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ladybusinessOver the years I have slowly been sucked in to the hype machine. I'll get excited about the books in a specific year. I'll talk about 40+ books and how excited I am. Then the year flips and there's a new set of books and I've only read three of the previous batch.
The hype cycle continues, every year, and my past is littered with a field of forgotten anticipated reads. This has resulted in me being up on some high profile new releases, but missing out on all the other books I left behind due to hype fatigue and life piling up. My brain is just as weak as any other brain. We're all susceptible to advertising.
In 2020 I have no reading goals (more on that in a future entry), but I also know myself. I'm weak to marketing. When I choose a ton of books I overwhelm my brain with choices, freeze, and read much less because how do I choose? That's at the core of my anxieties re: reading the last few years. There's so much I know I'll never get to read. How do I make those choices?
Existential reading questions aside this year I've decided to limit my anticipated books for this quarter to nine. That's a reasonable number and forced me to really focus on books I want to read so I'll be able to select a book and not overthink that choice so long that I never read the book.
Here are my anticipated reads for the first quarter of 2020.
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez* | January 14 (Del Rey Books)
An uninhabitable earth and the costs of saving ourselves, a solitary woman who moves through time while everyone around her grows older, and a mute boy who plays beautiful music. The reviews of this book give me that sweet, sweet Station Eleven vibe, but in space and while unpacking what it means for socialization as we expand into the stars.
A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen* | January 14 (Mira Books)
The end of the world has come—viral apocalypse ahoy!—and as survivors begin to rebuild, a group of people come together in what looks like an excellent found family narrative, as each person struggles to leave their past behind and make new lives in an incredibly different future. When whispers that there's another pandemic surface, everything that they've built is at risk. Apparently, I'm ready to read about some found families.
Rogue Princess by B.R. Myers* | January 21 (Swoon Reads)
Rogue Princess is a Cinderella retelling, but more importantly, the blurb makes it sound like it has big Balthier/Ashe energy (am I still into that Final Fantasy XII ship? Yep. Will I ever find the right combination of Balthier/Ashe sensibility in original fiction? Only time will tell!). A princess escaping an arranged marriage steals a spaceship, except—oops—there's a stowaway and oh no, he might be hot. Unlikely partnership! Foiling plots! Yes, please.
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa* | February 4 (Avon)
After being ghosted at the altar, wedding planner Carolina lands a sweet gig that could do amazing things for her career. There's just one catch, though—she'll have to work with the brother of her ex-fiance to make it happen, who encouraged his brother to not go through with the wedding. A grudging partnership where sparks fly? I'M IN. This sounds like the perfect enemies to lovers romance I need in my life right now.
The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood* | February 11 (Tor Books)
Csorwe was meant for sacrifice. Instead, she chooses to partner with a wizard in order to help him regain his power, and turn her back on her previous choices. But she can't ignore her obligations forever. My journey to this book was: get an ARC, put it on my shelf, hear about this excellent upcoming novel about an orc priestess, read a blurb from Alix E. Harrow that went, "if Arha the Eaten One got to grow up to be a swordswoman mercenary in thrall to her dubious wizard mentor", decide I need to read it immediately, put it on my list, live my life for two weeks, then realize when cleaning my bookshelves I have the ARC of the book. I'm a winner.
Stormsong by C.L. Polk | February 11 (Tor.com)
Dame Grace Hensley is the asshole we meet in Witchmark, where she was complicit in the magical bonding of her brother as a human battery pack to fuel her own magic. Her choices: dubious. Her eventual decision to be a hero: I GUESS?! Redemption? We'll see. After the events of Witchmark, Grace is left to face the consequences of her antics with her brother Miles, and she's caught between politicians, magicians, and a nation on the verge of war. Oh, and there's Avia, a reporter who is keen to root out secrets that could tilt the country into dissolution. Can Grace save her home and also prove she's learned from her buttheaded privilege and abuses of power and be a decent enough human to land the girl?
Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales* | March 3 (Wednesday Books)
During an exciting summer, Will and Ollie have an excellent time and Ollie is convinced he's found a great guy—except then Will stops responding to texts. Thrown off kilter and uprooted to a new school in another part of the country, only to find that Will is also at that school and radically different to the guy Ollie met during the summer due to not being out, Ollie cuts his loses. But what happens when Will starts to appear randomly in Ollie's life? Why should Ollie trust him again? If you've ever wanted the M/M YA version of Grease, this book should be on your radar. I would like to collect every version of this story for every potential relationship. We deserve it.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune* | March 17 (Tor Books)
A case worker is tasked with determining the fate of several magical children and their status as potential agents of the world's destruction. The orphanage where the children live is run by a man who will protect the children at all costs—even if the cost is himself. This one landed on my radar because of the found family trope. I'm all in on that this year.
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin | March 24 (Orbit)
Last, but certainly not least, N.K. Jemisin's latest novel. I think we sometimes forget how young Jemisin is and how much of a career she has left to write things and how wrecked we're going to be, feelings-wise, in about 20 years. Someone on Twitter (I forget who now) said this book was "face-meltingly good". Sometimes I feel like I might explode when I read her work, because I have all these emotions she's able to invoke with her writing and insights and characterization. IT'S A LOT. In this book, an ancient evil stirs in New York City, and five New Yorkers have to come together to save the day. Reading books by New Yorkers set in New York when they have the skill to bring it to life like I know Jemisin does is making me VERY EXCITED.
That's it from me from the first quarter of 2020. There's lots of excellent looking books to check out and I have pre-ordered several of these already. What's everyone else looking forward to reading? What pre-orders do you have in the wild?
* New-to-me author, as long as none of these are sneaky pen names and who even knows anymore?
The hype cycle continues, every year, and my past is littered with a field of forgotten anticipated reads. This has resulted in me being up on some high profile new releases, but missing out on all the other books I left behind due to hype fatigue and life piling up. My brain is just as weak as any other brain. We're all susceptible to advertising.
In 2020 I have no reading goals (more on that in a future entry), but I also know myself. I'm weak to marketing. When I choose a ton of books I overwhelm my brain with choices, freeze, and read much less because how do I choose? That's at the core of my anxieties re: reading the last few years. There's so much I know I'll never get to read. How do I make those choices?
Existential reading questions aside this year I've decided to limit my anticipated books for this quarter to nine. That's a reasonable number and forced me to really focus on books I want to read so I'll be able to select a book and not overthink that choice so long that I never read the book.
Here are my anticipated reads for the first quarter of 2020.
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez* | January 14 (Del Rey Books)
An uninhabitable earth and the costs of saving ourselves, a solitary woman who moves through time while everyone around her grows older, and a mute boy who plays beautiful music. The reviews of this book give me that sweet, sweet Station Eleven vibe, but in space and while unpacking what it means for socialization as we expand into the stars.
A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen* | January 14 (Mira Books)
The end of the world has come—viral apocalypse ahoy!—and as survivors begin to rebuild, a group of people come together in what looks like an excellent found family narrative, as each person struggles to leave their past behind and make new lives in an incredibly different future. When whispers that there's another pandemic surface, everything that they've built is at risk. Apparently, I'm ready to read about some found families.
Rogue Princess by B.R. Myers* | January 21 (Swoon Reads)
Rogue Princess is a Cinderella retelling, but more importantly, the blurb makes it sound like it has big Balthier/Ashe energy (am I still into that Final Fantasy XII ship? Yep. Will I ever find the right combination of Balthier/Ashe sensibility in original fiction? Only time will tell!). A princess escaping an arranged marriage steals a spaceship, except—oops—there's a stowaway and oh no, he might be hot. Unlikely partnership! Foiling plots! Yes, please.
