she has returned home from a summer away to start her senior year when like the captain of like the football team or something is like finally interested in her and it seems like the best thing ever until she realizes that the girl that she spent the summer dating and falling for is now a student at her school and is pretending that she doesn't exist so i'm getting some like bisexual love triangle vibes and it just seems like a fun summery contemporary that i could really enjoy and also fly through because it seems pretty short and the last book i got at mcnally jackson is my sister the serial killer by oh yin ken braved white this is a book that has again been on my radar for quite some time but i've heard some mixed reviews of it some people really loved it and some people were underwhelmed by it from my understanding of this book the main character's sister has stabbed her third boyfriend in a row to death and she has always been sort of cleaning up after her sister and protecting her when the doctor that the main character is in love with is trying to date her sister so she has to intervene and make some real decisions about like her life and her sister and how far she'll go to protect her despite those mixed reviews it seems very interesting to me it's one that i feel like i definitely could enjoy so i'd really like to give it a chance especially because i've been thinking about it for like months and now i finally have it a couple more books i bought randomly over the last six months the first is the program by suzanne yang and if you are a long time a books watcher you will have known that i read this book in like 2014 and it was one of my favorites at the time i actually bought this off of my friend sarah from sarah without an age because i saw that she was selling it on her d-pop and i always had the paperback version when the rest of my books in the series are hardback so i just wanted to swap it out and get it in hardcover this is sort of a near futuristic mild dystopian that takes place when suicide has become an epidemic in america and parents are sending their kids to this thing called the program which is like the best known prevention program it's really up they do a lot of bad and i only read the first book or maybe i read the second book too i don't remember but i really loved it at the time i'm definitely interested to see how i would feel about this book now that i have my masters in clinical mental health counseling i feel like i might have some differing opinions on how suicide is handled in this book but at the time it was fun i have good memories attached to it and i'm happy to add a new or technically used hardcover to my collection i bought another book off of my friend brittany which is educated by tara westover and this is another book i have been eyeing for a long time and when my friend was selling it for five dollars on instagram i couldn't resist this is a memoir that has gotten a ton of incredibly positive reviews and it follows tara as a young girl when she was isolated living in the mountains of idaho away from all of mainstream civilization when her brother goes away to college and she discovers that there might be a different life for her that she could gain through education so does the story of her entering a classroom for the first time at 17 years old and the ways that she has really defined her future for herself on her quest for education academia has been a constant part of my life and one that i'm very grateful for but i have never struggled to attain it and so i'm very interested in reading the story of somebody whose life was incredibly different and values education in a similar way as myself next up i purchased the uk copy of the invisible life of addie larue by why can't i remember the author it's b schwab it's funny that i forgot the author though because it's a book about a forgotten girl if you watch my channel you know my love for addy larue it follows a young woman who is living in the 1700s of france when she attempts to buy her freedom from an unwanted marriage from an old god who makes her immortal so she will live forever but whenever somebody steps away from her or they no longer are looking at her they forget she ever existed so this book spans 300 years of addi's life as she is trying to make sense of this new reality she is living in and it is like this is another one that i just feel like i can't explain in such a short amount of time this is a one-of-a-kind story in my eyes it was my favorite books of last year and it just had a huge impact on my heart the characters are extremely compelling and addy's one of my new favorite literary heroines the writing in this book is so gorgeous i have never read a book where there were just so many beautiful lions that i wanted to capture forever one of my all-time favorite books without a doubt and i just really wanted to have this beautiful uk edition with the forget-me-nots on the cover so i'm excited to add it to my collection the next book i bought this year is the most recent one i got and that is malibu rising by taylor jenkins read because i bought my own copy of course like i said i just finished malibu rising and it was such a satisfying read i treasured every second of reading this book and it's one of the fastest books i've read in a while just because i could not put it down i actually filmed a reading vlog of me reading malibu rising and another book that i'm featuring later in this haul so definitely check that out once it's posted and you will see all of my reactions as much as i adored this book and every second i read it it's definitely my least favorite of the taylor jenkins read books that i've read it just doesn't amount to daisy jones or evelyn hugo in my opinion it's a wonderful story about a very unique family with tons of heartbreak and loyalty and it is one i definitely recommend i feel like this is a book that many people could read and thoroughly enjoy and the last book that i officially bought in this haul before we jump into some books i got as