Anticipated Book Releases For the Rest of 2015 [Top 5 Wednesday]

Hey, y'all! So, this week's topic for Top 5 Wednesday was Top 5 Anticipated Pre-Orders For the Rest of the Year. I ended up having a fairly long list of books, and since I wanted to talk about all of them, I decided to do an entire post talking about all of the releases that I'm really excited about. The books I talked about in my video will also be included, and they'll be organized by release date. Titles link to the Goodreads page for each book, if you want to learn more about it.

Today's Top 5 Wednesday video:

Lair of Dreams

by Libba Bray

Release date: August 25

This one is one of the ones that I've been anticipating for the longest. I read The Diviners back in October and initially thought that it was just a standalone. Obviously, when I actually read it. I discovered that it's going to be a series (a 4 book series, if I remember correctly). I loved The Diviners (You can check out my written review here if you want) and can't wait to finally be able to dive into the sequel. It's even longer than the first book- 702 pages!- which actually makes me even more excited. And I'm really glad that they made a slight change to this cover re-design. Originally, the new cover was pretty similar to this, but with worse coloration and these weird faceless people. It was just bad. This is at least a little better.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here

by Patrick Ness

Release date: August 27

Yes, I will be getting the UK cover, because it's so much cooler than the US cover. Anyway, I still haven't read a full book by Patrick Ness. I liked what I read of The Knife of Never Letting Go, so I'm hopeful that I'll enjoy this one. The concept is really interesting and plays with tropes that are normally seen in YA, so I'm really excited about this one.

The Copper Gauntlet

by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black

Release date: September 1

For some reason, I didn't think too much about The Iron Trial last year, even though it sounds like it's right up my alley. I love magic school books, and that's what this series is. Yes, it's middle grade, but it's by Cassandra Clare, who is one of my favorite authors. Either way, The Iron Trial is one of the first books I want to get after my ban, and I will, of course, be getting this one as well. And I want to read them sometime this fall.

Queen of Shadows

by Sarah J Maas

Release date: September 1

Just like with the last one, this is another book where I haven't read the previous book(s), but I want to start it really soon. And the Throne of Glass series is even higher up on my TBR than The Magisterium series. I've been wanting to read it for a very long time, and I'll be buying all of the books ASAP when my ban is over.

Shadowhunter Chronicles

(2015 Cover Re-Design)

by Cassandra Clare

Release date: September 1

I might hold off on buying these for a while. I love all of these books, and I made a video all about these new covers. I like them enough that I want to buy them, but since they're books I've already read, I'm not sure I'm going to get them immediately. I'll probably buy a box set of one series, and then wait a bit before buying the other one.

Discussion on the new Shadowhunter covers

Library of Souls

by Ransom Riggs

Release date: September 22

I read the first two books in the series at the beginning of 2014, and I enjoyed both of them. It's not my favorite series I've ever read, but I did like it. I'm probably going to wait before reading this, because the Miss Peregrine's movie is going to be released... sometime? I'm actually not sure when it's going to be released, but that will be the perfect opportunity to reread the first couple and to finish reading the series. Normally, I wouldn't wait that long, but I'm not that attached to it. I can wait a while without getting anxious.

Carry On

by Rainbow Rowell

Release date: October 6

I loved Fangirl, and the Simon Snow series sounds pretty cool, as does Cath's fanfic. From what I've seen, this isn't actually Cath's Carry On fanfic, but I'm still really excited to read this, because this is her first fantasy novel, and MAGIC SCHOOL! YAY!

The Amazing Book is Not on Fire

by Dan Howell & Phil Lester

Release date: October 8

I've mentioned several times that these two are my favorite YouTubers. I'm very frustrated at all of the YouTubers writing books, but I'm excited about this one. Yes, it's another memoir, but they actually wrote it (from what they've said- and I'm going to trust them), and the description makes it sound just as quirky, fun, and random as they are, so I'm really excited to get this one. I've already pre-ordered it, too.

Shadows of Self

by Brandon Sanderson

Release date: October 8

I've recently fallen in love with Brandon Sanderson, after reading his Mistborn trilogy and The Rithmatist. I haven't continued on to Mistborn 4, and this book is Mistborn 5, so I'm not sure if I'm going to get to it immediately upon its release, but Sanderson is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors (and depending on how good the rest of his books are, he might become my favorite author) and I want to read all of his books.