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa* | February 4 (Avon)
After being ghosted at the altar, wedding planner Carolina lands a sweet gig that could do amazing things for her career. There's just one catch, though—she'll have to work with the brother of her ex-fiance to make it happen, who encouraged his brother to not go through with the wedding. A grudging partnership where sparks fly? I'M IN. This sounds like the perfect enemies to lovers romance I need in my life right now.
The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood* | February 11 (Tor Books)
Csorwe was meant for sacrifice. Instead, she chooses to partner with a wizard in order to help him regain his power, and turn her back on her previous choices. But she can't ignore her obligations forever. My journey to this book was: get an ARC, put it on my shelf, hear about this excellent upcoming novel about an orc priestess, read a blurb from Alix E. Harrow that went, "if Arha the Eaten One got to grow up to be a swordswoman mercenary in thrall to her dubious wizard mentor", decide I need to read it immediately, put it on my list, live my life for two weeks, then realize when cleaning my bookshelves I have the ARC of the book. I'm a winner.
Stormsong by C.L. Polk | February 11 (Tor.com)
Dame Grace Hensley is the asshole we meet in Witchmark, where she was complicit in the magical bonding of her brother as a human battery pack to fuel her own magic. Her choices: dubious. Her eventual decision to be a hero: I GUESS?! Redemption? We'll see. After the events of Witchmark, Grace is left to face the consequences of her antics with her brother Miles, and she's caught between politicians, magicians, and a nation on the verge of war. Oh, and there's Avia, a reporter who is keen to root out secrets that could tilt the country into dissolution. Can Grace save her home and also prove she's learned from her buttheaded privilege and abuses of power and be a decent enough human to land the girl?
Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales* | March 3 (Wednesday Books)
During an exciting summer, Will and Ollie have an excellent time and Ollie is convinced he's found a great guy—except then Will stops responding to texts. Thrown off kilter and uprooted to a new school in another part of the country, only to find that Will is also at that school and radically different to the guy Ollie met during the summer due to not being out, Ollie cuts his loses. But what happens when Will starts to appear randomly in Ollie's life? Why should Ollie trust him again? If you've ever wanted the M/M YA version of Grease, this book should be on your radar. I would like to collect every version of this story for every potential relationship. We deserve it.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune* | March 17 (Tor Books)
A case worker is tasked with determining the fate of several magical children and their status as potential agents of the world's destruction. The orphanage where the children live is run by a man who will protect the children at all costs—even if the cost is himself. This one landed on my radar because of the found family trope. I'm all in on that this year.
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin | March 24 (Orbit)
Last, but certainly not least, N.K. Jemisin's latest novel. I think we sometimes forget how young Jemisin is and how much of a career she has left to write things and how wrecked we're going to be, feelings-wise, in about 20 years. Someone on Twitter (I forget who now) said this book was "face-meltingly good". Sometimes I feel like I might explode when I read her work, because I have all these emotions she's able to invoke with her writing and insights and characterization. IT'S A LOT. In this book, an ancient evil stirs in New York City, and five New Yorkers have to come together to save the day. Reading books by New Yorkers set in New York when they have the skill to bring it to life like I know Jemisin does is making me VERY EXCITED.
That's it from me from the first quarter of 2020. There's lots of excellent looking books to check out and I have pre-ordered several of these already. What's everyone else looking forward to reading? What pre-orders do you have in the wild?
* New-to-me author, as long as none of these are sneaky pen names and who even knows anymore?
no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 02:14 am (UTC)No reading goals sounds great, and I'm looking forward to reading more about not having them in that future entry. It is so tempting to make some sort of reading goals for the year, but I'm trying to avoid them too. I deliberately set my Goodreads goal to a low number this year so I can still track my yearly reads but don't need to worry about whether or not I will have read a specific number of books by the end of the year.
- Kristen
no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 12:58 pm (UTC)I have the same thing happen--I hear about an amazing book, go look it up, and it comes out in 3-4 months. *sigh* I have a little notebook that I use to keep track of titles/authors and need to write up the 2020 pub books to look for!