Hey, guys it's Olivia here from Olivia's
Catastrophe. And today I'm here to give
you one last back list book haul. So for
those of you who don't know I've been on
a book haul for the past twelve months.
I'm almost at the end of my year-long
buying ban but before I went on my
buying ban I had done a six-month buying
ban. And in between those two buying bans
I had one book haul where I'd bought a
lot of books. So that's actually from
last year but I'm thinking of sharing it
now because some books arrived and I
just want to show you these books very
quickly. And then I'll go back to my
previous ones that I bought back then
because I never showed it to you guys. So
the first book that I want to show you
is Heartstopper by Alice Oseman. And this
was kindly sent to me by Joe from Average
Joe Reads, I am so excited to read this
one.
It is about these two boys who fall in
love. Once they meet the one who
believes he is straight starts to feel
feelings that he's never felt for any
other boy before. It sounds so cute. I'm in a little bit of
a slump this month so I think I'm just
going to trash my TBR entirely and read
this one, and then see about the rest of
my TBR. And another one that was also
sent to me gifted was Clap When You Land
by Elizabeth Acevedo. I did talk about
this one in the recommending books to
black booktubers video. And it follows
these two girls who live in different
places. And they have the same father but
they don't know it yet. It is only when
that father dies in a plane crash that
they realise they have a sister that
they never met. And they are struggling
through that grief together and getting
to know each other together. I really
like Elizabeth Acevedo's book The Poet X
and this is another novel in verse so
I'm looking forward to reading this one. I was literally just about to start
editing when two more books arrived so
I'm just going to talk about them
quickly. And we have When Life Gives You
Mangoes by Kereen Getten. This is a
middle grade book that is written by a
Jamaican British author, which makes me
very excited. She is also black and this
one is a middle grade. Clara lives in
Jamaica and she can't remember anything
that happened last summer. However, when a
new classmate arrives from England
everything starts to go wrong. Her
friendships, her situation at home. And then the summer storms
start happening and she starts to
remember everything that she forgo. I am
just so so excited to read it. And this
cover is gorgeous. The Deep Blue Between
by Ayesha Harruna Attah. And this one is a
young adult novel that follows these two
twins and their paths that they take in
their lives diverge. One of them ends up
in the Gold Coast of West Africa and one
of them end up in Brazil. However, these
twins remain connected by shared dreams
of water that they have. And the question
is whether fate and their lives will let
them reunite at some point. This also
sounds like it's going to be a very good
book. Another black female writer. So
thank you to Pushkin Press for sending
me these two books to read and review. Oh,
look my nails and my shirt match the
books. Love it.
I'll let past Olivia take it away and
you can hear all about those books. Some
of which I have now read. City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of glass, City of
Fallen Angels and City of Lost Souls by
Cassandra Clare. You'll notice that the
final book in the series is not here
because I already own a physical copy of
that. I read them way back when they were
still coming out and that was one that I
pre-ordered for myself. And just have on
my shelves already. I really really
wanted to get these editions with the
old covers, the original covers, because
first of all that's the one I have for
City of Heavenly Fire. And also because I
don't like any of the new covers that
came out as much as I like these covers.
And when I read them I read these covers
so they just hold a lot of nostalgia for
me. So I wanted to make sure I got this
series in this edition. So I got these
secondhand as I don't think they sell
them anymore. So it was really nice to
get all of these secondhand, one euro
each. Then I got to The Book Thief by
Markus Zusak. This is basically a
brilliant historical fiction that is
very very popular. A lot of people know
it it follows this young girl, Liesel, and
she is living in Nazi war Germany. And
she's stealing books.
However, her parents also bring a
Jewish person, I believe, into the house
and they are hiding him. And it just
follows their story. However, death is
also character in this story. At the
beginning he kind of says what's going
to happen at the end. It's a very
emotional read and I thought it was
really brilliant when I read it, so it's
nice to finally have a copy for myself,
because it's one of my favourites. Then we
have No Love Allowed by Kate Evangelista.
And I also got this one secondhand. So this one is
basically a fake dating trope romance and
that's all I'm really gonna say. But it's
just a huge fake dating romance it's
following the usual. But I really liked
the characters and I just really enjoyed
the story. I read this for review so I've
got a review link on my blog and I'll
link that down below. But I just thought
this book was brilliant and I really
want to reread it. And I was thinking
about it and then I saw it available for
secondhand purchasing so I got it. The
Chocolate Box Girl series by Cathy
Cassidy. Which is Cherry Crush,
Marshmallow Skye, Summer's Dream, Coco
Caramel, Sweet Honey and Fortune Cookie.
So these are like, upper middle grade
romance books, pretty much. And I was
reading Cathy Cassidy when I was younger
and I just loved all of her books. And
this was towards the end of me loving
her books. So I've read the first four
but I haven't read the last two. And I
was thinking about them and how sweet
they were and I was thinking I would
actually love to read all of them again.
Starting from the beginning. Similarly we
have the Falling Fast series.
