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Bet you didn't think of that as a bookstore anthem, but it is, so.
God, the president of the company saw me do that.
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Hey everybody, my name is Michael, and
you're watching the February Epic Reads Book Haul.
February is the middle of winter, and also, the middle of sickness season.
So I'm having a great time here in New York City, but let's not talk about that.
Let's talk about fun things like books,
which is the whole reason you click on this video every month.
So the books that I've been reading every month recently play into the Year of
Epic Reads Reading Challenges.
And the reading challenge this month is to go on adventure with a book.
And so I have King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo.
If you guys don't know what this is, how?
And also...
So I'm going on a journey to the magical lands of Ravka and Fjerda and
the other places that Leigh Bardugo has created in this just spectacular book.
This is the sixth in the Grishaverse, the original trilogy was the Shadow and
Bone trilogy.
And then there was the sequel duology, Six of Crows, and so
this follows Nikolai's story from the original books, and also has Nina in it,
who's from the sequel books.
So it's got a little bit of everything, no matter what story you love, and
it's the story of a bit of a ruined prince trying to save his kingdom.
And a person who we all love, Nina, who's coping with some awful
things that happened to her and trying to move forward, and I don't know where it's
headed yet cuz I'm not that far in, but I am loving every second of it.
Yes, I did drop everything to read King of Scars, so
that's all that I'm currently reading, but again,
it does fit with the Year of Epic Reads monthly reading challenge.
And so now I'm just going to start talking about some of the books we have coming up
this month, because we have a fantastic lot of books here.
So the first book here I have that I'm going to talk about is On the Come Up by
Angie Thomas, whose name you might recognize from The Hate U Give,
which you've probably read, and this is her second book.
It follows a girl named Bri, whose dad passed away on the brink of making it big
in the music industry, and so she herself has been trying to make it as a musician.
And her first ever song to go viral is her expressing all of her anger and
frustration to a song, and it goes viral for all the wrong reasons.
And she's portrayed as this person who she's not, and she just needs to make it
big because there's an eviction notice at her door, and so it's her trying to
make it and make her situation right and sort of make this name for herself.
And Angie Thomas is such an incredibly talented writer and
I'm so excited to be able to read this novel.
So the next book that I have here that I'm gonna talk about is We Set the Dark
on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia, and
this a Latinx-inspired spy fantasy thriller and it's so fantastic.
It follows a girl named Dani who forged papers in order to be in this program for
women who can become wives to really powerful men.
And it's sort of meant to give her a better life than she would have had with
her family.
But she's not sure if she even wants that life, or
if she would've been happy at home where she was.
And so she ends up in this program, and she ends up being the wife to this really,
really important, powerful man.
And turns out, life's not as good as she thought it would have been, and she's
approached by these people who are spies who want to take down this patriarchy.
And so she joins them, and there's also a female/female romance in there,
which is so so, such a good burning romance,
and can you see I'm excited talking about this book?
It was really fantastic, you guys need to read it.
So staying in the fantasy realm for a little bit,
we have The Blood Spell by C.J Redwine.
This is the fourth book in the Ravenspire series,
which have all been fairy tale retellings, but with more magical twists.
All of the books have had different colored end papers, and
I think these are by far my favorite colored ones,
because blue is my favorite color, which I feel like was clear before I said that.
And this is a Cinderella retelling, which follows a girl who has the ability to turn
metal into gold, end up under the custody of this cruel woman.
And the only way to free herself is to team up with a prince,
who she does not get along with because they kind of hate each other,
who has to save his people who are disappearing.
And they have to solve this mystery and free her together,
and this is their magical journey.
While I'm on this fantasy kick, I will talk about The Cerulean by Amy Ewing next,
and this is from the author of the Lone City trilogy.
And it's got, first of all, a stunning cover of a girl falling through the sky.
Because a girl does fall through the sky in this novel, it
is set in a land where it's all women on the city in the sky that's just magical,
and she's always wondered why they're tethered to Earth below.
And one day in a bout of severe irony, she is pushed to the earth
as a sacrifice to untether them from the world, but she doesn't die when she falls.
She actually survives and she has to navigate her way through this new planet,
and get back up to her people to save them.
So this sounds like a fantastic fantasy.
And then while we're on the topic of girls falling through the sky on book covers,
we have Stolen Time by Danielle Rollins.
Danielle Rollins also writes under the pen name Danielle Vega, so
she's written other things before.
