Summer Book Haul!

Hello, guys! It's been quite a while since I last posted a book haul, and since then I have become the proud new owner of more than a few literary works. As summer is about to end, with school just around the corner, I thought why not write a post including all the books that have come to live in my shelves during this summer.

If you follow me on Twitter you'll know I've been traveling quite a lot around Europe this summer. First I went to Rome with my family as a surprise birthday present; a few weeks later I went to the UK for a university course at Newcastle and then to London for a few days with some of my friends; I then went to Pamplona (Spain) for San Fermines festivities; two weeks later I went to Paris with my sister; and last but not least I went to Mallorca for the weekend (the past weekend). This is A LOT for anyone, but it feels huge for me because I usually don't travel much, and for some reason it has come all at the same time. The thing is, I love buying books when I travel instead of the usual souvenir, so some of the mountains of books I bought this summer came from my travels. The rest, you'll find out about as you read along!

Without further ado, let's see how big my family has grown! 

The following books are in chronological order of purchase. I've included all my purchases from the day my summer started back in May.

Top 5 Wednesday 8 | Books from Before I Started Blogging

Hello, everyone! It's been a while since I last posted because I went on a trip to Mallorca with my friends from school. It was awesome catching up, but unfortunately I did not plan ahead, so I missed some post over here!

Top 5 Wednesday is a Goodreads group created by Lainey and now managed by Sam in which members a given a different literary topic each Wednesday of which we have to state our top 5 about. This week's topic is...

Books from Before I joined ...  

I chose to write about my top 5 of the books from before I started my blog :) I started my blog 2 years ago, but before that, there had been some years in which my reading habits had become somewhat hindered by the more overwhelming stuff going on in my life - moving to a whole new country with different living schedules, the discovery of TV shows, etc. Thus, some of the books in this list will be those I read when I was 12 to 15 - which, let's face it, were the years when I was most successful with the books I chose to read... There are also 

It's genuinely been really hard to choose only 5! In fact, I think this has been the hardest T5W I've written so far... Let's not forget I've only been blogging for 2 years, but I've been able to read for so much longer than that!

Cova Reviews | Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan | 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge

Hello, everybody! As you may know from my previous posts, I haven't been doing well about the 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge - I had a very detailed plan, but I haven't managed to follow it through so far, so I am a few months behind schedule. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan is the book I was meant to read in July, but because I swapped the book I planned to read for the month of June to a different one, and the topic was the same for both June and July, I ended up reading it for the month of June (although I read it in July). I am getting back on track, though. When this post goes live I will probably have read the book for the month of July as well (and maybe even August, who knows :P).

Anyway, Two Boys Kissing is a contemporary YA about homosexuality, about transsexualism, about finding oneself, about love, about friendship, about achieving one's goals, ... This book covers so many important topics it's hard not to tell people to read it just for that. But let's see what else it has to offer ;)

In case you haven't noticed, the topic for the month of June was:

Sexuality and Gender Identity

"New York Times  bestselling author David Levithan tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS. 
While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing former couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other." (Goodreads)

Top 5 Wednesday 7 | Book Covers You'd Live In

Hello one Wednesday more! I am probably flying to Paris as you read this (or at least as this is posted), which is SO exciting! I am going to be there for six days with my sister :) We'll surely be doing a lot of touristic things, but I also plan to do some book-related stuff (aka book buying 😎). I'll keep you guys updated via Twitter. 

Anyway, let's get to the bookish stuff. Top 5 Wednesday is a Goodreads meme created by Lainy and now hosted by Sam in which we are given a topic every Wednesday for us to write out top 5 of :) This week's topic is:

Book covers you'd live in

Passenger - Alexandra Bracken

This cover is just too beautiful not to include it in this list! I'd love to live in that mini city inside the glass bottle that travels everywhere! I have not read Passenger, but I've heard it is about a girl who discovers that her bloodline (and thus herself) can travel through time. Apparently this book also follows the story of a boy, and both their lives intertwine somehow. As you can see, I don't really know much about this book, but I've been wanting to read it for a while now - and I am not gonna lie, the cover had a lot to do with me wanting to read it because I didn't even know what the book was about before writing this post! 


The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Oh, Carlos Ruiz Zafón! I will not get tired of saying he is one of my all-time favourite authors. I read The Shadow of the Wind a long time ago, and I absolutely loved it. It is a historical fiction novel set in Barcelona in 1945 - just in the aftermath of the Spanish civil war, and it follows a boy named Daniel who is the son of an antiquarian book dealer. Daniel is therefore a huge fan of reading, and he particularly loves this book by Julian Carax called The Shadow of the Wind, but discovers something weird is going on with this author and his book. Honestly, I read it so long ago I didn't even remember what exactly it was about, but it is one of my favourite books, so I got a new copy just yesterday as the fourth and last book in the series was published last October. My plan is to read them all again in preparation, so I will be reading it pretty soon! 

I'd love to be inside this book cover because it reminds me of the great time I had reading it, and I love the time it represents and the story it contains. Also, I chose the Spanish edition of the book because I think it is pretty poetic how the boy and the father are the only two people represented in the picture, and their clothing pretty accurately represent Spain's past. I just love it :)

A Thousand Pieces of You -  Claudia Gray

This cover is just freaking beautiful! I love the design, how colourful it is, and the fact that it represents part of the story in it - because this book is all about dimension travelling. Wouldn't you want to live in a book cover that pictures two different places in one?! It's awesome! A Thousand Pieces of You is a fantasy YA about a girl named Marguerite whose parents, two renown scientists, invent a small machine that allows people to travel to different versions of the world. One day, her father is murdered by one of his trusted assistants, who escapes to a different dimension. I wrote a full review of this book, which you can find here :)

The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

I love this book cover since I was in middle school, which is when I read this wonderful fantasy book by Neil Gaiman. I even drew a graphite copy of it which got printed in the school's magazine! It is about a boy whose parents were murdered by The Man Jack when he was just a baby, so the good people of the graveyard took him in as one of their own. I'd love to be in The Graveyard Book's cover because I love the story behind it, and would really like to talk to the ghosts living in that graveyard :)

Wintersong - S. Jae-Jones

Wintersong is another book I have not read and don't know what it is about but it's still in my TBR just because of its absolutely beautiful cover. I guess this cover is not exactly a nice place to be - inside a snowball with a white rose? But it's just so beautiful! I'd love to be... around it? 😁 All I know is it is a historical fiction, YA, and I've read a lot of not-so-good reviews on it, so I guess it will stay in my TBR for quite some time until/if I decide to pick it up.

And that is my T5W for this week! Would love to know what you guys are talking about in your T5W posts, so you can definitely leave me a link to yours down below for me to check out :)

Happy reading!

Previous T5W post...

Series that got worse with each book/season

Follow Wonderful Literature! 

Google+     Bloglovin'    Goodreads    Twitter