gifts and others that were said to me by the publisher is dial a for aunties by jessie q sutanto i randomly found out about this book from lily c reed's most anticipated books of the year and it just sounded so funny and interesting that i had to put it on my own tbr and i actually have read it and really loved it so it was definitely a good choice to pick it up thanks lily for the recommendation this story follows a chinese indonesian immigrant family our main character's name is mehdi and when she accidentally murders her blind date she has to rely on her mother and aunties to help her unfortunately this happens the night before her family's wedding businesses biggest wedding of the year and the body is accidentally shipped to the wedding it is full of chaos calamity and love it was just a really funny like light-hearted book that i really enjoyed i really loved how this book centered in on like a big loving family and how they all work together while still having their gripes with one another it was just it was really fun and great it puts a smile on my face so if you haven't heard of dial a for aunties or read it yet it is definitely like a great summer read next up for some of the gifts that i received this year i have the course of true love and first dates by cassandra clare and this is one of the short stories from the bane chronicles that was published in this like cute little storybook format and this was sent to me by kat from the tmi source and if you think i am a big shadowhunter fan you need to follow cat because the way that you guys go to me for shadowhunter stuff i go to cat the tmi source is your number one space to go for all things shadowhunters news i highly recommend checking it out and kat is just like the sweetest i'm super grateful that i got to meet her through cassie's books so thank you so much kat for sending me this book to add to my collection next up i have congratulations by the way some thoughts on kindness by george saunders and this was actually sent to me by the head of my grad program many of you know i just recently walked at graduation and i'll be finishing my degree in clinical mental health counseling this summer but every year our mental health counseling department sends out students a big like care package of stuff to help us through our summer courses and it came with this little book that i believe is a transcript of a convocation address that was given at syracuse university that went super viral so it is just a transcript of it and i have not read it yet but i'm very interested to it seems to be like very empowering about a lot of kindness and living fulfilling lives so thank you so much to dr k next up i got a wonderful package of two books as a thank you from dr michael lee garden at northwest vista college in texas because she had invited me to do a talk in march for women's history month so i did a whole big presentation on like what feminism means to me and the intersection of being a feminist while being an online creator who's a woman so because dr garden is a big lover of books and booktube herself she first sent me forgetting the alamo or blood memory by emma perez so this book takes place in 19th century texas and it follows a chicana lesbian cowgirl from what i can gather it appears to be giving a voice to the history of queer mexican black indigenous people of color who were living in the south namely texas after the battle at the alamo seems like a very interesting book definitely not one that i would have picked up myself but i could really and see myself enjoying a lot of the very relevant themes that appear to be in this story and then dr garden also sent me i'm afraid of men by the victoria and this appears to be a short little memoir or maybe some essays about her experiences as a trans woman and how masculinity has been forced upon her when she was young and a boy and how it haunts her to this day as a woman so it seems like very interesting commentary on our current perspectives of gender and that's definitely a book i'd want to read so thank you so much to dr michael lee for sending me these books and thank you for having me for that amazing women's history month talk alrighty now we are moving on to all of the books that were sent to me in 2020 so i have a ton of amazing new releases to share first up is this will be funny someday by katie henry this is a book that i read did i read this last year i think i read this last year but i really really enjoyed it this story follows a girl named izzy who does not feel like she has much of a voice at home at school or in her relationship with a controlling boyfriend until she finds herself standing on stage at a bar during a comedy night so izzy is thrust into the world of stand-up comedy and she begins to befriend a group of college students that do not know that she's in high school so it's all about is he balancing these two very different worlds and finding her voice through comedy i loved this book i love all of katie henry's books please go out and read her back list but i've always loved katie henry's books because they are so hilarious i was very excited to read a book that was focused in on her specific brand of comedy this was definitely a book that i would have related to so much as a young girl who also didn't feel like she really had a voice among others and it brings light to some really important issues as well such as emotionally abusive relationships and teenagers it is just all around a wonderful light-hearted read with some other like important themes tied in there so it's definitely one to check out then we have concrete rose by angie thomas and both of these two books were sent to me by harpercollins concrete rose is the prequel to the hate u give which follows star carter's father maverick as he is a young boy who finds himself the father of two unexpected children it is all about maverick's struggle with being involved in gangs and trying to make a life for himself while also being a father at the very young age of 17. it was a very moving