And this is a time travel romance, it's the first book in a sweeping new trilogy.
And it follows a girl who is running from the past and
into the future, because she runs into a man who's back in the past,
trying to figure out how to save his future.
And she hides out on a ship and wakes up in this dystopian world, and
she just might be the key to destroying the world for everybody.
So it's this really, really intense twisting,
turning story that you guys need to read.
The next book that I have here I'm gonna talk about is Fame, Fate, and
the First Kiss by Kasie West.
It is a companion to Love, Life, and the List, which came out last year.
And it is about a girl who has always dreamt of making it big as an actress and
then she gets her big break.
And she's like whoa, this is amazing, but then in a turn of events,
things don't go as well as she was hoping they would.
She's pretty sure someone on set is trying to sabotage her, which yikes, and
she's not getting along well with her coworkers on set, the other actors.
And to add to everything, the boy that she has to work with as a tutor for
her is just like the straight-laced choirboy,
she doesn't think she's gonna get along with at all.
But then she realizes he's actually the only person she can open up to,
but he doesn't date actresses, and she can't have another distraction.
And it's just an adorable romance you guys need to read.
This next book has a really cool cover, and
I need to open the jacket all the way for you to see.
No, come back.
I'm so dumb.
And this is The Black Coats by Colleen Oakes.
This is a book about a girl whose cousin was killed, and the killer went free.
And so she joins this secret society called the Black Coats,
which is a group of women who get revenge on men who hurt women and girls.
And she joins the society, and they've all got stories about awful things that
people got away with, that they wanna get revenge on.
But the longer she's in the society,
the longer she realizes that things might not be what she first thought.
And she has to get to a point where she decides if she needs to stay with them and
if it's worth getting justice on the person who killed her cousin.
And I want to read the last line in the synopsis for
you because I thought it was really good, so kudos to whoever wrote that.
Because when the line between justice and
revenge is razor thin, it's hard not to get cut—The Black Coats.
The next novel I have here is The Antidote by Shelley Sackier, and
it is a fantasy novel about a girl who has the ability to heal people with her magic,
but she can't use it, because magic comes at a dangerous deadly cost.
And her friend then falls sick, and
they're not able to cure them in any other way.
And so she's very tempted to use this magic, and when she just uses a little bit
of it, it opens up this dark spiral for her to fall down of secret motivations and
dark pasts, and her trying to save herself and find her way out of it.
And it is again a beautiful fantasy novel.
And then we're gonna travel into outer space for a second,
because we have Honor Bound by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre.
And this is the sequel to Honor Among Thieves,
which was a book about an outlaw from earth who ended up getting drafted into
this program to go into outer space with the sentient spaceships.
And quickly realizing that everything wasn't what she thought it was, and
there were darker motivations than originally promised.
And so in book two, there are alien creatures trying to kill them and
they are intergalactic fugitives, so the stakes are definitely stepped up here.
And the last book we have coming out that I'm going to talk about is
Drop Dead Gorgeous by R.L. Stine as part of the Return to Fear Street series.
This follows a girl named Morgan who sort of returns to this town, and
no one can stop talking about her.
But she's also got like a thinly veiled past that no one really knows about too
well, and then at this alumni situation, she has her
secrets revealed, and it's R.L. Stine so you know things are going to get spooky.
And as you can tell from the cover, things are gonna get spooky.
And before I leave you guys, I wanna talk about some of the books we got from other
publishers that are gonna be coming out.
First up, I will go with Bloodwitch by Susan Dennard.
This is the next book in the Witchlands Series, and as you can tell from
the title, it follows the Bloodwitch whose name I don't wanna mess up.
I think it's, Aeduan?
I don't know how to pronounce that.
I probably got it wrong and
you're probably gonna comment down in the comments below.
But this is the next book in that really thrilling series.
I'm only one book in, so I have to catch up, but
now that I have this, definitely a reason to catch up on the series.
And the last book that I'm gonna talk about with you guys today is Enchantée
by Gita Trelease.
Which is this Paris-set fantasy novel about a down-on-her-luck magician,
who uses her magic to turn herself into someone else, and then has to keep up this
lie as things get more dangerous and the magic comes at a cost.
So those are all the books that I have to talk about this month.
There are definitely a lot.
February is a really great month [LAUGH] for new releases, in case you can't tell.
But thank you guys for watching and
comment down below with what you're excited to read.
I will see you guys next month, bye-bye.
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