Five Books Releasing In 2020 // ft. Me Not Being Able To Make Up My Mind?? (aka, two reviews and three anticipated…ness reads)

Hello hello hello I’m back with the bookish content!!!

Aka, what most of you come here for. Not my weird stuff 😀

Today I’m going to be talking about five books that are coming out this year (teehee lots of characters join me) – two of which I’ve already read, and will be reviewing. The other three I’m just gonna rant about. It was going to be three reviews but The Gravity Of Us, Phil Stamper was just too hard to write about?? It was good but I just couldn’t write?

In other news I read The Memory Book which was awful (hint: het love triangles and a boring ending) and right now I’m listening to Aristotle and Dante (as an audiobook!! which I never do!!) which is so beautiful. I’ve been doing puzzles while listening and it’s brilliant. Lin-Manuel Miranda narrates it which makes it ten times better?? How???

THE ELECTRIC HEIR, VICTORIA LEE

Okay okay so I read TFK last year and thought it was good? And then I upgraded it to a favourite?? However, by now it’s been demoted back to 4.5 stars and a non-favourite – but I’m still looking forward to TEH. TFK was gripping and exciting and I can’t wait to see where Noam and Dara go next. It seems to be ‘let’s give the people everything they want and also kill them’ soooooo… this should be fun!

Plus I want my snarky Level IV friends back. (…it’s been too long since I’ve read it and I no longer know if it’s Level IV, V, or VI whoops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

AURORA BURNING, AMIE KAUFMAN AND JAY KRISTOFF

THIS. My friend and I have a countdown going and last year I went to hear the authors speak and got books signed and she was mad I didn’t tell her :D.

Anyway. Squad 312 is amazing and I want them all back…there’s not much I can say about this because,,,, uHHHhhhHhHHh, I don’t remember much from book 1?? I need to do a reread before it comes out 🙂 yay more rereads.

Honestly I just want more dialogue? Like… adventure is fun but I just want Finian and Scarlett fighting. That’s all. 400 pages of that please and thanks.

THE HENNA WARS, ADIBA JAGIRDAR

This just looks so good? I mean… it’s gay and involves henna and apparently it’s a mix of When Dimple Met Rishi and Simon VS so I honestly don’t see how this can go wrong (but me saying that is an invitation for a horrible book so book gods pls protect me).

It also seems like it’s enemies to lovers which I love!!! They’re bonding/fighting over competing henna businesses 🙂 enemies to lovers >>>>> any other trope

It also seems like it deals a bit with racism and cultural appropriation?? Anyone who’s read it please correct me if I’m wrong but I’m super excited to see how the author deals with it… I’ve seen it done well and I’ve seen it done……… awfully.

THE KINGDOM OF BACK, MARIE LU

FIRST THINGS FIRST: I HAVE A HARDCOVER. my lovely father brought it back from the US when he went a little while ago and he surprised me with a copy of RW&RB as well :)) (one problem: RWRB doesn’t fit anywhere on my shelf so I’m internally dying)

It spins an intricate tale of the Mozart siblings and their adventures around Europe and the Kingdom of Back. Nannerl and Woferl spend most of their time together and they tell stories and invent a magical world called the Kingdom of Back. Soon, however, parts of this world start to haunt them in real life

Anything Marie Lu writes is an auto-buy for me, and this didn’t disappoint. I loved this so much. The world building!! The characters!! I’m not normally a fan of historical fiction (with the exception of gentleman’s guide hehe) but this was so good!!! It gave me enough backstory that I can just dive into it with no prior knowledge (yayyy) but didn’t feel like it was cramming it in??

ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED, SOPHIE GONZALES

So.. I’ve never seen Grease. Or really know the plot line. So… even though this was marketed as a queer Grease retelling, I didn’t really know what I was getting into.

Turns out I was getting into a whole lot of emotional investment and tears and laughs.

I mean, there were times that I was almost crying from laughter. Other times I cried (yes, actual tears happened once) because of the thing. (spoilery thing).

Ollie was so so so sweet? And an aCTUAL cinnamon roll, no convincing me otherwise. Will…. his struggle was written so well – why do I always relate to the love interest and not really the MC in books??

The fact that Ollie was out but Will wasn’t didn’t seem like it overpowered the general romance? It was there (and kind of a big reason too haha) but overall it could’ve been made a bigger deal than it was and I loved that it wasn’t.

have you read any of these? liked them as much as me? excited for the same books? listened to the ari and dante audiobook?! talk to me! promise i’m not that scary… 🙂 have a lovely week xxx

also thank you all for putting up with the more personal posts recently! so many of you have left beautiful comments and that validation and sweetness just makes me melt and feel so thankful for this community 💕 thanks y’all 🙂 there might be more of that coming soon…. got some poetry and other rambly things to share perhaps…

thanks for the tears, sweetheart xx

hi. so ive been extraordinarily absent for two weeks. im alive. not thriving in online school. but alive.

anyway here’s a ramble. my brand. going back to basics today. love y’all.

