Big December book haul: The aftermath of a 3 month book buying ban

Ooooohhhhh how December was a great month, haul-wise. 

I’ve been on a book buying ban for THREE MONTHS. I needed to save my money for a whole bunch of different things, and so my book buying was put on hold for a whole three months. And oh how Christmas made up for that 😆

Nearly all of these books were gifts I got for Christmas, since everyone around me knows how much I love books. I’m incredibly grateful for them all and always will be ❤

This post is going to be set out a bit differently. My main version of this is actually on my booktube channel, so below you’ll find a video for this haul. HOWEVER, I’ve also listed the books mentioned below the video, with the synopsis and relevant links, so if you don’t have time (or simply don’t want) to watch the video, you can have a quick glance through instead!

The video has me full of excitement and rambling about why/how I got each book though, so I’d recommend watching it *wink*

Let’s see which books December brought me!

I am tired of being used, hurt, and cast aside.

Adelina Amouteru is a survivor of the blood fever, marked by a jagged scar where her left eye once was. Branded as a malfetto – an abomination – she is cast out from all she has ever known and loved.

Adeline finds sanctuary with other malfettos and discovers that the disease left her with more than just a scar – she has a mysterious and powerful gift.

She is a Young Elite.

But Adelina’s ability is stronger than any Young Elite before her. And unless she can control the vengeful darkness growing in her heart, Adelina could be a danger to them all.

Amazon | Goodreads

‘… ever-present, phantom thing; My slave, my comrade, and my king’

Some of Emily Brontë’s most extraordinary poems

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin’s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Amazon | Goodreads

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads:
Opens at Nightfall
Closes at Dawn

As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears.
Le Cirque des Rêves
The Circus of Dreams.

Now the circus is open.
Now you may enter.

Amazon | Goodreads

Synopsis not included as it’s the 2nd volume in a comic series and may contain spoilers for the previous book, but you can view the first volume here, as well as my review.

Amazon | Goodreads

J.K. Rowling’s screenwriting debut is captured in this exciting hardcover edition of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay.

When Magizoologist Newt Scamander arrives in New York, he intends his stay to be just a brief stopover. However, when his magical case is misplaced and some of Newt’s fantastic beasts escape, it spells trouble for everyone…

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them marks the screenwriting debut of J.K. Rowling, author of the beloved and internationally bestselling Harry Potter books. Featuring a cast of remarkable characters, this is epic, adventure-packed storytelling at its very best.

Whether an existing fan or new to the wizarding world, this is a perfect addition to any reader’s bookshelf.

Amazon | Goodreads

The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire – neither Offred’s nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.

Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first-century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit and astute perception.

Amazon | Goodreads

Synopsis not included as this is the 2nd book in a duology and may contain spoilers for the previous book. But you can view the first book here, as well as my review.

Amazon | Goodreads

Synopsis not included as this is the 2nd book in a series and may contain spoilers for the previous book, but you can view the first book here, as well as my review.

Amazon | Goodreads

Synopsis not included as this is the 2nd book in a series and may contain spoilers for the previous books, but you can view the first book here, as well as my review.

Amazon | Goodreads

Combined for the first time here are Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale and Maus II – the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler’s Europe. By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival – and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents. A contemporary classic of immeasurable significance.

Amazon | Goodreads

No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.

Until now.

As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. ‘I nearly missed you, Doctor August,’ she says. ‘I need to send a message.’

This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

Amazon | Goodreads

Synopsis not included as this is a novella that comes after the Spinster Club trilogy. You can see the first book here, or see my review.

 Amazon | Goodreads

There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

Amazon | Goodreads

Synopsis not included as this is the 2nd book in a trilogy and may contain spoilers for the previous book, but you can view the first book here or see my review.

Amazon | Goodreads

Agoraphobia confines Norah to the house she shares with her mother.

For her, the outside is sky glimpsed through glass, or a gauntlet to run between home and car. But a chance encounter on the doorstep changes everything: Luke, her new neighbour. Norah is determined to be the girl she thinks Luke deserves: a ‘normal’ girl, her skies unfiltered by the lens of mental illness. Instead, her love and bravery opens a window to unexpected truths …

An important and uplifting debut from a British author, which tackles mental health issues such as agoraphobia and OCD.

Amazon | Goodreads

Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, as a child, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity: the ever-increasing horrors he endured, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of humanity, dignity and faith. Describing in simple terms the tragic murder of a people from a survivor’s perspective, Night is among the most personal, intimate and poignant of all accounts of the Holocaust. A compelling consideration of the darkest side of human nature and the enduring power of hope, it remains one of the most important works of the twentieth century.

Amazon | Goodreads

In the beginning there was…a turtle.

Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules.

But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land. Unfortunately, the person charged with maintaining that survival in the face of robbers, mercenaries and, well, Death, is a spectacularly inept wizard…

Amazon | Goodreads

When the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 100,000 men, women and children, a new era in human history opened. Written only a year after the disaster, John Hersey brought the event vividly alive with this heartrending account of six men and women who survived despite all the odds. A further chapter was added when, forty years later, he returned to Hiroshima to discover how the same six people had struggled to cope with catastrophe and with often crippling disease. The result is a devastating picture of the long-term effects of one bomb.

Amazon | Goodreads

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.

Incredibly funny and poignant, this twenty-first-century coming-of-age, coming out story—wrapped in a geek romance—is a knockout of a debut novel by Becky Albertalli.

Amazon | Goodreads

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WOW that was a long post!

You can see now why I didn’t repeat everything in the video about why/how I got each one? We’d be here ’till February 😆 I hope you enjoyed the haul nonetheless, and that you watched the video – there’s much more personality in that, rather than just this list of synopsis’, but I wanted to try and accommodate for all!

Have you read any of the books mentioned? Are there any I should prioritise?

Are there any here that are on your TBR?

Did you get any books this December? Feel free to link me to your haul post/video if you have one! They’re my favourites 😀

Until next time…

Come and visit me!

Snapchat: frolic_fiction