Ebook Haul #3: 10 Recent eBooks I Added To My To-Be-Read list

When I’m not in the mood to read, I find myself getting more books. Yeah, books to add to my infinitely growing list of books to read. I don’t know, there’s that unusual good feeling that I get when I hoard books. There’s that relaxing feeling that I feel when I get new books that I know I’ll eventually be reading soon. There’s that comforting feeling of knowing that you readily have the book when you finally want to read it. 🙂

Here are the books that I recently got. 🙂

1. Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Published May 2nd 2017 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

From a dazzling new literary voice, a debut novel about a Palestinian family caught between present and past, between displacement and home.

On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia’s brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can’t escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children.

When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alia’s children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities.

Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses is a remarkable debut novel that challenges and humanizes an age-old conflict we might think we understand—one that asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can’t go home again.V

LOVELY COVER. LOVELY STORY. PUT THAT BOOK IN MY BASKET.

2. Sad Girls by Lang Leav
Published May 30th 2017 by Andrews McMeel Publishing

“Your first love isn’t the first person you give your heart to—it’s the first one who breaks it.”

Sad Girls is the much anticipated debut novel from international best-selling author Lang Leav. A beautifully written and emotionally charged coming of age story, where young love, dark secrets, and tragedy collide.

School is almost out for Audrey, but the panic attacks are just beginning. Because Audrey told a lie and now her classmate, Ana, is dead. Just as her world begins to spin out of control, Audrey meets the enigmatic Rad—the boy who could turn it all around. But will their ill-timed romance drive her closer to the edge?

AN AUTO-BUY AUTHOR. I ENJOYED ALL HER POETRY COLLECTIONS SO WHEN I HEARD THAT SHE’LL BE COMING UP WITH A NEW NOVEL, IT’S NO LONGER SURPRISING THAT I HAVE TO HAVE A COPY OF IT.

3. Deep Red by Hisashi Nozawa, Asumi Shibata (Translator)
Published October 25th 2016 by Vertical

Deep Red is a novel about anger, of the slow burn and the itch for violence, and the unexpected places that fury can take us.

Sixth grader Kanako was looking forward to her school trip, and she sure is enjoying it. At night, as she and her friends exchange scary stories after lights-out, her teacher barges into their room to summon her. Yet he seems more solicitous than scolding, and when he asks her to pack her things so he can take her back to Tokyo in a cab, Kanako realizes that something terrible has happened to her family.

Educational supplies salesman Norio Tsuzuki was bamboozled into co-signing a fraudulent loan agreement by a business relation of his to whom he couldn’t say no. Enticed by the unscrupulous entrepreneur to recover the sum by unethical means, Tsuzuki indeed descends into criminality—by brutally murdering the man and his family. The only survivor, a daughter the same age as Tsuzuki’s own, just happened to be away on a school trip…

When the orphaned Kanako grows up into a young woman, she cannot but feel vengeful toward Miho, the fiend’s daughter, and seeks her out under false pretenses. What follows is a memorable waltz of two unmoored souls.

AFTER KANAE MINATO AND HARUKI MURAKAMI, I REALIZED THAT I WANT MORE JAPANESE AUTHORS IN MY LIFE.

4. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
Published May 30th 2017 by Simon Pulse

A laugh-out-loud, heartfelt YA romantic comedy, told in alternating perspectives, about two Indian-American teens whose parents have arranged for them to be married.

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.

The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

ONE OF THE MOST TALKED ABOUT BOOK OF THIS YEAR. THIS WILL BE DEFINITELY THE BOOK THAT I’LL READ WHEN I’M CRAVING FOR SOME CUTE CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE NOVEL.

5. Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Published May 9th 2017 by Bond Street Books

A dazzling new collection of short stories–the first major new work of fiction from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami since his #1 best-selling Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all.

Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.

DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHY I GOT THIS? 😉 MURAKAMI IS MY MOST FAVORITE AUTHOR. NO OTHER EXPLANATION NEEDED. I AM CURRENTLY READING THIS BOOK AND I AM ENJOYING IT SO FAR.

6. Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
Published May 30th 2017 by Greenwillow Books

Eighteen-year-old Eliza Mirk is the anonymous creator of Monstrous Sea, a wildly popular webcomic, but when a new boy at school tempts her to live a life offline, everything she’s worked for begins to crumble.

