Well, this was unexpected. Remember the beginning of this year, when I was like “okay I have 80 owned & unread books from 2017-2019, and my goal is to read all of them for 2020 and not to buy any new books until my birthday in March because my reading is slowing down and these 80 books are already stressful enough”???

LOL @ MYSELF

Erin came to visit in February, and we didn’t have any plans, but I kind of wanted to go to B&N and quickly buy the Winterhouse sequel & maaaaybe one queer contemporary, which, like, totally did, but x5. And then Alex and I went out for sushi the following weekend, but we were mad because we thought that Emma was already out, so we were going to go to a coffee shop to be mad together, but the coffee shop was not our vibe (translation: not Jaho in Salem), so she was like, “Well, Jabberwocky is nearby, and you’ve never been,” and like??? OKAY.

So anyway, here’s a book haul!

Okay, so my intention going in was hopefully some queer contemporaries & could definitely be swayed by space. I’d say I definitely fulfilled the first and snuck in the second.

I’ve seen We Are Lost and Found by Helene Dunbar everywhere, both in real life and on social media, so it was really only a matter of time before I read it. Honestly, it’s only a matter of time before I read most LGBTQ+ books because that’s where my heart lies. I’m also super excited to be adding a bunch of contemporaries onto my TBR because I only had ONE left, and that is a true tragedy.

You know a book is good when you buy the sequel only a couple weeks after finishing the first one, and The Secrets of Winterhouse by Ben Gutterson was on my must-buy list as soon as possible. I enjoyed the first one so much, and it might be taking the slot for best middle grade already this year. It reminds me a lot of The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone, which was one of my favorite reads last year, and I’m so excited to continue with Winterhouse.

I was with Erin when I found this, and she went, “Um, hi, it has bees and I think it’s gay,” so that was pretty much an auto-buy. By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery sounds absolutely adorable, and also unlike anything I’ve read so far because bees and farming but also city life? I’m so excited (I feel like I say this a lot) about this sweet little yellow book.

I NEED MORE QUEER LATINAS, FRIENDS, HELP ME OUT. One of my books is overflowing with queer Latina witches, and I need more in my everyday life, so send all your recs! For now, I’m hyped about Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, so much so that I nearly bought it during my second haul before realizing I definitely had already picked this up.

I mean, come on. The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper is queer and about space. Was there ever a more me book than this? I can’t remember who I saw review this, but it hadn’t been on my radar until I saw that, and then I was like EXCUSE ME WHAT. So, like, the moral of the story is that I went to B&N for Winterhouse & this, and I actually grabbed both, so I’m pretty proud of myself.

Beyond the Black Door by A. M. Strickland has the kind of cover that I’ve been eyeing for a while and definitely want to give a closer look, but then there was an author blurb from Lisa Maxwell on the back, and I was like oh okay guess I’m reading this then, AND THEN THERE WAS ALSO ACE REP IN THE SUMMARY AND I WAS LIKE WHAT OKAY. Ace rep in a fantasy blurbed by Lisa Maxwell? GIMME.

We had just been talking about sister witches, which is queer Latinx witches that don’t give a flying rat’s ass what you think, so uh? My haul is not unsurprising in the slightest.

Look, I know I’m way behind the times having not read With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo yet, but I’m here now, and I’m very excited, and I just hope that my severe decline in reading so far this year doesn’t mean that I don’t end up reading this for many months now because I want it. It’s so pretty, I could die!

I’ve been meaning to buy The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden for a while now since I said I was going to wait until winter to read it, and now it’s almost not winter anymore, and, admittedly, I’m probably not going to read this until next winter now, but at least I’m one step closer to reading it. I really wish I wasn’t so awful with series.

Honesty time: I can only kind of remember what this is about. I’m weird with summaries. If they don’t grab me within the first few lines, I’ll probably put them back, but it also depends on how awake/focused I am? For example, I was very keyed up to be in Jabberwocky, but also very tired from the day, so I was having trouble actually paying attention to the books around me, and while The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake definitely grabbed my attention, I now am not 100% sure what it’s about, but it’s contemporary and it sounds like it’s going to make me cry and there are siblings, so all of those things (plus a pretty cover and an intriguing title) have led it to my shelf.

Wow, look at me @ing my own self right now. I don’t remember which post it was, but I have a recent post in which I say that I’m never going to read this book, and in true Mary fashion, I have thought of nothing but this book since then. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness has witches and vampires, okay, and my current book has witches and vampires (mine don’t fall in love, though), and I kind of just want something mindless like Shadowhunters, but grown up, so here we are.

The Amberlough Dossier by Lara Elena Donnelly left a strange gay hole in my heart that I don’t know how to fill, but The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley sounds like it might be up to the task. It’s queer, the writing seems similar, and it’s set in the far enough past that the vibe sounds like it’ll be similar, as well. Not that I’m looking for another Aristide & Cyril because that’s impossible, but I really just want something queer, political, and all over the place.

I’ve loved every book by Ruta Sepetys that I’ve read so far, so I was going to buy The Fountains of Silence no matter what, and it was really just a matter of whether I was going to wait for it to come in paperback or not, but I don’t currently have any to read by her, soooooo. I’m even more excited than I usually am for one of her books because this one takes place in Spain, which is relevant to all of my current writing projects!

A Treason of Thorns by Laura E. Weymouth is an example of Mary getting swept away by the title and the promise of fae-like magic because plants and houses that are alive, and I’m not even a little mad about it. This sounds whimsical and magical and strange, and I was unsure about it until I started reading a little and the house is literally alive, and I don’t know, that’s just really appealing to me right now.

Have you read any of these books?