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‘Do you want to talk about it?’ says Rowan.

‘No,’ I say.

But, I do. I always do. — Alice Oseman, I Was Born For This

ive quite literally read this and decided to write and publish this. oh well.

this line might be the most emotional and relatable line ive read all year. thanks for the tears sweetheart.

you know when people ask you how you are and you say good? that’s the vibe.

it’s about finding the people who you know won’t judge you, but when the whole world will judge you who do you turn to?

even if it’s all in your head they’re still judging you. it’s a human instinct. you can’t turn it off and even if they won’t say anything they’ll think it.

why is she worrying about that, trivial, inconsequential conversation she had three years ago.

why?

because that’s how it goes. stuck at your desk doing online learning sucks because all of a sudden, there’s no big distraction from your head.

and you never knew how noisy it was up there. like a facetime call to grandparents with parent talking far too loud in your ear, even though the connection is fine, they’re still deaf.

like that.

too loud. too much much.

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thanks for sticking around xx hopefully a post this weekend 🙂

lead with the worst

apologies in advance for this pos, i was unsure about it but i think i should. yknow how i said i was going to do more random type stuff? this is the random type stuff. enjoy 🙂

all the rain falling outside runs down the bus window. it looks like tears. i wonder if my tears look that pretty.

maybe they look like those movies. the ones with the cliche girl with all her mascara running down, leaving a black trail like her soul is emptying out. what even is mascara anyway.

perhaps it’s more of a waterfall. something that tourists would take photos of and show to all their friends after the trip but then when push comes to shove and their storage is full they’ll delete it because the tiny bit of history they made there doesn’t really matter. not when the waterfall has been there for years.

just subtly calling myself out on the full storage thing. i filled up 50gb how.

maybe tears are like the water that overflows from a water bottle. that you just wipe off without a care in the world because it’s annoying and you don’t want it to leak and spill all over your bag because that’s really annoying and you panic at school which is never fun cause the tears don’t overflow but the bottle comes close to bursting. meaning even though you don’t cry you need to but can’t.

at least the lid is on tight.

maybe the tears are just like a window. they roll down slowly at first, then faster. the person behind is just waving through a window. like evan. they’re slamming on the brakes before they even turn the key.

what would happen if we turned the key before we slam?

if we dared to make the mistake of leading with the worst. maybe that’s what you have to do sometimes to get to something good. even though i wish you didn’t. maybe the worst in you will spark something in other people. mayhaps it will inspire them to lead with the worst. mayhaps what you think is the worst of you is actually the best. maybe it’ll start a lifelong friendship.

probably not.

but i’ve been trying to be an optimist recently.

also sorry for shoving the deh references in your face and basing an entire post around it. whoops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

anyway we’re going back to the bookish stuff next week. hopefully. i won’t make you suffer through another 400 word ramble again.

step out of the sun if you keep getting burnt. #lifeadvice

A Long Ramble Of Life, Books, And Other Random Stuff I Forgot About??

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated on life and things.

….2019? Yikes. I have some serious catching up to do. No time to make an image or anything so let’s just do this!

Books That I Adore With All My Heart ft. Too Much Squealing And Some Bad Explanations Of Good Books

So to kick off the third year of this blog I think it’s only fitting I fangirl. A lot.

And also…. just to guarantee that, talk about some of my favourite books ever. Which is a high standard when you have consistently read 100+ books a year for almost all your life.

(also that’s meeeeee in that photo… headless but we like to stay safe :D)

So, without further debate, I present to a toast: to jasons bar mitzvah WAIT NO THAT’S NOT IT. how about…. a toast to the groom, to the groom, to the groom, to the groom THAT’S NOT IT EITHER.

A toast to new beginnings and old favourites. There we go.

THE RAVEN CYCLE

So I think this might actually be my favourite series of all time?? It’s overtaken Six of Crows (which is partly because of a recent binge reread I did that made me fall in love with everyone again) and honestly just thinking about everyone makes my heart go !!!

