May's First Class Post & Monthly Recap ~ Once Upon a Bookcase

First Class Post - because this post is first class!

Books Purchased:

Physical copies:

Four Weeks, Five People by Jennifer Yu (2nd May 2017)
The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes (1st November 2016)
The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill (3rd May 2018 - YAIE)
Ship It by Britta Lundin (1st May 2018)
The Wicker King by K. Ancrum (31st October 2017)
Dear Martin by Nic Stone (3rd May 2018)
Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson (8th May 2018)
Amercian Panda by Gloria Chao (6th February 2018)
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak (30th April 2015)

eBooks:

The Painted Man by Peter V. Brett (8th January 2009)

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:

Colour Me In by Lydia Ruffles* (23rd August 2018)
Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes* (19th April 2018)
Are We All Lemmings and Snowflakes? by Holly Bourne* (9th August 2018)

Finished Copies:

What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold* (2nd August 2018)
Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles* (14th June 2018)

eARCs:

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (12th July 2018)
Toxic by Nicci Cloke (26th July 2018 - UKYA)
Grace & Fury by Tracy Banghart (26th July 2018)
Smoke in the Sun by Renée Ahdieh (3rd May 2018)

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

Ruthless Magic by Megan Crewe (30th May 2018)
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (3rd May 2018)
Lost Gods by Micah Yongo (5th April 2018)
The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton (17th May 2018)

All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth

All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth (12th July 2018)
The Life of a Banana by P. P. Wong (1st June 2018)
The Book of M by Peng Shepherd (28th June 2018)
The Truth About Lies by Tracy Darnton (12th July 2018)

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (31st May 2018)
Fawkes by Nadine Brandes (10th July 2018)
Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer (4th September 2018)
Sea Witch by Sarah Henning (31st July 2018)

Thank you to Chicken House, 5 Get Bookish, Usborne, Andersen, Chloe Coles and Pan Macmillan, Hot Key Books, Hodder Children's Books, Hodder & Stoughton, Another World Press, Headline, Angry Robot, HarperVoyager, Penguin Random House Children's Books, Legend Press, Stripes, Wren & Rook, Thomas Nelson, HMH Books for Young Readers, HarperCollins Children's Books 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:

Reviews:

The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill

The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill - I did enjoy this feminist retelling of The Little Mermaid, but I felt really let down by the part of the story where Gaia is on land. Nothing happens! I lost interest until her last day with human legs, when it picked up again. The rest of the story is brilliant, but there are chapters where I just didn't really care.
The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty - Oh my god, this book is amazing! Fantastic world building and an incredible setting, and actually great commentary on prejudice and bigotry, and oooh, I just absolutely loved it!

Only a couple of reviews again this month, because of my reading for Mental Illness in YA Month. Also, because of how close July is, and because of the number of books I still want to read, I've posted Mental Illness in YA Month is Coming - So No Reviews For a While. There will be other posts in the coming weeks, they just won't be reviews. I've really got to knuckle down now to get these books read in time, but that doesn't mean radio silence on the blog. You'll still hear from me.

Other Posts:

#RamadanReadathon

For the #RamadanReadathon, I took part in The #RamadanReadathon Book Tag, talking about books by Muslim authors I'd read.

May saw me roll out a brand new feature - Once Upon a Retelling! It's a feature in which I interview authors about their versions of well-loved tales.

I'm really chuffed that there are three interviews for you to check out, on Storm-Wake by Lucy Christopher, a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, All the Ever Afters by Danielle Teller, a retelling of Cinderella, and The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton, a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear. I'm really surprised at how many authors were able to get their answers back to me so quickly, considering it's so new! They're such wonderful interviews, and I really recommend checking them out.

A Diversified Bookcase

A Diversified Bookcase is a feature where authors of diverse YA recommend other diverse YA novels by other authors to their characters.

All of This is True by Lygia Day Peñaflor

All of This is True by Lygia Day Peñaflor

This month for A Diversified Bookcase, Lygia Day Peñaflor, author of All of This is True, is stopping by with some recommendations for Penny and Jonah.

News:
As I've mentioned a few times on the blog, my friend and colleague Chloe Coles has written a book - Bookshop Girl - which is coming out next month! And I've been mentioned in the Acknowledgements, which is just so awesome!

The acknowledgements of Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles

The acknowledgements of Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles

Signed title page of Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles

It's so lovely of Chloe to include me in the Acknowledgements, and I'm really looking forward to reading the finished Bookshop Girl! And to hear what you all think!

And This Happened!

Screenshot from Twitter of me saying Pretty sure I just saw V E Schwab at Foyles, and I did a little internal OH MY GOD! squeal. But I was a very professional bookseller and left her alone to browse. But gooood. And also V E Schwab's response, which says Awwwww, you could have said hello!