What I’m Reading This Weekend – July 27, 2018

Happy Friday, everyone!

I know this week has been wrought with a ton of reviews, but I feel like I’ve picked up my reading game recently. I honestly think it’s also to do with the readathon I did over the weekend. I’m just in the mood to read. I’ve got some blog posts unrelated to book reviews coming up. I just need to take the time to write them. Lol.

And this weekend is no exception. I’ve put together a great list of books to read throughout the weekend and into next week. Are any of these on your list? Will you be reading along with me?

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon

I’ve been waiting for this book to come out ever since it was announced that R.O. Kwon was writing a book. Now that it’s in my possession, it’s going to be the first book I read this weekend (if I haven’t already devoured it by the time this post goes up).

Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet their first month at prestigious Edwards University. Phoebe is a glamorous girl who doesn’t tell anyone she blames herself for her mother’s recent death. Will is a misfit scholarship boy who transfers to Edwards from Bible college, waiting tables to get by. What he knows for sure is that he loves Phoebe. 

Grieving and guilt-ridden, Phoebe is increasingly drawn into a religious group–a secretive extremist cult–founded by a charismatic former student, John Leal. He has an enigmatic past that involves North Korea and Phoebe’s Korean American family. Meanwhile, Will struggles to confront the fundamentalism he’s tried to escape, and the obsession consuming the one he loves. When the group bombs several buildings in the name of faith, killing five people, Phoebe disappears. Will devotes himself to finding her, tilting into obsession himself, seeking answers to what happened to Phoebe and if she could have been responsible for this violent act.

The Selection by Kiera Cass

As you may have noticed, a lot of the books on my list are ones that aren’t coming out in the near future. In fact, these are books that have been sitting on my shelf for YEARS and I’m finally getting around to reading them. The mini-TBR stacks that I’ve been making have helped a lot with getting through my unread bookshelf. This one has been on my list for years along with many YA fantasy books.

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

It’s actually a really good time for me to be reading Uprooted especially since I’ve been wanting to read Spinning Silver and doing a casual readathon next month. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this one as well, so I’m hoping this will keep me occupied through the weekend.

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Touch by Courtney Maum

Much of my backlog is books that I bought when they were popular and haven’t read. It’s an ongoing trend, who knew! But I’m really trying to buckle down and read these books FINALLY. Here’s another one.

Sloane Jacobsen is the most powerful trend forecaster in the world (she was the foreseer of the swipe), and global fashion, lifestyle, and tech companies pay to hear her opinions about the future. Her recent forecasts on the family are unwavering: the world is over-populated, and with unemployment, college costs, and food prices all on the rise, having children is an extravagant indulgence. 

So it’s no surprise when the tech giant Mammoth hires Sloane to lead their groundbreaking annual conference, celebrating the voluntarily childless. But not far into her contract, Sloane begins to sense the undeniable signs of a movement against electronics that will see people embracing compassion, empathy, and in-personism again. She’s struggling with the fact that her predictions are hopelessly out of sync with her employer’s mission and that her closest personal relationship is with her self-driving car when her partner, the French neo-sensualist Roman Bellard, reveals that he is about to publish an op-ed on the death of penetrative sex a post-sexual treatise that instantly goes viral. Despite the risks to her professional reputation, Sloane is nevertheless convinced that her instincts are the right ones, and goes on a quest to defend real life human interaction, while finally allowing in the love and connectedness she’s long been denying herself.

Circe by Madeline Miller

Finally, I’m getting to Circe by Madeline Miller. This book got so much buzz earlier this year and like everything else I put it off until now. I’m really loving this unread TBR challenge because I’m really getting to books I’ve been dying to read for forever. I should keep it up.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.