If you need convincing, go talk to Olivia because she’s better at promoting than I am (and she loves this series a lot too, so you know she’s one of the good ones 😉 ) but basically, there are angry boys and boys looking for a dead Welsh king and there’s a totally non-psychic girl and there’s messy complicated people in both blood and found families and I love them all (also rereading thE FORESHADOWING IN EVERY SMALL DETAIL HOW DOES SOMEONE PLAN THAT EFFECTIVELY WOW)

And no one dares to ship anything outside the canon so it’s all fun times here 😀

SIX OF CROWS

This was my first nonreread in 2019 and honestly the fact I started off the year so great is so cool (my first read this year was Call Down The Hawk so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m doing well so far).

It has heists and magic and enemies to lovers and gays and snark and waffles. There are six things that should convince you to read it. (Also I wrote in my copy of it and I only do that with the most ~special~ books so hAh please read it I’m soft for it like kaz is soft for inej)

Also it has quoteable stuff like ‘this action will have no echo’ but then it also has gems like ‘my ghost won’t associate with your ghost’ so. Get yourself a book that can do both. (And there’s two!!!!!! More time to fangirl!!!)

RED, WHITE, AND ROYAL BLUE

This has all my favourite things: gay, enemies to lovers, and hamilton references (the hamilton x laurens ship is officially canon and no one can tell me otherwise alSO THE MOVIE IS COMING OUT)

What more could I want? And living in a world where Donald Trump isn’t president of the USA? Count me in 🙂 Besides from all my very best tropes that are reliably good for me, it also has strong feminist vibes, a supportive mum with the best reaction to coming out (spoiler: it involves a powerpoint), a not-so-supportive family that is kinda trash??? And highkey annoying?? But they’re royal so we can’t do anything ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think I’ve explained this best before so hold on a sec while I copy and paste….. there.

“Less of an enemies to lovers book and more of a ‘who is he ugh I hate him’ to ‘I’ve been coerced into doing this so I’ll be fake nice to you’ to ‘wait why am I smiling at your texts that come at 3am’ to ‘okay I’m in love with you but it’s fine it’s nothing’ to ‘whO IS TOUCHING HIM I WILL KILL THEM’ and who doesn’t love a good ‘wait what’ realization.”

Thanks to past me for having the foresight to spend half an hour (I’m not joking) trying to come up with an adequate way to describe this book. I like you a lot right now.

DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY

This is just too beautiful for words???? And I love it so freaking much like what the actual heck. There’s one scene that I cry in every time and it’s just….. AHH I CANT DEAL WITH IT.

For me in particular (and this is definitely not going to relate to everyone) I could feel the similarities in Darius’ experience in Iran to my experience going to India the first time?? And just the way he felt so welcomed it at the same time like a complete outsider was so true?? Not sure where I’m going with this but I felt something there ❤

I’m not sure how to describe it but basically Darius goes to Iran for the summer when his grandfather gets sick and he meets some people and he plays soccer and he gets closer to people. That’s the really horrible explanation but it should be enough to convince you to read it. Along with the fact that I talk about it too often.

AUTOBOYOGRAPHY

This book. It’s so damn beautiful.

It talks about being queer and religious (more specifically, Mormon) and how you can feel so loved but at the same time feel so bad for being you. It talks about bisexuality and some things that!!!! Need!!! To !!! Be!!! Said!!! It talks about writers making bad decisions (tanner: i have to turn this book in. also tanner: you know what let’s forget about that and write pages and pages about something that Can’t Be Used). It talks about parents who shove bumper stickers in their kids’ faces (if that one sentence doesn’t convince you idk what will) and who are too precious and supportive for this world. It talks about parents who talk about someone being gay like they’ve just died.

I could relate to so many parts of this and it just made me cry so much??? And it also made me stop and think about so many things so :’) thank you. This book did for me what I know Simon VS did for so may people and I truly hope this gets that level of publicity one day. (Including a movie cause I would 10/10 watch that.)

ok first things first you better tell me you’ve read all these cause if not… there’s trouble coming. hehe I’m joking please stay and comment I promise I’m friendly and I don’t bite!!!!!

also look at ya girl goooooo i just wrote 1050 words in about 40 minutes this break has done wonders for me. also also my next post will be a lovely little ramble on books I read in my break and life stuff cause I missed my jan recap xx love y’all ALSO also also leave some questions here please cause I WANT SOEM please and thank you okay bye bye bye (but it ain’t no lie, baby bi bi bi (have y’all seen those edits?? they’RE AMAZING okay I’m actually gonna shut up now)

 

it’s the feeling of freedom / of seeing the light

(love angelica schuyler so freaking much guys)

so apparently I’ve existed in this part of town for 2 years now. two years ago I wrote the first words that would appear on marshmallow harmonies. two years ago I decided to take a risk and post something out into the universe.

