Presents! - a book haul

 First, books. I got a gift card to a bookstore for Christmas from my brother, with which I ordered three books. The money on the gift card almost got me the three books, I think I had to pay only like three euros myself. Then I got one book for myself, but after a series of events I'll explain later, the book I got isn't from the same place as the one I originally ordered.

So, first. the Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I'm not going to talk about this too much, as I just did a review over here a few days ago. Read that if you want to know more about it. :)

Red Rising by Pierce Brown is the one I mentioned. I ordered this from the same place as the other books in this haul, then got a message that they didn't have it anymore. I shrugged, and ordered it from another place. Then came another e-mail, telling me I would be getting the book from the place I originally wanted after all, when I had already bought the book, cheaper, from the other place. Needless to say I returned the first one, and kept the cheaper one. (The other one was a large print edition as well, and I didn't like it at all. So it turned out okay in the end.)

This book is about people on Mars, the main character being a miner with a mission to get the planet habitable for humans. Then he finds out that there have been people living on Mars for generations, and that he is in fact one of the lower-class citizens, and decides to try to change things. I don't really know or want to know too much about this book, it just seemed interesting enough that I wanted to give it a try. It is a first of three, the second book came out just a little while ago.

Then, the Kill Order by James Dashner. Have I talked too much about the Maze Runner trilogy yet? This is the prequel to the series, set before the events of the trilogy. I can't really say too much without spoiling things. For a review of the Maze Runner, click here.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl with an eating disorder whose friend dies, and she is left to deal with that, at the same time struggling with her body image and recovery / relapse. I was interested in this, because of my own experiences with body image and all that. Finished reading it today, and one thing I have to say right now, is that it could be very triggering if you have any issues with eating disorders, self harm, or things along those lines. I'll review this a little better in my wrap up I'm planning on doing in the end of the month.

I also had to buy these two movies when I was ordering Red Rising. How to Train Your Dragon 2 was really really good and I didn't get it for Christmas or my birthday, so I bought it myself. As you can guess from the name, it's about dragons. I love the first movie, of course I had to get the second one as well. Duh. It's brilliant and great and awesome and I love it and saw it in the cinema twice. (Also I would really like my own dragon about right now. Thanks.)

Pacific Rim is about people in giant robots fighting giant monsters. Watch this video, it's what really made me want to see this movie, some time after it came out. I've been wanting to buy this for ages, ever since I saw it, and finally I got it. It's just a great movie, I love it.

One other thing I must mention; I got a reading lamp that can be attached to a book from my friend! It's totally awesome.

The Song of Achilles - a review

or alternatively titled: This Book Broke Me You Should Totally Read It.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This book is about the epic (love) story between Achilles and Patroclus in ancient Greece, in a time of heroes. The book is told from Patroclus' point of view, starting when he was a young boy. He and Achilles meet, become friends and grow up together, their bond deepening as they get older. Then comes news that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, and Achilles has to go to war in Troy, and Patroclus goes with him. This is all I'm going to write about the plot, and is basically what it says on the back of the book. It's not all there is, of course, but I want to leave some things as surprise.

(And when I say (love) story, I really mean love story.)

I loved this. I couldn't stop reading once I started, and ended up reading the whole book within 12 hours. Finished at 3 am (and felt like crying again half an hour later) but it was so worth it. I wanted to read it again the next day, at least the best parts, but I think I have to wait a little before reading it again.

The writing was lovely, and worked really well especially when Patroclus was a young boy or a teenager. It wasn't as good with him being an adult, but didn't take anything from the story, it was just something that I noticed. More like the writing style, and kind of Patroclus' thoughts, stayed the same, even when he was supposed to be older. The plot was wonderful and interesting, and even though it was partly about a war, it had more than just descriptions of fights.

