Ohhhh, I can already tell that this week’s That Artsy Reader Girl topic is going to be HARD. I can think of, like, one book with a number in the title? No, two! Oh my gosh, and all of you definitely know what one of them is. This is probably going to be predictable, but even before I dive into Goodreads, I know it’s also going to be a little bit impossible. (I also tried to put them in order, but I just could not find anything for eight & nine, alas.)

I was about to say “obviously OLS is the first one on here”, but do you know? I skipped One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston originally because I did not recognize that it had a number in the title. This topic was surprisingly hard to focus on since I didn’t just search through my Goodreads, but scrolled through all my books and tried to just eyeball numbers. Like?? Literally why.

The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien was probably one of the only books that I was like AH YES I KNOW EXACTLY! This is probably one of the only ones that actually makes sense inside its number, too? Like, sure, OLS makes sense, and number four is the fourth in the series, and January has a lot of doors, but TT legitimately has two towers, and the whole book is focused around what’s happening at those two towers. Tolkien was not a fan of suspense, let me tell you that, sometimes he just straight up titled things “the death of this person”, like bro.

I could have used every Kendare Blake book from the Three Dark Crowns series, but I only used one, so please give me that congrats because I truly almost just went “oh well, this is what we’re doing now, everybody go read this series”. I should have picked the second one, One Dark Throne, since it’s the one I liked the most, but this is a decent start to the series, and the series itself is worth the read, even if the present tense drives me crazy.

Again, I could have picked all of The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris, but in trying to stick with only one in a series, it had to be The Fourth Suit. I won’t lie, I liked every single book in this series, and I was hard-pressed to decide which one to pick, but not only was the series, as a whole, everything that ASOUE tried to be and failed utterly, but this was such a perfect conclusion that I’ll never look back on this series with anything but absolute joy.

I’ve definitely said this before, but fun fact about NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Because I am truly an idiot that doesn’t know how to pronounce things, I phonetically said this book’s title because I hadn’t quite connected that it was literally Nosferatu, so I just kept saying en-oh-es-four-ay-two YES I KNOW NO ONE SHOULD BE SURPRISED I STILL CAN’T PRONOUNCE GESTURE OR YOSEMITE. Anyway, this is the last backlist Hill book that I read, and I’m still sad that I have nothing left.

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Hayne is one of two books on this list that I haven’t read yet, and I also forgot that it existed until I was scrolling through my Goodreads, and now it’s kind of niggling at the edge of my mind trying to whisper at me, but I am on a book buying ban, Helen, you can wait and bother Troy later.

If you didn’t think Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo was going to appear on this list, you’re lying to both of us. It was one of the first books that popped into my head, for obvious reasons, and I was today years old when I realized that the title actually made sense. I definitely was just like “huh that’s cool whatever doesn’t actually connect”, but there are six of them. Six Crows. I still think the of is weird, but yeah. This is my brain capacity right now.

I also haven’t read The Seventh Sun by Lani Forbes yet! Unlike my other unread book, though, I actually own this one, and I’m hoping to get to it soon. Well, soon is relative considering my TBR is currently 70+ books, but we’re not stressing about that! I’ve truly got no rhyme or reason to how I’m reading through that stack, and I probably should come up with one because it’s going very slowly so far.

Seven Endless Forests by April Genevieve Tucholke was probably the other one that popped into my head immediately, and my goodness, I know I’ve said it a million times, but I will dieeeeee if we get more books in this universe, I need it so badly. I can’t remember if there are actually seven forests in this book, but I think so? If not in this one solely, there definitely is spread across the universe, which uhhhh? More of those endless forests, please? Thank you!

And rounding out this weird list is, of course, The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. There’s probably actually ten thousand doors in January’s world, though this title more feels like exaggeration & exasperation, which I vibe with real hard right now. And also? What a damn good title. I love that title formula of a number + something dramatic + of a name. Definitely going to use that someday.