Illuminae

by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Release date: October 20

This is one of the books on this list that I'm most excited about. Caz from Little Book Owl talked about this book near the beginning of the year, and I was really intrigued by it. It wasn't super high on my TBR yet, but it intrigued me and I kept it at the back of my mind as a release I might want to look into. But then I started learning even more about it and it sounds really interesting. Not only is it tagged as dystopia/fantasy/sci-fi on Goodreads (aka my favorite genres), but it also has unique formatting with case files included, and stuff marked out. And then I saw the ARCs that people got at BEA and it just made me even more interested in it. I can't wait to read this one!

Ten Thousand Skies Above You

by Claudia Gray

Release date: November 3

The first book in this series, A Thousand Pieces of You, was released last year, and it's one of the books I really want to buy after my ban. The concept is really interesting, because it deals with a chase across parallel universes, and it just sounds super cool. These covers are really cool as well. Anyway, this is a series that really intrigues me, and I hope to read the first book in this series and then jump into this one.

Winter

by Marissa Meyer

Release date: November 10

I feel like every single YA reader is excited about this release. I'm pretty late to the Lunar Chronicles party, because I only read the 3 books that are out back in April and May. I really enjoyed them, and this has become one of my favorite series, so this is one of the ones that I'm most eagerly anticipating. And it's supposed to be 800 something pages, so that makes me really excited. I need to know how things end up for these awesome characters!

Passenger

by Alexandra Bracken

Release date: January 6, 2016

OK, so you're probably like "Kristen, this clearly says 2016. This is supposed to be books released in 2015." I made an oopsie. This was originally going to be released in 2015, but got pushed back to 2016. And I forgot about that. And this is one I'm really excited about, so when I narrowed down my list, this was one of the ones I decided to include in the video... and then I realized that this is now a 2016 release. So it's not supposed to be on this list. However, since I included it in the video, I decided to talk about it here as well.

Anyway, this just sounds incredibly awesome. First of all, the MC is a violinist, and it sounds like it might play a big role in the book. And as a violist music major, that makes me so excited. Plus, this involves time travel and is like a treasure hunt across time and several continents, That just sounds so cool. I can't wait to read this one. It sounds so cool.

So, those are all the 2015 releases that I'm super excited about! Let me know down in the comments which ones you can't wait to read!

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Summer Wrap-up!

Hey, y'all! Back in April, I did a monthly wrap-up post and mentioned that I might make it into a monthly series. Obviously, that hasn't happened... for several reasons. I had a lot of posts going up at the end of the month during each month in the summer, but the main reason I didn't do them is that my life isn't that interesting. I don't do that much. But enough interesting stuff happened throughout the summer that it warranted a wrap-up post. I'll also be discussing my monthly favorites! Let's get right into it!

The first, most obvious thing that I did this summer was my summer reading challenge. If you followed my blog at all throughout the summer, you probably already knew that. But, if you haven't seen anything about it, you can click here to check it out! It was definitely a big challenge for me, but I'm really glad that I decided to do it, because I got through 26 books in only 3 months! I'm really happy with the amount of reading I got done in May, June, and July.

Now, let's get into everything that went on in my life during each month!

May

As I mentioned in my April post, May began with finals. My finals were actually really early this year, and my last one was on May 2nd. Normally, I would almost immediately begin moving out after finishing my finals, but since I was working in the library on campus over the summer, I actually just got to chill out for a week before starting work. Both of my roommates moved out and went home, leaving me with a huge triple to myself! But the joy didn't last for long. Mid-May, I moved into summer housing. Let's just say it sucked. The dorm we lived in during the school year is one of the nicer dorms and we had a fairly large room. The room I lived in over the summer was very small, had bad lighting, and was in an older dorm with lots of pipes and a big window AC unit. It was a bit of a disaster.

Besides moving into my summer room, not much really went on in May. I worked 40 hours a week during the weekdays and relaxed in my room on the weekends... and didn't really do much else. 

May Favorites

The Mole

For those of you who have never heard of The Mole, it was a reality TV show from the early 2000s. There are 5 seasons. The first two are with regular people, the 3rd and 4th are with celebrities, and the 5th season was a regular people reboot circa 2008. The premise of the tv show is that a large group of people are competing to win money for a group pot that one of them will win. But the catch is that one person in the group is "The Mole," a saboteur hidden among the group who is working with the producers to keep the group from winning money. The contestants are attempting to discover who the mole is, while simultaneously trying to win money, and the home viewers also don't know who the mole is. At the end of each episode, contestants take a quiz where they have to answer questions about the mole's identity. The person who scores lowest on the quiz is eliminated. 