I gotta say, it paid off.

not only have I and this blog grown so much (in every way possible…. literally, metaphorically, wHaTeVeR) over the t w o y e a r s (wait what hOw) I’ve been here, but I can’t imagine life without it in the background. always thinking of post ideas and scheduling and oh-hang-on-do-i-have-a-spare-hour-on-the-weekend-to-blog-or-not. it’s there. and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

and reading all your lovely comments (seriously I’ve been so lucky and had almost no hate… except for that one thing but we don’t talk about it cause it wasn’t that bad even) honestly makes the entire experience so. good. like,,,, you guys are the best part of what I do here. a) because validation is amazing and like everyone I need it, and b) it’s so lovely to get recs and thoughts and fangirling from people other than me?? I know that I do run and write the blog but y’all are a part of this too. some of you have been with me for a very long time and I am eternally grateful for the continual support and love.

some quick thanks to some people who really made my day on multiple occasions…. olivia: thank you for finally reading six of crows and always being up for memes about trc. your long comments are always a joy to read, please never stop xxx

jo: your posts always come at the perfect time, I love them so much. also hApPy bLoGiVeRsArY tO yOu tOo (we share one hehe)

lais: your posts are so unique like how?! e n v i o u s anyway thank you for commenting and sharing so many useful opinions!!! they’ve often helped me decide on book buying and reading 😉 xx

sha: absolutely adore you + your content!! thank you for also finally reading six of crows and for checking in with the fire stuff, it meant a lot xx also our long comment threads are 👌 just gotta say that

someone with a blog who is a friend irl: three words. ari and dante. you know who you are now, thank you for being so supportive and loving and fangirlish and for helping build up the book club at school xx love ya (and thank you for the beautiful text you sent after I announced my hiatus!!)

someone without a blog who is a friend irl: thank you so much for going through and reading ALL my old posts and responding to surveys. thank you for the love and support, love you big time girl xx

so many people have commented and made my day but these are some people who went the extra mile and who never fail to make me smile. every single one of you is appreciated and loved by me, and I never would’ve gotten the motivation to do this without you.

there’s a small q and a. give me some questions in the comments (please!!) and I’ll get it out soonish. thank you all for everything. xx

here’s a quote. it’s a bit of a lead on to something else I want to say but I like it for this post.

time to let go / say hello / to barbara marshmallow harmonies 2.0 (!)

I want to go in a bit of different direction. still posting bookish stuff because I love it too much to give up, but I want to put some different stuff out. like poetry, just general stuff I think about, and also thoughts that sparked from lines out of musicals/books/tv shows/etc. not sure about this yet and if it’ll take off but there it is. yeah.

thank you all. I’m so excited to see where this blog goes in the next year xx

love rhi

p.s. y’all left amazingly lovely comments on my leaving post and I just wanted to say that while they haven’t been approved and responded to I read them all xxx

:( i’m leaving for now

I would’ve said this sooner but I was down at the beach with bad internet for a while…. anyway.

I’ve decided to take a break from blogging for a while. I don’t know how long I’ll be but what I do know is that keeping up this blog isn’t as enjoyable anymore. It’s hard for me to write 1-2k posts and format on time (and half the time it isn’t on time even, causing more stress) and as much as I love producing content I don’t think I can keep it up this consistently.

So I’ve decided to take a break for a while. I’ll probably be gone at least a month, and I plan to slowly work on posts, taking maybe 15 minutes where I can to write and format. That way, I can work on a lot of stuff and when I come back (cause no way am I leaving forever) it’ll be less stressful.

I’m sad to be leaving but it’s not forever. I was going to announce this in a jan recap but I didn’t get around to doing it 😦 so this is what you get. Love you all, thanks for sticking around xx

The Hamilton Book Tag ft. Not Enough References And The Same Books I Always Talk About

It’s about time for me to do a tag.

I mean… I haven’t done one in a while?? And I like Hamilton?? So why not??

And if anyone knows who created this one let me know cause I’ve done some searching but can’t find the original…. and this post has been sitting in my drafts so long I don’t even know where I got these questions from haha

Some Reviews Of Recent Reads ft. Fangirling (But What Do You Expect Really?)

So will you look at that.

I mean…. apparently January 2020 is just me trying to be back in 2019 cause all my posts have been to do with last year.

Anyway, these are some reviews of a couple (five) books that have been sitting in my drafts since December 😀

a very brief twenty nineteen recap post without formatting ft. me being sappy and unorganised

this will just be a short and sweet post to talk about some stuff I did in 2019, enjoy!