emotional story and as someone who loved the hate u give and loves angie thomas this was an incredibly satisfying prequel so if you enjoyed the hate u give i definitely think you should read concrete rose next up i have another book sent to me by harpercollins and that is an emotion of great delight by tahara mafi and i originally thought that this was a sequel to a very large expanse of c because the titles are very similar but i found out they are two entirely separate stories nonetheless i love tahani mafi and i really enjoyed the first contemporary book that i read from her which was a very large expensive seat so i'm super excited for this newest release motion of great delight is set in 2003 and it follows a young muslim hijabi girl named shadi who just seems to be having like the roughest time her brother died her father is dying and her mother is falling apart and it just seems like she can't contain the pain that she is going through any longer i feel like this is a book that's gonna make me cry like there are tear drops on the cover like an emotional great delight seems like the complete opposite of what this story is about i love a hard-hitting contemporary story it seems to tell a lot about pain suffering tell the experience of muslim americans living in america in a post-9 11 world so i'm really interested in it and i feel like it's going i'm getting chills i'm getting chills thinking about it that happens when a really good book is on the way so i'm excited to read this one too next up i have one last stop by casey mcquiston and this was actually sent to me by goodreads so thank you to goodreads for sending me another one of my most anticipated books of the year and also my current read this is the other book that i am reading in that reading vlog with malibu rising so check it out once it's available casey mcquiston is the author of the literary phenomenon red white and royal blue and this is their second novel which i have been enjoying so much it takes place in new york city it follows a girl named august who has recently moved here and is trying to make a life for herself when she ends up crushing on a girl that is always on the same subway as her and august finds out that jane is actually literally displaced from the 1970s and is trapped in time on this subway i am probably about like 70 of the way through and i have just had nothing but great times with this book i love casey mcquisten's writing so much they have the best pros and i feel like these books are just like perfect for people in their 20s who are looking for the feel of y a with some more relevant stories to like our actual lives because you know we all just fall in love with girls on the subway who are straight out of 1975 because that's a very common occurrence for us millennials it is super funny very heartwarming and i honestly have no idea how this book is going to end so i'm really looking forward to continuing i don't really know where it holds up with red white and royal blue they both feel very different but also very similar so it's hard to compare but i can say for a fact that it is definitely as good as red white royal blue if not better next up i have moxie by jennifer matu and i don't believe that this is like the movie tie-in edition because the actress of the movie is not on the cover i think it is just like the newer paperback version and it was sent to me by netflix for those of you who have been following me since 2017 you may have heard me talk about moxie before because it is just a book i absolutely cherish but recently there was a film adaptation released of it on netflix and i got to work with netflix for the release which was so freaking exciting because here i am like loving this book and promoting it for three years straight and then they want to work with me for the movie that i have been dying for it was very exciting moxie is all about a young girl named vivian who is really fed up with the sexism that she's encountering at school and she wants to take a stand against it by creating an anonymous scene that she hands out in the bathrooms called moxie so it is the story of a bunch of young girls banding together forming new friendships and learning about the world of feminism inspired by the riot grill movements of the 1990s i love this book and i thoroughly enjoyed the film i felt it was a great faithful adaptation while also improving on some aspects of the book like adding a little bit more diversity and nuance to it it is definitely not like a revolutionary feminist film or text by any means but if you're a young girl or you like reading books about young girls interested in feminism and getting excited about being girls and women which i love definitely check out moxie the next book i have on this haul is mary jane by jessica anya blau and this was also sent to me by the publisher this book really intrigued me as it seems to have some influence of daisy jones and the six it follows a 14 year old girl named mary jane living in the 1970s and she's very quiet shy and bookish until she gets a job for nannying a local doctor and psychiatrist who has a like world famous rock star move in as he is trying to treat them for drug addiction it appears to be a super interesting story of this young girl who is living a quiet typical life at home but she is introduced to this very different world of sex drugs and rock and roll and just realizing that there is so much more out there that she can experience than what her parents expect of her it seems very much up my alley i can really see myself enjoying this one so i'm excited to share my thoughts on it when i do read it next up i have the cost of knowing by brittany morris and this was sent to me by simon schuster this is a story of a 16 year old boy named alex who is just living his regular old life working at an ice cream shop having a great time with his girlfriend and hanging out with his little brother when he suddenly gets the ability to see the future of different things that he touches which seems like it could be