I picked this up because I had seen a lot of people love this on the internet, and was interested. And it did not disappoint. It was captivating, wonderful, lovely and hot. And I mean the sexy kind of hot. Like, damn. You don't really need any knowledge of Greek mythology if you want to read it. I don't know much, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a good story without the knowledge of gods and goddesses, the Trojan war and other things, and I think it might even be better if you don't know too much. That way you can enjoy the book as it is, a version of the story.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars and moved it to my favourites shelf immediately. Because it was that good.

Most owned authors

My most owned authors, of the books I have in my flat. I'm pretty sure I own like 15+ books by Merja Jalo, but they're in boxes in my family's house. Horse books, because that's basically all I read when I was young. Horse books and Harry Potter.

...Here is the top 5, with three authors in the fifth place.

1. J.K. Rowling with 22 books. The complete Harry Potter series in Finnish and English, and the first four in German, and the school books. And the Casual Vacancy. I grew up with Harry Potter, and I believe it was Harry Potter that got me into reading. And these were the first ever books I read in English back when I was like 13-14.

2. Cassandra Clare with 10 books. The complete Mortal Instruments and the Infernal Devices series. And the Bane Chronicles.

3. Lemony Snicket with 9 books. A Series of Unfortunate Events, books 1-7, 11, and 13. Last one in English as I bought it when I was in London in 2008. Still haven't read it, I think I've read like the first ten or something, but I'm not sure. I really need to read these again, and preferably try to find the missing ones and buy those to complete my collection.

4. Stephenie Meyer with 7 books. Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse in Finnish, Twilight, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn in English. And the Host (in English), which is one of my favourite books ever. Way better than Twilight. I didn't get the last one in Finnish because the translation in Eclipse was really bad, and because the book sucked, so I didn't want to spend money on a book I knew was bad.

5. Christopher Paolini, Cecelia Ahern and Neil Gaiman with 6 books. And look, three of my favourite authors, together! The Inheritance Cycle by Paolini is another series I kind of grew up with. I have the complete series in English, and the first two in Finnish. Then I have six random books by Cecelia Ahern and Neil Gaiman, who are like my top two faves, with Gaiman on the top. Oh, one book by Ahern is in two languages, as I own it in Finnish and in German. Other than that, I own books in English and in Finnish. Neil Gaiman I do prefer to read in English, but I have Stardust in Finnish because it was cheap.

So, that's about it. I really like the photo, I'm so happy it turned out okay. I had a vision of how I wanted to the picture to look like, and it turned out just like I wanted, with a massive pile of books for J.K. Rowling in the first place. ;) And even better, most of these authors are actually my favourites.

Warning: these covers do not match

There. All of my series that have non-matching books. That's about half of my series. And I don't careee~

There are many ways the books might not match. The most common one is that some of the books are paperback, some hardcover. That already makes a difference in height and size, and sometimes even the cover changes. I have a lot of these, as you can see. Then there are differences in sizes within paperbacks and within hardcovers. Small paperbacks, tall paperbacks, and then some of my books are of a third height, and might not even match within that "third height." Different editions and cover changes are also common. Some publishers change the cover designs in the middle of publishing a series, some publish the series again with the new covers. Sometimes the changes are small, sometimes a little bigger.

There are many ways these and other things might anger people, who care about having matching books on their shelves. I only get a little angry if something happens, like for example, my hardcover gets destroyed, because my family's dog got the book out from my mother's bag and ate it, and my mother bought me a paperback to replace my beautiful hardcover. (Eragon in Finnish, if you were wondering.) I get books as gifts, so I can't complain if I get a different edition than the other books I have. We don't get all the editions of books written in English, so I can't be picky when buying those.

It's totally fine wanting matching books, I'm not saying that it's not. I might think it's a little stupid to keep buying multiple copies of the same book just because it doesn't match and there's no way to tell if it will when ordering it online, but it doesn't matter what I think. If you have the money and really want to get the matching book, go for it. I will shake my head and be happy with my non-matching covers, because for me it doesn't really matter what my books look like. I just want to be able to enjoy reading them, and the picture on the cover or the height of the paperback doesn't change the reading experience.