I first discovered the show last summer and watched the first two seasons. In May, I ended up re-watching the first two seasons and watching all 3 of the other seasons for the first time. If there were more seasons, I would have watched those too. I love this show. Oh, and the gif is of Anderson Cooper (who hosted the first two seasons and is half the reason it's amazing) being adorable after tricking the contestants into thinking he was about to eliminate someone. 

Clockwork Princess

Clockwork Princess was by far my favorite book that I read in the month of May. I read almost all of it in a single sitting, and it was absolutely beautiful. It quickly and unquestionably became one of my favorite books. Often, I have to give quite a bit of thought into what rating to give a book, but this one was a no brainer. 10/10 immediately.

June

June 1st, one of my school-year roommates got back to school for her internship that she was doing over the summer. We weren't living together because all of the summer rooms were just doubles, but it was nice to have one of my best friends back on campus. 

My birthday was on June 10th, and my parents were able to drive down to visit me, and they got there the same day my summer roommate (who I also live with during the school year!) came back to campus. So I spent the weekend with them and then my grandparents were supposed to fly in on Monday morning. Unfortunately, my grandparents' plane was delayed because of bad weather, so they didn't arrive until late that night. That afternoon, however, I took my parents to meet my bosses, and they actually bought me a cake and brought it in for all of us to eat!

  

 I love my bosses. They're some of the sweetest people ever. So, that night, my grandparents finally got in and I got to spend just a little bit of time with them that night. 

The next day, I showed them around my campus and introduced them to my bosses. We got to go out to dinner and then we picked up my cake and met up with my roommates to eat the cake.

My roommate Erin (the one on the right, who I wasn't living with over the summer) gave me a Wreck This Journal, which I was really excited to start using. Sarah, however, got... creative.

It's a running joke. We got Erin a wand for her birthday as well. We're all basically 5 year olds trapped in 20 year olds' bodies. Also, my smile is so weird because the icing on the cake turned our teeth black. Oops.

After my birthday, June wasn't really too interesting. It was basically just like May: work, chill, repeat.

June Favorites

Top Chef

Top Chef has been one of my favorite TV shows since 8th grade. So basically for 7 years *cue Kristen stopping and realizing that junior high was literally SEVEN YEARS AGO and that she's currently a 20 year old college junior* I have watched this show religiously. Well... lately not so much, but the first few seasons are perfection. Hulu added basically every episode of Top Chef, so I ended up making my way through *almost* all of the first five seasons while at work. I didn't quite make it to the end of season 5, because that was when the season started going downhill, and when the show started going downhill as well. Season 2 was the best season by far (followed by season 3, and then seasons 1&4 are tied). The only reason season 4 gets to tie with 1 is because RICHARD BLAIS. AKA my favorite contestant ever on Top Chef ever. Anyway, season 2, head-shaving incident. It will live forever in infamy. 

American Horror Story: Murder House

I had been meaning to watch this show for a really long time, but I have a very long list of shows that I've wanted to get to for a long time. I was in the mood, so I went for it. Season 1 was great. Haunted houses are my favorite haunted things. And Evan Peters as Tate totally has a Kurt Cobain vibe and I love it and I love him. I watched about half of season 2 before getting disinterested. I didn't dislike it, but I definitely couldn't get into it as much as season 1. If season 3 had been up on Netflix, I'd probably have just watched that, because I know I'd like it. But season 1 was great. I'll get to the other 2 eventually. 

July

Just like May and June, only one really interesting thing happened in July... the Fourth of July! One of my friends had an Independence Day party, where we ate lots of food and set off lots of fireworks. It was lots of fun.

So yeah, the fourth of July was really fun, but it was really the only exciting thing that happened in the month of July.

July Favorites

The Pilgrims of Rayne by DJ MacHale

This one shocked me. I always considered it to be one of the worst in the series (partially due to its terrible cover) but upon a re-read, it's unquestionably my favorite. I wish I could erase my memories of reading it and then go back and re-read it so that I could experience all of the shock and awe that goes along with it.

My Top 15 Stand-alones

I promise that this isn't just some shameless plug. I actually really enjoyed writing this post. I mean, I enjoy writing every post, but I especially enjoyed this one. I'm not quite sure exactly why I enjoyed it so much, but it was just a lot of fun and I got to see how some of my favorite books stacked up against each other... quite literally!