cool in theory until he ends up having a vision of his brother's very imminent death so it is a race against time to try and protect his brother while alex is also just grappling with what it means to have this knowledge of the future and also what it means to exist in the present of a young black man in america and it just seems like a really powerful emotional story i feel like i've seen a lot of hype about it so i'm excited to read it another book i've been seeing a ton of talk about recently is yoke by mary h k choi which was also sent to me by simon schuster yolk tells the story of two sisters who used to be thick as thieves but as they have moved from seoul to san antonio to new york they have grown apart and want nothing to do with each other until one of these sisters gets cancer and the other is the only one that can really be there for them i love emotional contemporaries that make me want to cry and just be in pain all the time and i love stories about family dynamics especially strong relationships between sisters so this is another one that i feel just has all the things that i love in it and i've heard it's like such amazing reviews of people really loving this book so that makes me feel like i'm really going to like it too another book that was kindly sent to me by simon schuster is take me home tonight by morgan matson and this was actually sent to me because i did a live show for the release of the book with maureen from maureen keavey haley from haley and bookland and the author morgan matson which was very exciting because i've been reading morgan matson books for many many years she was one of the first authors i read when i was introduced to booktube so i have a very strong attachment to her contemporary stories taking me home tonight is set in new york and it follows two best friends who go in to see a broadway show thinking they're gonna have a fun night in the city when everything that could go wrong goes wrong they have family drama their phones are broken and they have to make it back before midnight and it just seems like a really interesting story about female friendship between two young girls as well as like the chaos and calamity of all morgan matson books to be honest the last morgan matson book i read was save the date and i really did not enjoy my time reading it i just felt like it was like too much drama and chaos so i'm hoping that take me home tonight will have a combination of all the things that i like from morgan maths and books like great characterization fun writing and a very exciting plot so i think this is going to be one of the next ones i have to read like i'm just really feeling the vibe of it right now so i'm excited to see what i think the next book i have in here is written by a very good friend of mine and it was sent to me by wednesday books and that is better together by christine riccio this is christine from poland bananas books sophomore novel and i am so freaking proud of her for writing not only one but two books i loved again but better by christine i really connected to that book on a very deep level so i was excited when she was writing this like freaky friday parent trap contemporary this story follows two sisters who were separated at a very young age in a nasty divorce between their parents so our main character siri was living in new york with her mother and jamie is living in california with their father and the two of them have grown up completely separate lives until they both go to the same like therapy find yourself type camp retreat because siri is a dancer with an injury and struggling to find her path and jaime is an aspiring comic with stage anxiety and so the two of their lives intersect and things are not the same the two of them had to plan to switch places and confront each of their parents when they are struck with a very mysterious type of magic that makes one sister look like the other on the outside christine actually asked me to be a sensitivity reader for better together which i was really honored to do so i personally co-signed the bisexual representation as well as the representation of therapy in this novel and i thought that both of those themes were done really really well comparing christine's two books as i do with any author i do prefer again but better like i said i have a real emotional connection to the story that i don't have with better together but it was a fun story full of christine's very specific brand of humor and it is a heartwarming story of two sisters coming together finding themselves and stepping out of their comfort zones which i really enjoyed now lastly at the end of my hauls i like to talk about a couple of books that i've gotten from past book of the month boxes that i don't want to spend too much time on because i've already discussed them on my channel but these are the ones from the past like six months that i've been really excited to read first up is these violent delights by chloe gong this is another one that i feel got so much hype online and makes me really want to read it this is a romeo and juliet retelling set in 1926 shanghai so there are these two opposing gangs and our main character has previously been in love with like the sun of the opposing gang i've actually started these violent lights like three times on the audiobook but i did not get very far in this is just one that i can't listen to on audio but i'm still really interested in the story and want to make it through so i will be picking it up physically soon then we have how lucky by will light and this is the story of a man living with spinal muscular atrophy which is a disease that makes him unable to speak or move without his wheelchair and he is typically people watching from his house when one day he believes he sees a woman being kidnapped and is determined to help solve the mystery this seems to be a thriller with a very like humorous comedic twist that seems to give a voice to people living with a very serious condition so very interested in reading this one then we have honey girl