Read one; buy one

(The picture has nothing to do with the text, sorry about that. But it was so lovely outside today and I had to go play photographer even if it was really cold, but I just love Finland and winter and together they are just perfection.)

Last year I decided to restrict my book buying, and came up with a rule of 'read one book you haven't read yet, and then you can buy one book.' Simple. It worked well, and I was originally going to continue with the same list this year, meaning I would have been able to buy six books at the start of this year. However, I changed my mind about this. I'm going to start all over again.

My birthday is in a week, and I usually get books for Christmas, so this time of the year it isn't really "necessary" for me to buy books, as I have a lot to read anyway. After I have read those books, I will be able to buy more again, and that sounds just fine for me. I have limited space on my bookshelf, because I don't have money to buy another one, nor do I really have the space for it in my room. I don't want to be one of those people who buy ten books every month, because my goal is to have read all / most of my books at some point in life.

I haven't been counting the books I get as gifts, only the ones I buy with my own money, because that's what this really is about; saving money / not spending all of my money on books when I do really need to eat too. It's a really easy way to control my book buying, and it doesn't feel too forced or too big like a total book buying ban would be. This way I still get to go to the bookstore and buy books, get new stories on my shelves to be excited about, instead of just having to avoid bookstores. I'd never be able to keep to my book buying ban, I'd break it after a couple of months I'm sure.

This one is really good if you want to change it at some point. For example, if I read a lot of unread books, I might make the rule 'read two; buy one.' Easy. I don't know if I'd even need the rule, but I do like having something like that to remind me to not buy everything I find even remotely interesting.

So yeah, read one; buy one. I liked it so much last year, that I think this will continue on in my life for a long time. :)

(Oh, by the way, I changed my reading challenge to 35 unread books, and the total in my mind to 50. Because I've already finished two books.)