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, smart, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, the anonymous creator of a popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. With millions of followers and fans throughout the world, Eliza’s persona is popular. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community. Then Wallace Warland transfers to her school, and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart. With pages from Eliza’s webcomic, as well as screenshots from Eliza’s online forums, this uniquely formatted book will appeal to fans of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN RECEIVING QUITE A BUZZ IN THE READING COMMUNITY BECAUSE OF ITS UNIQUE FORMAT. I BELIVE THAT IT IS TOLD IN COMIC STRIPS, LETTERS, INSTANT MESSAGES AND PROSE. NOW THAT’S COOL.

7. One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
Published May 30th 2017 by Delacorte Press

One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.

Pay close attention and you might solve this.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.

Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.

Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.

Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.

Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.

And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

THIS WILL BE PERFECT WHEN I’M IN ANOTHER SUSPENSE THRILLER MOOD AGAIN. JUST READING THE SYNOPSIS MAKES ME WANT TO DIVE ON IT NOW.

8. Three Souls by Janie Chang
Published August 20th 2013 by Harper Perennial

An absorbing novel of romance and revolution, loyalty and family, sacrifice and undying love

We have three souls, or so I’d been told. But only in death could I confirm this … So begins the haunting and captivating tale, set in 1935 China, of the ghost of a young woman named Leiyin, who watches her own funeral from above and wonders why she is being denied entry to the afterlife. Beside her are three souls—stern and scholarly yang; impulsive, romantic yin; and wise, shining hun—who will guide her toward understanding. She must, they tell her, make amends.

As Leiyin delves back in time with the three souls to review her life, she sees the spoiled and privileged teenager she once was, a girl who is concerned with her own desires while China is fractured by civil war and social upheaval. At a party, she meets Hanchin, a captivating left-wing poet and translator, and instantly falls in love with him.

When Leiyin defies her father to pursue Hanchin, she learns the harsh truth—that she is powerless over her fate. Her punishment for disobedience leads to exile, an unwanted marriage, a pregnancy, and, ultimately, her death. And when she discovers what she must do to be released from limbo into the afterlife, Leiyin realizes that the time for making amends is shorter than she thought.

Suffused with history and literature, Three Souls is an epic tale of revenge and betrayal, forbidden love, and the price we are willing to pay for freedom.

I GOT THIS ONE BECAUSE OF IT’S INTERESTING PREMISE. A HISTORICAL NOVEL FEATURING A GHOST AS THE NARRATOR, WHO WOULDN’T BE INTRIGUED BY THAT.

9. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Published March 7th 2017 by Riverhead Books

From the internationally bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, a love story that unfolds in a world being irrevocably transformed by migration.

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, thrust into premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As violence and the threat of violence escalate, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through . . .

Exit West is an epic compressed into a slender page-turner—both completely of our time and for all time, Mohsin Hamid’s most ambitious and electrifying novel yet.

I HAVE A COPY OF THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST BY THIS AUTHOR BUT I HAVEN’T READ IT YET. I DECIDED TO GET THIS BOOK AND READ THIS FIRST AS, BASED ON WHAT I HEARD SO FAR, THIS BOOK FALLS UNDER THE MAGICAL REALISM GENRE WHICH IF YOU DON’T DON’T KNOW YET IS ONE OF MY MOST FAVORITE BOOK GENRE.

10. Seeker (Riders #2) by Veronica Rossi
Published May 16th 2017 by Tor Teen

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Veronica Rossi’s new fantasy adventure in the Rider series — Seeker .

When Daryn claimed she was seeing visions during her sophomore year of high school, no one believed the truth. She wasn t losing her mind, she was gaining the Sight the ability to see the future. If she just paid attention to the visions, they d provide her with clues and show her how she could help people. Really help them. Daryn embraced her role as a Seeker. The work she did was important. She saved lives.

Until Sebastian.

Sebastian was her first and worst mistake.

Since the moment she inadvertently sealed him in a dark dimension with Samrael the last surviving demon in the Kindred guilt has plagued her. Daryn knows Sebastian is alive and waiting for help. It s up to her to rescue him. But now that she needs the Sight more than ever to guide her, the visions have stopped.

Daryn must rely on her instincts, her intelligence, and on blind faith to lead the riders who are counting on her in search of Sebastian. As they delve into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems and where Samrael is steadily amassing power, Daryn faces the ultimate test. Will she have to become evil to destroy evil? The very fate of humankind rests in the answer.

I READ RIDERS LAST YEAR AND I DID ENJOY IT. THE BOOK FOLLOWS THE CHARACTERS AS THE REINCARNATIONS OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

What books from above have you read and enjoyed? What were the books that you recently hauled? Let me know your thoughts about the books that I got and let’s talk down below. 🙂