It's a quartet by Sophie Mackenzie. This
one is Falling Fast, Defy the Stars,
Burning Bright and Casting Shadows. So I
read the first two and didn't read the
other two and I would like to go back
and read the other two. So this series
follows Flynn and River. River is a
plus-sized girl who is lacking in a lot
of confidence and Flynn is a boy who has
anger issues and gets angry really
quickly. And I think they find each other
and fall in love and then it's about
them trying to keep up their confidence,
keep curbing their anger and just
staying in love and being with each
other. So that's what this series follows.
I remember liking the first two a lot
but then not reading the other two
for whatever reason. And I would like to
go back and do so. We have The Bane
Chronicles and the Shadowhunters Codex
by Cassandra Clare. If you can tell I'm
trying to get back into Cassandra Clare.
I've been a bit of a dormant fan for a
while. I haven't read more
than the original six plus Clockwork
Angel which I didn't really enjoy so I'm
going to try and go through the Bane
Chronicles because I know I like Bane
and the Shadowhunters Codex links to the
original series. So I think I'll be able
to enjoy these two. Bane Chronicles
follows Magnus Bane and his stories and
the Shadowhunters Codex is like a
textbook that's within the series, made
into its own thing. Then we have Wonder
Woman Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo. I
really like Leigh Bardugo's
writing. I really liked the movie Wonder
Woman and I saw that Isobel read this
one and enjoyed it in the end. So I'm
going to give it its own try. It's about
Wonder Woman if you couldn't tell, and
it's one of the DC superhero fiction
books that have been coming out written
by different authors. Don't have much
interest in them other than this one
and the Black Widow one, really, because
those are the two heroes that I like. Then I got the Perks of Being a
Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This is
one that I've been wanting to read for
absolutely ages. So glad I finally got my
hands on it because I so want to
watch the movie. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. And I would just like to hurry up and read it
so I can watch the movie. So this one
follows this guy who is a
Wallflower in school. He's not the most
geeky, he's not the most popular, but he's
still doing his coming-of-age and just
trying to navigate through life. And I've
heard that it deals with some mental
illness topics as well very well so I'm
looking forward to giving this one a try. Then we've got Molly's game by Molly
Bloom. And this is a movie cover. And this
is a movie cover I'm not actually fussed
about having because it's actually nicer
than the actual cover in my opinion. So
Molly's Game is a movie that I watched
last year I think, and I absolutely
adored it. It is so interesting. It's
based on a true story about Molly Bloom's
life. She ran an undercover game and
you're not really supposed to do that.
But she was trying her best to keep it
legal. And when things get caught up to her
she had to kind of dig herself out of a
hole. There was a whole court case and
everything. It's so interesting. I really
recommend going to see the movie and the
movie made me interested enough to want
to read her true account of what
happened. I'm excited. Then we have Everything I Never Told You
by Celeste Ng. I got this one because I
read Little Fires
Everywhere and absolutely adored that book. So I wanted to read the author's other
work which is this one. So this one set
in 1970 and it follows this
Chinese-American family who seem to be
perfect. They have a favourite daughter
who I believe is called Lydia. But when
she's found floating in a lake dead, it
means that things start to unravel. And
you get to see that this perfect family
is not that perfect. And there's a lot
more going on beneath the surface. I just
can't wait to read more of her work, really. Then we have Wicked by Gregory Maguire.
This one comes recommended to me by my
younger sister who read this book and
absolutely loved it.
I've seen the musical but I know that I
need to distance the musical from this
book because apparently the book is
quite different from the musical. But
it's still the same concept. It follows
Elphaba who is the witch that Dorothy
kills later on in The Wizard of Oz. And
we get to meet her when she's going to
secondary school with Galinda. And they
are just you know... Elphaba's this prickly
antisocial kind of person who is green
and they are starting to form a
friendship, I believe. And it just talks a
lot about humanity and really spins this
tale into this really thematic
discussion. I cannot wait to read it. Next
up is Love Letters to the Dead by Ava
Dellaria. And I read In Search of Us by
this author last year and I wanted to
read more by them. So Love Letters to the
Dead follows this character whose sister
has died in real life. And it starts off
as an English project to write to
someone who is dead and she writes to Kurt
Cobain. And she just continues writing to
people who are dead as she's trying to
not have to process her own grief
emotions. If grief is mentioned in a book
it really interests me so I do think
this is going to be right up my street. And I got This is Going to Hurt by Adam
Kay. And this is a nonfiction which
follows a junior doctor and it's basically
the secret diaries of the junior doctor. So he's just... it's a nonfiction where
he's telling his thoughts in little
snippets about things that he has to
experience and deal with as he's working
in the NHS like, under pressure. And we
had to read excerpts of this for my
creative writing class when we were
working on nonfiction creative writing
and
I absolutely loved what I read. So I can't
wait to get to his actual novel. But I
have The Radleys by Matt Haig and The
Possession of Mr Cave by Matt Haig. I've
read two books by Matt Haig and I really
loved them and I just want to read more
by this author. So The Radleys sounds
right up my street. It's about this
family who are vampires and the kids
don't know they're vampires until an
accident happens and they suddenly find
this out. And then it's about them kind
of living their life. The Radley family. It just sounds so entertaining. And then
we have The Possession of Mr. Cave. So
Mr. Cave is this man who has just had
such a tragedy happen to him. He's
experienced his mother's suicide. He's
experienced his son died in an accident
and that also involved his wife's murder.
