July's First Class Post & Monthly Recap

First Class Post - because this post is first class!

Books Purchased:

Physical Copies:

Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro (22nd May 2018)
Sweet Black Waves by Kristina Pérez (5th June 2018) Hello Me, It's You, ed. by Hannah Todd, designed by Jenny Howard (3rd August 2018)

Charity Shop Buys:

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (5th September 2011)

eBooks:



Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (24th April 2018)

Books Won:

@5GetBookish is Hachette Children's Books' Twitter account exclusively for booksellers. I entered a giveaway to win a mystery bag of books, and I won! Also included (but not pictured) were some gorgeous prints of illustrations from picture books!







Claude on Holiday by Alex T. Smith (7th July 2011)
Toto the Ninja Cat and the Grat Snake Escape by Dermot O'Leary (21st September 2017)
Skellig by David Almond (1998)
Iguana Boy Saves the World with a Triple Cheese Pizza by James Bishop (19th April 2018)
The Lost Magician by Piers Torday (6th September 2018)
Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell (20th September 2018) Oi Frog! by Kes Gray & Jim Field (5th October 2017)

Books received for free from the publishers in exchange for an honest review:

Books with an * are reading copies I received as a book seller.

Proofs:

A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma (4th September 2018)
What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera* (18th October 2018)
The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke* (4th October 2018) A Taxonomy of Love by Rachael Allen* (9th January 2018) The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon* (26th February 2018)

Finished Copies:

Show Stopper by Hayley Baker (1st June 2017)
Show Stealer by Hayley Baker (2nd August 2018)
One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn* (2nd August 2018)
Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (22nd September 2018)

For Becoming a Kindness Ambassador:

I signed up to become a Kindness Ambassador as part of Usborne & Holly Bourne's campaign to spread kindness, and this is what was in my Kindness Ambassador package:



Are We All Lemmings & Snowflakes? by Holly Bourne (9th August 2018)

Do check out the #KindnessIsContagious hashtag and Holly & Usborne's Twitter accounts from 9th August to join in!

eARCs:



It Ends With You by S. K. Wright (6th September 2018)
She Must Be Mad by Charly Cox (12th July 2018)



Protected by Claire Zorn (1st September 2018)
A Blade So Black by L. L. McKinney (25th September 2018)
Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria (9th October 2018)

Thank you to Algonquin Young Readers, Scholastic, Simon and Schuster Children's Books, Raven Books, Macmillan Children's Books, Usborne, and Atom, HQ, Sourcebooks FIRE, Macmillan Children's Group, Amulet via NetGalley for the review copies.
Check out mail memes: The Sunday Post on Caffeinated Book Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves on Tynga's Reviews.
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On the blog:

July was Mental Illness in YA Month, full of reviews, author interviews and guest posts, blogger guest posts, discussions and giveaways . Here is everything that happened over the course of the month!

Reviews:

Click on the images to be taken to each review.















Author Interviews & Guest Posts

• Interview with Akemi Dawn Bowman + Giveaway
• Tom Pollock on How People With Mental Illness Can Be Heroes, Too + Giveaway
• Ashley Woodfolk on Empathy and Intersectionality in YA
• Interview with Eric Smith
• Mike Schlossberg on Fighting Mental Illness Stigma Through Writing
• Lydia Ruffles with A Tale of Two Lists + Giveaway
  Mental Illness in YA Month

Blogger Guest Posts:

• Hannah of A Cup of Wonderland - The Books That Helped Me Come To Terms With My Mental Illnesses
• Hannah of Sprinkled With Words - I'm Tired of the Repetitive Mental Illness Rep I'm Seeing in YA
• Georgia of Georgia's Bookish Thoughts - On Seeing My Mental Illness in a YA Novel

Discussions:

• How Representation Made a Difference for Me
• Who Gets to Tell Stories About Mental Illness?
• The Astonishing Colour of After by Emily X. R. Pan and Living With a Depressed Parent
• On Looking For Representation in YA Novels Featuring Mental Illness
• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman and How Your Mental Illness Affects Loved Ones
• The Responsibilities of Authors With and/or Writing About Mental Illness
• What Do We Want More & Less of in YA Novels Featuring Mental Illness?

Reading Lists:

• Intersectional YA Novels Featuring Mental Illness
• UKYA Novels Featuring Mental Illness
• Teen Non-Fiction on Mental Illness and Mental Health
• YA Novels Featuring Boys With Eating Disorders
• YA Novels Featuring Mental Illness Wishlist

Other Posts:

• Other Discussions Surrounding Mental Illness in YA

Giveaways:

These are all ending at midnight, so get entering!

• Win a copy of Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman
• Win a proof of White Rabbit, Red Wolf by Tom Pollock
• Win a proof of Colour Me In by Lydia Ruffles

Coming Up On the blog:

So from tomorrow I am on holiday! However, I have a number of reviews and discussion posts lined up in my absence.

I will also be taking part in the blog tour for Show Stealer by Hayley Barker, so do drop by the blog on 13th August for that, and see below for all the other stops on the tour.


Click the banner to enlarge.
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What I've Been Reading Online:

Cover Reveals:

• Once & Future by Amy Rose Capetta & Cori McCarthy (+ preview) on B&N Teen Blog.
• Bloodleaf by Crystal Smith (+ preview) on EW.
• The Official List of Harper's Winter 2019 YA Cover Reveals on Epic Reads.
• The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf (+ preview) on B&N Teen Blog. 
• The Devouring Grey by Christine Lynn Herman (+ extract) on MuggleNet.

Books:

• 50 of Our Most Anticipated YA Fantasy Novels of 2018: July to December on B&N Teen Blog.
• The Case for YA Science Fiction by Fonda Lee on Locus.
• 2019 YA Books With Teens of Color on the Cover (So Far!) on Stacked.
• 35 Summer Reads for Reluctant Readers on B&N Teen Blog.
• The Best Young Adult Novels of 2018 (So Far) on Paste.

Authors:

• Brandy Colbert's Stonewall Book Award 2018 Speech.
• 3 YA Writers Share Why They Wrote Books with Asexual Protagonists on Bustle.
• 10 Debut Female Authors Blowing Our Minds in 2018 on The Nerd Daily.
• 17 YA Fantasy Authors on the Fantasy Novels that Inpired Them on B&N Teen Blog.

Bloggers:

• The Best of 2018 (So Far) on Rec It Rachel.

Regarding the CLPE Survey on the how there are very few children's books published in the UK with POC characters:

• Reflecting Realities - A Survey of Ethnic Representation Within UK Children's Literature 2017 on CLPE.
• Only 1% of children's books have BAME main characters – UK study on The Guargian.
• Only 1% Of Kids' Books Have BAME Main Characters, So Here's How We Can Change That by Robin Stevens and Aimée Felone on Huffington Post.
  
• I Wrote a Book for My Mixed-Race Daughter So She Had a Literary Heroine to Look Up To by Gabrielle Kent on Independent. 

Misc.:

• Renaming the Laura Ingalls Wilder award isn't disturbing, William Shatner – it's necessary by Debbie Reese on The Guardian.
• 10 Reasons Why Book Reviews Still Matter on Lit Reactor.

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