by morgan rogers and this was another one of my most anticipated books of the year and another one that i have recently read this follows a woman named grace porter who has recently completed her phd in astronomy so she goes to las vegas with her friends to celebrate when she wakes up and finds out that she has married a stranger so in order to escape an oversaturated job market and the crippling pressure of her military father she decides to escape to new york and spend it with a wife that she barely knows so like i said i read honey girl and unfortunately i did not like it as much as i wanted to this is a debut novel and the writing felt very amateur for me i wasn't a fan of it i also wasn't crazy about the characters i really liked grace like she was a great character lots of development and interesting discussions about like mental health and perfectionism but beyond that there was not much i liked about the story i also liked a lot of the side characters but i just i had no interest in the love interest she was just like very manic pixie dream girl with very little substance in my opinion and the story just didn't pan out the way i wanted it to i actually really liked the ending because it was kind of more hard-hitting and had conflict whereas the first like half of this book was just like very like crazy and quirky and it just wasn't what i was hoping for from the story so unfortunately i did not like it as much as i wanted to but i do think it's a good story that a lot of young millennial queer people could probably really identify with and enjoy then we have the kindest lie by nancy johnson and this story is set in 2008 and follows a successful black woman who is an engineer but she returns home to indiana where her hometown is plagued by racism and unemployment so while ruth is grappling with family drama and some past secrets that she did not know before she ends up befriending a young white boy named midnight and throughout the course of their friendship there is an event or a crime that kind of upsets the already rising racial tensions in their community and it is all about like what she learns from the experience i guess it seems like a really unique story one that i feel i can't really tell where the story is going to go just by the synopsis and i feel like that's sometimes better when like the synopsis does not give it all away next up we have infinite country by patricia engel and this story follows a colombian family and it appears to tell the many different stories of family members like of the parents falling in love and immigrating to the united states having their children what their life has been like and then in the present we have talia who is one of the daughters and she's being held at a correctional facility but she needs to make it to the airport to get on a flight to the united states to be reunited with her family this book feels jam-packed with a lot of different themes and stories but it is tiny this is one of the tiniest books that i've gotten recently but i'm really intrigued i feel like i have not read enough fiction about immigrant families and there's just so many like themes and aspects of the story that really appeals to me so i'm very interested in reading it then i have girl a by abigail dean and this seems to be like a twisted psychological maybe mystery about a girl and her siblings who were rescued from their parents who were like serial killers and tortured a bunch of people in their childhood home and once their mother dies in prison they are left the childhood home and these three siblings have to be like forced together to talk about their trauma and process it and like build new relationships together so again lots of things i'm interested in this book and i've been eyeing it on my shelf and so i feel like it's one that i'll probably pick up very soon next i have arsenic and adobo by mia p menon salah and this appears to be a sort of mystery that i feel also has some comedy into it about a woman who is trying to save her auntie's restaurant when a health inspector that she recently interacted with drops dead and so now she is the main suspect in this investigation i feel like i've seen this cover everywhere online i feel like lots of people are talking about it and it seems like a very entertaining read and then lastly but of course not least i have the final revival of opal anev by donnie walton this is a dual timeline story set in the 1970s and 2016. it follows a young black punk rocker named opal who is rising to stardom when she speaks out about a rival band that is promoting racist rhetoric and she receives some harsh reproductions reproductions repercussions so in 2016 opal reunites with the singer songwriter named nev who really discovered her all those years ago and a music journalist jumps on the chance to craft an interview slash oral history with some of her past idols to really get the full story sensing some heavy daisy jones and the six vibes here so you know i am here for it it seems like a very interesting story about race and rock and roll and i'm just very excited to read this one so that concludes my biggest book haul ever i really hope you guys enjoyed this video i have so many amazing books added to my collection some that i have loved and i'm very excited to read so in the comments below of course i would like to know what you thought of any of these books on this haul and what your thoughts on them were or any books that you have recently read slash bought that you want to share with me but that is it for this video thank you guys so much for watching and i'll see you soon for a new one bye

Channel: emmmabooks

Views: 53,383

Rating: 4.9504447 out of 5

Keywords: book, books, read, reads, reading, reader, booktube, booktuber, emmmabooks, emmabooks, reading vlog, shadowhunters, the mortal instruments, emma giordano, book recommendation, book recommendations, book recs, book review, book reviews, book tube

Id: Fmv_U-8gSbc

Length: 45min 3sec (2703 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021