So all he has left is his daughter
Bryony. However, he just feels the need to
protect her and eventually this
protection turns into possession and
quite obsessive. So that is what this one
is about which sounds really dark and
it's going to be interesting to read both of
these. Up next is Silence Is Goldfish
by Annabel Pitcher. I've read two books
by Annabel Pitcher and I really really
enjoyed both of them. So I wanted to try
more of her work. Silence Is Goldfish is
about this girl called Tessa. She doesn't
mean to become mute but she becomes mute
after she gets the shock of her life
which is that her father is not her real
father. And as she discovers secrets
about her past and her true relations
she realises that she needs to talk to
someone, needs to tell someone about this
but she can't because she's mute. Which
is creating difficulty and that's what
this one is about. And I just think
Annabel Pitcher's a fantastic writer and
I can't wait to read more of her writing. Then we have Mythos by Stephen Fry and
this is basically Stephen Fry retelling
the Greek myths. I got this one mostly
because it's by Stephen Fry. I also enjoy
Greek mythology so I'm looking forward
to giving this one a go. Metamorphosis and Other Short Stories as
well as The Castle by Kafka. And I love
the Kafka from what I've read of him. I've
read Metamorphosis already but I
unhauled my copy of that because I would
like to have this one where I also ahve
his other short stories. And I'm looking
forward to trying those. And then The Castle by Kafka. It sounds really
interesting because it's about this man
who will never be admitted to the castle
but he also
won't be accepted by the village, and he
cannot yet go home whatever reason. Who's
kind of in this in-between state and I
read The Trial by Kafka and really loved
it. And it's also about this guy who's
been arrested but he doesn't know
what he's been arrested for so he can't
protest it. And he's also stuck in this
in-between state. And seeing as I like
that one I think this one having a
similar kind of premise,  I'll also be
able to enjoy it a lot. So my Kafka collection is growing up.
Because next up we've got Killing It by
Asia McKay. And I saw this one on
someone's blog and it just sounded so
interesting that I had to have it. So
it's about this mother who is an
assassin. She's worked as an assassin and
she's returning to work after her
pregnancy leave. And she has a child and
she suddenly gets this job where she
needs to infiltrate this group of new
mothers. So it's like a mother circle
that people do when they all have babies.
She needs to infiltrate them and also do
her job while also coming home in time
to look after her child. It's just about this
assassin who is balancing becoming a
mother and her baby. I love babies and
books.
I love assassins. It's gonna be a very
interesting combination. I'm just so
excited - can you can you tell? So I got
White Teeth by Zadie Smith and North-west
by Zadie Smith. Which is N-W. I've just heard a
lot about Zadie Smith and how good she
is so I just wanted to give her a try
for myself. White Teeth is her debut
novel and this one... It's kind of similar
to her other novels. It follows three
families from three different cultures
and it's just basically following their
life stories. And I think it deals with a
lot of social concepts while doing that.
And then North West is actually about
these for Londoners who grow up together
and then they go their four separate
ways. And it's following their stories as
they try to navigate being in London and
being of their cultures and living their
lives or doing different things. Which I
think will be very interesting
especially as I'm a Londoner. Then we've
got the book called The Man Who Was
Thursday by GK Chesterton. For my crime
fiction module last year I had to read
some of GK Chesterton's short stories
and I was absolutely loving them. So I
want to read more from him and I'm also
trying to collect these penguin classic
editions. Anyway, so this one follows the
Scotland Yard. And there is this
undercover policeman who sent
infiltrate the Scotland Yard. and he gets
nominated to become Thursday. So he's
called Thursday and he has to survive
the like, treachery and overruling of a
policeman called Sunday. It just sounds
so interesting. The title instantly
hooked me and then seeing it by this
author, I just know it's going to be good.
So I'm very much excited. And last but not least
i was gifted something by the lovely
Rishi from thebookwormdiaries when we
met for the last time when we were in
London. And that was Wishes Under the
Willow Tree by Phaedra Patrick. I believe
it's like that. So this one follows
this couple: Benedict and Estelle. I
believe, yes, Benedict and Estelle. And
they fell in love and they got married.
However, when they find out that they
cannot have children together their
marriage kind of goes downhill from
there. And hits the rocks. And Estelle
leaves him but Benedict decides this is
not going to be the end. He's going to
win back Estelle. And this is about him
attempting to do that. So it just sounds
like a cute second chance
romance to me. Please let me know in the
comment section down below what is the
latest book you've bought, received or
acquired. And I would just love to chat
if you've read any of these books or
plan to. Please give this video a
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new video. And I'll see you guys in the
next one. Goodbye! It also looks like tampons are on the
cover. I know they're not tampons but it
looks like it.