Reader Problems Tag

1. You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next?
Mood, feeling. I pick what I want to read next, I don't really think about it too much. Well, I do want to read the books I haven't read that I own before moving to my flatmate's bookshelf... I also have the tbr jar, from which I read one book every month. The books in the jar are books I wouldn't maybe read at all, but that I own. I want to read more different stuff, so the tbr jar is really helping me with that.
2. You’re halfway through a book and you’re just not loving it. Do you quit or are you committed?
I usually try my hardest to not quit. I've only ever stopped reading a few books in my life, because I couldn't get into the story and it was taking me so long to read them that I began to forget what had happened in the beginning. Not loving a book is not a problem for me, I think you have to sometimes read bad books as well as good and great books.
3. The end of the year is coming and you’re so close, but so far away on your Goodreads reading challenge. Do you try to catch up and how?
I make my challenges easy. I'd much rather win the challenge many months before the end of the year, because I stress about stuff a lot anyway without the added stress from reading "enough".
4. The covers of a series you love do. not. match. How do you cope?
I don't care. Most of my series don't have matching books, and I don't give a shit. I'll be writing more about this sometime soon, because a lot of people get crazy over this stuff and I just don't care.
5. Every one and their mother loves a book you really don’t like. Who do you bond with over shared feelings?
I don't, really. I move on. I rate it, maybe review it, and move on. Sometimes I do complain to my friends, but not that much I think...
6. You’re reading a book and you are about to start crying in public. How do you deal?
I just realized I don't really read in public. Probably because I get motion sickness from just reading the signs by the road when in a car, so I really can't read anywhere that moves. Car, bus, train, nope. And at school our breaks were never really that long... I think I'd just let it go, or stop reading and get back to the book when I get home. I don't know, really.
7. A sequel of a book you loved just came out, but you've forgotten a lot from the prior novel. Will you re-read the book? Skip the sequel? Try to find a synopsis on Goodreads? Cry in frustration?!?!?!?
Reread. If I even remotely liked the book, I'll reread. I love rereading books. (Last summer I read the five previous books of the Mortal Instruments series just because I couldn't remember what had happenend in books four and five, before reading the last book in the series. So yeah, reread.)
8. You do not want anyone. ANYONE. borrowing your books. How do you politely tell people nope when they ask?
I'm kind of okay with people borrowing my books, if they have been good to them in the past. And like, my flatmate lives with me, so the books never even have to leave the apartment. My mother borrowed one without really asking, but, like, she's my mother. Half-strangers, on the other hand... No. You have to be a close friend. And preferably read the book without taking it with you because I can never be sure how you treat it if you take it away with you. So, I'm weird with this one. Close friends okay, others... not so much. The biggest problem I have is that I can't be sure to get the book back, not necessarily the condition of the book. (Books are supposed to look read, is what I think.)
9. Reading ADD. You've picked up and put down 5 books in the last month. How do you get over your reading slump?
I don't even get that far. If I don't feel like reading, I don't read. I trust that my want to read will come back eventually, maybe I get a new book I'm excited about and read that, and that's it, maybe someone really liked a book I have on my shelf, I don't really know. I just take a break, there's no use in trying to force myself to read. Reading is supposed to be fun, guys!
10. There are so many new books coming out that you’re dying to read! How many do you actually buy?
Well. I live in Finland. We don't get all the books I see people on booktube getting excited about, and I don't really ever follow the new releases. I discover new books by seeing reviews and wanting to read them based on that, and then I have to order a lot of them online if I want to read them, because I like to read books in English if they were originally written in English. New Finnish books I find when they are already published and sitting on the shelves in my local bookstore when I go there.
11. After you've bought the new books you can’t wait to get to, how long do they sit on your shelf before you get to them?
If I'm really excited about a book, I want to read is as soon as possible. I might start them right away, I might just wait until I've finished some book I'm reading first. I don't have trouble reading multiple books at once, so if I'm really really excited to read a book I just bought, I will read it.

This tag was started over here, and it was really fun to do.

2014 book haul, part 2

The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner; the Maze Runner, the Scorch Trials, the Death Cure. I have a review for them over here, and I'll just say, once again, that I love this trilogy. I bought the Maze Runner when I had a little money and wanted to buy books, and found that, and the next book I'm going to tell you about in a sec. Read it, loved it, had to order the next two, and loved them almost as much. (Do I talk about this too much? I feel like I've been mentioning this a lot since I read it...) The first and the second book 5 out of 5 stars, the third one 4 stars.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan is a story about two teenage boys with the same name, who meet by accident and the story goes on from there. Every other chapter is written by Green, ever other by Levithan, and they both write about their own Will Grayson. I liked the different writing styles, after the initial shock of it changing in chapter two, and it worked really well with the story. I really liked this book, it was lovely, great, and brilliant. The ending was a little 'meh' for me, it felt like it should have continued a little bit after that. 4 out of 5 stars.

This next one is a little bit embarrassing, and I don't really know why. The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson. Yes, I was being a fangirl, but I had to buy the stories about Magnus Bane's life. He's a character from the Mortal Instruments and the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare, and he might just be my favourite character. I had to, okay. I saw a few of these in my local bookstore and I just couldn't leave without buying it. It's the last Clare book I'll buy, and I just might tell you why some time later.

And because I felt like it, I threw in a Christmas present from my mother. Looking for Alaska by John Green. I got this because the book I originally wanted hadn't arrived by Christmas, and my mother wanted me to at least get some book. I've never bought this myself, it has never seemed like something I'd really want to spend money on, but I'm not complaining because now I have it anyway. This is about a boy who meets a girl at a boarding school, and that's kind of all I know? I don't know, okay, I haven't read this one yet and the blurb in the back is really really vague.

I like these shorter book hauls more than the monster of my previous one, so I'll try to do these a bit more often than twice a year.