August

August is when things started to get really great. August first, Erin, Sarah, and I were able to move out of summer housing into our new apartment! Erin liked her summer room, but Sarah and I were very, very ready to move. Not only was our room completely cramped, but it had become ant and gnat infested and super gross. We wanted out of that place ASAP. And it didn't hurt that our new apartment is gorgeous...

The only tiny complaint is that the apartments were designed to have one person in each bedroom, but when our school took it over, they put two people per room. So our spaces are a little... cozy.

This is my side of mine & Erin's room. There's also an entry into the room with our closet, and on the wall across from my bed, I have my desk and bookshelf... but you can't see that yet because I'll be making a post all about my bookshelf later. 

After spending the entire weekend of August 1st-3rd moving, I packed up again on Monday and hopped on a plane to visit my parents! I spent a week there, and it was a nice and relaxing break from work and pretty much any responsibilities at all. It was great. 

And that pretty much catches y'all up with everything that has been going on with me this summer. Classes start today (well tomorrow, but I'm scheduling this for tomorrow, so... you get it) but I only have work-study and orchestra, so I have a pretty light schedule... until Thursday. That's when I start doing research assistant stuff out the wazoo. WOOT. 

August Favorites

Problem by Pentatonix

So, I will admit that I have listened to the original version of this song (by Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea) a grand total of 0 times. All the way through, at least. So I wasn't extremely excited about Pentatonix covering it. I knew it would be great because it's PTX and everything they do is amazing, but I wasn't crazy excited. The day their EP went up for pre-order, I pre-ordered it, being the obsessed fan that I am. With that came this song, and the music video was released the same day. I then proceeded to listen to exactly 0 other songs for about a week. I'm not exaggerating. This song is probably my most played song on my iTunes at this point, but I don't want to plug in my phone and prove myself right.

Dare MattG

If you're unaware, this guy is Matt. His Youtube channel is MattG124, and every Friday, he does "Dare MattG" (That thing on the internet where you dare me to do some things and sometimes I do those things that you dare me to do). Anyway, since he's been doing it for almost 3 years and has had a few breaks from doing it, he has a little over 90 Dare MattG videos. Before starting this marathon, I think I had seen like 2. I've now seen 1-75. And I'm working on the last 20ish. I've loved his videos for forever, but never got into Dare MattG. And now I've seen the light.

This brings me to infinity and beyond... er... what my plans are for the immediate future.

I'm working with my advisor as her research assistant, so that's going to take up a lot of time. Plus, I have 2 300 level psychology classes this semester, which is intimidating. I also have a 100 level music class, but I'm not really concerned about that. I probably wouldn't be too fazed by taking 4 400 level music classes, honestly. Anyway, I also have the same work-study job as well as ensemble classes and private lessons and orchestra (for which I'm now the viola section leader, so YAY). Plus the many many hours I'll be devoting to research assistant stuff, which I don't even want to think about right now. Let's just say that I'm glad I dropped my fourth class.   

I'll be posting an update on schedule and such... soon. IDK when. Because I don't have a schedule yet. If you only knew how busy I am...

Don't forget that I've created a Facebook page for my blog! If you want to check that out and like it, you can click HERE. I'll try to keep that pretty up-to-date with new posts and such.

Thanks for reading this! If you like my posts, don't forget to subscribe/follow, since it lets me know that you're enjoying what I'm doing. See y'all soon!

July Book Haul [Book Haul #3]

Hey, y'all! I'm here with my July book haul! I bought 14 books this month, which was more than I wanted to buy, but I don't really feel bad about it because several are books I have already read, and several are ones that I plan on reading this month.

Anyway, enough rambling. On to THE BOOKS.

Amazon Purchases

I bought all of these books off of Amazon at different times throughout the month, some just from Amazon, and some from their third-party vendors.

Project Runway: The Show That Changed Fashion

I actually already owned this book. I bought it right when it came out two years ago. However, if you remember from my bookshelf tour (Click here for part 1), I had this sitting on my windowsill. Well... apparently, we had a leaky windowsill and my copy was ruined. So I found a new copy from a third-party vendor on Amazon for only like $5, so I went ahead and got it and tossed the ruined copy.

