October 2016 Book Haul & Wrap Up

Another month goes by. And October... it was a crazy month. Basically I'm taking an annual leave to attend Big Bad Wolf at Surabaya. Just a few days before my departure, my sister asked me to come to Makassar to be with her during her time there for work stuff.

So basically, within 5 days, I went to 2 different cities that I last visited about 20 years ago, alone, with airplane trip(s) in it. Because hey, in my 23 years life, I've never been on an airplane. So yeah, October was a very crazy month.
October 2016 Book Haul

These books came from my first order at Periplus.com. I've been wanting to acquire some classic children's books so I purchased them at September. Thank God they arrived safely at my home this month :)

These are all of the books that I got from Big Bad Wolf at Surabaya. I got so excited and happy when I found the complete Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series that I love so much. I seriously still can't believe my luck when I found them sitting there, waiting for me to bring them home :D

At last, these are all the books that I bought every now and then during October. I pre-order Angel in the Rain and add One Little Thing Called Hope in the same order, bought Persona and The Lady in Red with a discount promo, and the other 2 from a second-hand book seller in Goodreads.

Overall, here is the complete list of the books that I bought on October:

1. Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden
2. Louisa May Alcott - Little Women & Good Wives
3. Louisa May Alcott - Little Men & Jo's Boys
4. Beatrix Potter - The Beatrix Potter Collection Volume One
5. Beatrix Potter - The Beatrix Potter Collection Volume Two
6. Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
7. Rainbow Rowell - Eleanor & Park
8. Matthew Quick - The Silver Lining's Playbook
9. Matthew Quick - Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
10. Holly Black - The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
11. Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone
12. My True Love Gave to Me
13. Classic Stories
14. Ally Carter - I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
15. Ally Carter - Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy
16. Ally Carter - Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover
17. Ally Carter - Only the Good Spy Young
18. Ally Carter - Out of Sight, Out of Time
19. Ally Carter - United We Spy
20. Patrick Ness - The Knife of Never Letting Go
21. Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer
22. Patrick Ness - Monsters of Men
23. Windry Ramadhina - Angel in the Rain
24. Winna Efendi - One Little Thing Called Hope
25. Fakhrisina Amalia - Persona
26. Arleen A - The Lady in Red
27. Jennifer Niven - All the Bright Places
28. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - The Yearling: Jody dan Anak Rusa

There's so many books. Too many books, actually, that I have to rearrange my bookshelf a bit to find a space for those new books. I guess now I'm officially on a book buying ban. Kind of :p

October 2016 Wrap Up

I read a total of 12 books this month. 9 of them are paperbacks, while the rest of them are e-books. Here they are:

1. Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Angel
I took some time off after reading the first 3 books in The Mortal Instruments series because I just doesn't feel like picking this book up. I still liked the story in this book, I just can't stand Tessa at all. So 3.5 out of 5 stars.

2. Cassandra Clare - City of Fallen Angels
Different than the first 4 books by Cassandra Clare that I re-read this year, I've never read this book before. I think I liked how the story goes and I'm pretty curious of what will happen next. 4 out of 5 stars for this book.

3. Ruth Priscilia Angelina - Forever Monday
I've been putting this book for so long and suddenly I'm in the mood to read this. I honestly thought this is just a regular contemporary book. It's not. Definitely not. The story started with this dysfunctional characters, continued with unbelievably crazy stories, and ended with an even crazier ending. I'm pretty much speechless after I finished this book. How come things like this happened? So 4.5 out of 5 stars for this crazy book.

4. Dya Ragil - Starlight
After 2 fantasy books plus a mental illness book, I'm in need of a nice contemporary book. This book? It's a hidden jem. I really really like it because even though this book takes place in a school setting, with the students and teachers as their characters, it contains so many values. And good ones too. So 4 out of 5 stars for this book.

5. Yayyo Asmara - Romandivoree

This is the actual contemporary book that I wanted after reading Forever Monday. Just the regular love stories with regular problems. And of course, I'm not blown away by this. So 2 out of 5 stars for this book.

6. Bedtime Favorites: Kisah-Kisah Pengantar Tidur Favorit

I've been staring at this book for quite some time before I decided to pick it up. I liked the stories in it. I even got some favorites: Ya Ampun, Stitch!; Kereta Paling Nyaman; dan Lampu-Lampu Malam Piglet. So 4 out of 5 stars for this beautiful book :)

7. Windry Ramadhina - Interlude

Because I've ordered the latest book from Windry Ramadhina, my auto-buy author, I decided to pick out her book from my TBR pile. This book, I didn't know that it will be this dark. And I like it for that. Unfortunately I have to go through the last 80 pages in a hurry before I have to go to Surabaya since I don't want to bring any paperback on my way there. So... 4.5 out of 5 stars for this bittersweet story :)

8. Miranda Malonka - Sylvia's Letters

Just a few days after I'm back from my vacation, Gramedia.com decided to have another promo on their website. I'm on the verge of a book-buying ban, so I decided to choose wisely from the list of books that I wanted to read. This is one of the book that I wanted to buy, and fortunately it's available on iJak so of course I decided to read this first before I bought it. Such a wrong move. This is another book about mental illness. This time, I'm completely blown away. 4 out of 5 stars.

 

9. My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Winter Romances

This is the only book from the Big Bad Wolf that I brought along to Makassar. At first I thought it was just okay. But then as I read the rest of the stories, I'm pretty much swoon over how sweet they are sometimes. Other times, the writing style is so good that I'm completely immersed in the story. 10 great stories compared to the other 2 that I felt pretty weird. So 4.5 out of 5 stars :)

10. Prima Santika - Three Weddings and Jane Austen

I didn't put a very high expectation in this book. And thankfully I did that because I'm so tired of reading this. It reminded me a lot Emma, Jane Austen's book that I still had in my Currently-Reading shelf in Goodreads because I'm not in the mood to read them. I basically skimming a lot of chapters in this book in order to be done with it. 2 out of 5 stars.

11. Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls

I pick this up as I was staring at my Chaos Walking Trilogy's books. I wanted to read them but I still had this Patrick Ness book unread. The next thing I know, I'm reading this book until 11 p.m. on work-night. I really enjoy the 'monster' voice and how Patrick Ness describe things that gave me this eerie feeling. The only thing that I didn't feel was sadness. Because I should've felt that but I don't. 4 out of 5 stars.

12. Okke 'Sepatumerah' & Riri Sardjono - Time Will Tell

I pick this up on a whim, in a desperate attempt to read most of my TBR pile within this month. Definitely useless, lol. I'm okay with Okke's writing style. Unfortunately I haven't been able to understand the characters before the story ended. Then, on Riri Sardjono's part, I liked the story just fine. Sometimes it's very funny, other times it was just flat. So 2.5 out of 5 stars for this book.