The Books On My Bookshelf

 Howdy, partner 🤠

Thank you so much to Ken for giving me something to write about. Genuinely started to think I didn't have a life because I had Nothing to talk about. Thankfully, I was reminded of my small love for reading. So, here are a few loved titles from my shelf!

• A Darker Shade of Magic series by V.E. Schwab
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
• Monster series by Naoki Urasawa
• Monsters of Verity series by V.E. Schwab
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
• Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The Darkest Part of The Forest by Holly Black
• The Folk of Air series by Holly Black
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tart
• The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Secret History by Donna Tart
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• Three Dark Crowns series by Kendare Blake
• Villains series by V.E. Schwab

Ever since I was a child, I would often choose reading a book over going out to play with the neighbors' kids. While this might have been because I was sickly and had asthma, therefore barred from any strenuous activities... I actually did enjoy reading a lot. My mother had even commissioned and built a bookshelf for my sake because all I would ask for is for more books--does anyone remember Geronimo Stilton? Yeah... Good times, good times... Well, anyways, moving to Japan meant I couldn't bring my books with me. Which broke my heart because I had annotated some of them. Now, my darling books sit in the shelf of our house in the Philippines, collecting dust bunnies as time continues to touch their spine and inked pages. 

Now, one of the few things I learned to hate when I moved to Japan was how I had to prioritize learning Japanese... over reading. Ridiculous, I know! Like, imagine having a life? Cringe. 

Eitherway, I hardly had any books with me, so I obviously wasn't going to be doing any kind of reading. Except that also soon became the bane of my existence... To make things easy to understand without going through a whole tangent, it meant that I had to buy books while only having 10¥ to my name. Clearly, I need someone to financially support my obsessions. But at some point, with whatever pocket change I would find scattered across the house, I managed to quietly buy books for myself. Before this, I would actually visit the local library--has anyone read The Night Circus? I really love that book. I loved it so much that I sacrificed my 20/20 vision for it by reading it in the dark... With a flashlight. 

I've always had a strong love for fiction, and maybe it started with me binge reading my 365 Bedtime Stories book as a child, or from my Reading class in second grade, or because of the library club I was in for four years back in elementary... Or maybe it started with my asthma. (Shrugs) But I've been trying to broaden my genre selection for awhile now, so if you have any book recommendations please let me know!

I personally recommend greek mythology lovers to read Madeline Miller's works, like The Song of Achilles and Circe. If you like a little more dramatic mystery in academia, I recommend If We Were Villains and The Secret History. If you like fantasy and power dynamics, any of V.E. Schwab works are an amazing read--my favorite works of Schwab's is the Villain series and The Monsters of Verity series. Finally, if you want to feel a bit devastated, A Little Life and The Song of Achilles.

Okay, I gotta write another blog. Goodbye, xoxo.