Literary Listography

This is the most recent in a series of Listography books. I actually pre-ordered it so that I could get it this month on the day it came out. Each page has a different list for you to fill out. Since this one is all about books, there are lists to fill out such as "Favorite books of all-time" and "Favorite fantasy books." I also have the Music Listography and the original Listography. So far, I'm really liking this one!

The Shadowhunter's Codex 

by Cassandra Clare and Joshua Lewis

I own and have read all of Cassandra Clare's books, so I really wanted to get this one. I found it for only $5 from a third-party vendor on Amazon, so I snagged it. I plan on reading it this month, so it's not really adding anything to my TBR.

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

I've been eyeing this one for a while. A horror novel set on the moon sounds extremely intriguing, and when I saw it for only $7 on amazon, I went ahead and bought it. I'm hoping that I get to read this in October with my horror TBR!

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

This. Book. I've been wanting to read this for so incredibly long. This is actually the book I'm reading right now, but I'm not too far into it. Anyway, I picked it up right at the beginning of the month when I saw it for $7 on Amazon. It was also the best place to find it in paperback, and for once I significantly preferred the paperback cover, so I was glad to find it pretty inexpensively.

Unite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Yet another one I've been eyeing for quite a while, and it was $6 on Amazon. You know the drill by this point. I'm also not adding anything to my TBR, because I've already read it!

Four by Veronica Roth

I found this one one day at Target. I knew that she would be releasing a collection of novellas told from Four's POV, but I thought they were going to be separate and that they were going to be published as ebooks. So when I saw this sitting at Target, I just decided to pick it up.

Book Outlet

As usual, I made yet another Book Outlet purchase. Although this time I tried to keep it relatively small!

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

This was the book that prompted the Book Outlet purchase. I had seen this on Book Outlet off and on, but every time I found it, there weren't other books on there that I really wanted, and each time I went to go make a larger purchase, it was never there. And it would be pointless to buy it on Book Outlet without anything else, because then I would basically be paying full price. Either way, I plan on reading this within the next couple weeks!

Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake

I saw that it was only about 3 dollars, and had been wanting to read it, so I went ahead and grabbed it. This may be included in my October horror TBR, but at the same time, I'd probably want to read the sequel immediately after and I have a very long list of books I want to read in that month already... so maybe not. Either way, this sounds like a really interesting take on a ghost story, and the text is a very subtle shade of red, which is super cool. 

The Travelers Books 1 & 3

These two books are the first and last books in a trilogy based off of the Pendragon series by DJ MacHale. Each book has 3 stories, each one about one of the 9 travelers (except Bobby Pendragon) prior to the Pendragon series. I just recently found out that these are not actually written by DJ MacHale, which bums me out just a little, but it will still be nice to read stories about my favorite travelers. And since my two favorites are the ones featured in the middle of these two covers, I'm hoping their stories are longer and more intense than the others. 

HARRY POTTER!

This month, I was finally able to find the last two books I needed to complete my hardcover Harry Potter collection!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

This may be my least favorite book in the Harry Potter series (check out this series post and this video to learn more about my Harry Potter rankings) but I still wanted a pristine copy of it, and for an inexpensive price. And I finally found one! 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Even after re-reading the Harry Potter series in June, my rankings of the books didn't really change. Apparently, I've got a pretty good grasp on which are my favorites and which aren't. What did change, however, is the gaps between each ranking. Previously, I'd had Order of the Phoenix (5th fave) and Goblet of Fire (4th fave) mostly tied, with Goblet of Fire getting a slight edge. After this read, however, Goblet of Fire is almost tied with Prisoner of Azkaban, which is my 3rd favorite. Either way, it went from getting 4 stars on GoodReads to 5, which is an extremely rare occurrence for me. 

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Finally, I also found The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which I still hadn't purchased for some reason. I borrowed my friend's copy years ago, but hadn't ever bought it myself. Thankfully, my favorite used bookstore had it for $4, so I got it along with the other Harry Potter books I found that day!

So there we go, those are the 14 books I bought this month! Like I said, I didn't plan on buying very many this month, but since I've already read several and plan to read several this month, I don't feel bad about it. I do still plan on trying to buy very few books, so I'll probably only be allowing myself to purchase books that I have on my TBR for the rest of the year. 

I've also created a Facebook page for my blog, so if you want to check that out and like it, you can click HERE. I'll try to keep that pretty up-to-date with new posts and such.

Thanks for reading! If you like my posts, I'd really appreciate if you'd subscribe/follow so that I know you're enjoying what I'm posting! See y'all soon!