Project TBR Zero: The one with the biggest book haul

I’ve been dreading the day I had to sit down and write this update. I’m not giving up if that’s what you’re thinking, I’ve just made some progress… in the opposite direction. This summer, the TBR grew bigger, and I’m trying my hardest to clean up that mess! But what would you do if you saw some books become homeless? Wouldn’t you help them? Those poor things were shivering! It broke my heart. I couldn’t send them away… So I opened my shelves… They look so cosy and happy now! And I hope they can make me feel like that as well.

June

It all started on a warm sunny day in June. The doorbell rings with the mailman bringing a package with fresh new books. The second volume of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo – I can now start planning to read that – The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson, The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin, and Love & Olives by Jenna Evans Welch. Everything was going fine. I was still finishing the last couple of books for HRCYED while dreaming of the next book I would pick up after. Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco and Blindness by José Saramago ended up taking over the whole month, leaving me without space for other literary adventures.

July

However, not everything goes as we hope. I jump straight to Love & Olives, rejoicing in the cuteness and ease of a YA romance after such a dark and descriptive book like Blindness. And it was really nice, the only downside was the lack of swimming and bathing under the Greek sun. I wanted the book to take me on a holiday, but those plans were left at home.

Since I had just bought As Good As Dead, I decided it was time to finally end the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series. Or so I thought. What should have been just another YA mystery that shouldn’t take more than two weeks to read became a two-month ordeal. Part of that fault was the first set of homeless books: the Death Note Black Edition by Tsugumi Ohba. Five of them, to be precise. I’ve seen some episodes of the anime and liked it a lot. I don’t remember exactly why I stopped watching it, though. Most likely a lack of time. But it was always a story I wanted to know, and now the books fall in my lap. It was destiny – As Good As Dead would probably disagree, so I’m glad books actually can’t talk.

While Death Note didn’t take over my reading life in July, they weren’t the only one to increase the TBR pile. The next set of homeless books was all from the one and only J.R.R. Tolkien. I’m not a fantasy girl, I can’t stress that enough and don’t get fooled by my passion for A Game of Thrones. Although I’ve been curious about The Lord of the Rings for a while now, and listening to the Audible ads with the narrator of The Hobbit saying “must have taken a fairy wife” as if it’s so scandalous, just sparked my interest even more. I tried watching the movies, but I couldn’t. I get so bored. However, books are different. And so I once again opened my shelves to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. I got almost the entire collection of the LOTR universe. This is bad…

August

With As Good As Dead taking ages to develop the plot to a stage I would actually want to pick the book up, I started my adventure in the world of Death Note. Going from volume to volume, enjoy all the psychological warfare, the greed, the unhingedness… This is why I love a show like You. Getting the twisted logic of disguising psychopathic behaviour as a good deed. The disparity between the self-image and the image perceived by others. The intelligence required to fool everyone. Sigh… I love and unhinged man as much as an unhinged woman. In fiction! I’m only talking about fiction, people!

But August couldn’t end there before more books came knocking at my door looking for shelter. Yes, again. This time, it was the 4 volumes of Heartstopper by Alice Oseman. I never wanted to read Heartstopper, even though you can read it for free. For me, it was just another cutesy teenage romance, but make it gay. I knew I probably would like it, but romance stories sometimes feel a little empty. You basically just care for the relationship, and there isn’t much more in the plot that will make it memorable. But once again, since they have fallen into my lap, I guess I’ll read it. And I was wrong. I didn’t like it… I loved it! Heartstopper has become my life. I count the days for the update day on Webtoon, where I can read a few more pages. It’s 10 days between updates, by the way. The story isn’t over, and now I’m more sure than ever that I want to read every single book by Alice Oseman.

After July and August homelesses, anyone would think that was enough new books to add to the TBR, right? Well, wrong because there was a street market where I found, second-hand, both Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. So. Many. Books. How long will it take me to repair the damage of one single summer? And it’s still not over.

September

While I wasn’t in a reading slump, I was feeling a bit down. I was still reading As Good As Dead and had also started, some time before, The Fire Witness by Lars Kepler. Neither of them was a fun reading experience. And I have to thank both Death Note and Heartstopper for keeping my spirits up. It was already September. I’ve been reading them since August and continued until there weren’t any more volumes to read. I had to buy the final volume of Death Note, so I could conclude the story, and now it’s over. I’m still speechless. It was far from anything I could have imagined this story to be. I cared so much about the characters. It was everything, and now it’s over. But I didn’t dwell too much on it and had to keep the momentum to finish the other two mysteries as well.

As Good As Dead ended up proving to not be so bad. Once the plot picked up, I finished it in a matter of days. Meanwhile, The Fire Witness was a bit harder for a book with such short chapters. I never thought I would dislike short chapters, and here we are. I was so done with the book, I seriously thought about DNFing. But I stuck to it until the end, though. But at what cost?

September was proving to be a good reading month, so I wanted to keep my pace. I also read No Ivy League by Hazel Newlevant. It’s a graphic memoir of a home-schooled white girl confronting her white privilege for the first time. It wasn’t bad, but lacked more exploration of the various topics it touched. Wait, what is that? The mailman is at the door, again? I can’t resist a deal, okay! And besides, I had already made a dent in the number of books I collected all summer. So, shiny and new came along Poster Girl by Veronica Roth, Mister Magic by Kiersten White, and Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

I already finished Celeste Ng’s book. This is why I want a TBR close to zero. I bought a book. I read the book. Simple. What wasn’t simple was this book. Whoa! It was phenomenal. I can stop looking. I found the best book I’ve read this year. So many emotions, so many thoughts. The imperfection of humans, the hurt, the love. It’s kind of like Fredrik Backman, but in the end, you don’t like the characters more. Backman makes you fall in love with imperfect people. But in here, Ng makes you keep seeing the imperfections, and doesn’t push you to like or dislike the characters. It’s as they are. Raw.

I’m almost back where I started. Thankfully, manga and graphic novels, while numerous, can be read quite quickly. The reason why I usually don’t buy them. This year won’t be over without me reading a few more books from this huge pile, that’s for sure. Les Mis is a priority above all else. The Alchemist is so short, I’m sure I can squeeze it in somewhere. Also, we just started Autumn, and there’s no better weather to read The Hobbit in. And The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Poster Girl and Mister Magic are also perfect for the -ber months. Now, the question is: will I get any new books?