I’ve started on a book shelf journey. yep, that’s a thing. I’m making it one. We all see the library in Beauty and the Beast and just swoon. We think about Hermione toiling away with her books and cleverness and think “Man I want to be her friend.” But there comes a time when your TBR pile literally crushes you. Like if we took all my physically owned books and put them on top of me I would die. That’s the story I’m going with. Anways, there comes a time when you announce on your blog that you have 200 unread physical books. And it makes a girl wonder why these books are all sitting around. Do I like having them because they were pretty? Do I really think I’ll read them one day? Do they tell me funny jokes when I’m sad? What does this library say about me as a person? I’ll tell you… that I have a problem.
I’ve been going through my shelves frequently lately, due to this desire to catalog my books. I started out by doing my shelves in rainbow order. I’ve always wanted to try this out, but was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to find the books I was looking for. But we are moving in June. So I took apart my shelves thinking “If I try it out now, I can always change it back when we move.” (fyi… I love it) Well pulling all these books out and onto my floor got me thinking more about the ones I hadn’t read. There are some I’m ok with being unread for now. Classics and books generally meant to make my shelves look pretty. But I started noticing that there were more than a few that I wasn’t even interested in anymore. How did this happen? Well I bought them over two years ago. That’s how it happened.
At the same time that I was having these thoughts (Sounds awkward) I was also watching booktuber BooksandLaLa do this special type of unhaul. For this entire year, at the beginning of each month, she is watching her haul videos from two years before. Anything that she bought in the correlating month from 2015 that was still unread now in 2017 she put on the current month’s TBR. If she doesn’t read them in 6 months, she is forcing herself to unhaul them. The first thing out of my mouth was “HAHA I couldn’t do that! That’s impossible. I’m not giving away my precious babies.” My soul took that as a challenge.
This morning I went through and made a list of all of the books I’d owned and yet remained unread since early 2015. 60 books friends. Alot less than 200. But still, why have I had them for 2 years and not even touched them? So I went through this list and anything that I couldn’t definitely say I’d be interested in reading within two more years I put on a second list. My goal is to try and go through these books this year-ish. I say year-ish because there are a few I’m just no longer interested in so I won’t even start them. So that won’t take forever. And there are some I will devour. It’s the other books that will take the bulk of my time. So without futher ado, her is my list.
- Grave Mercy by Robin LeFevers
- Paperweight – Megan Haston
- Ordinary Beauty – Laura Weiss
- Soul Screamers Vol 1 by Rachel Vincent
- Darkness Becomes Her books 1-3 Kelly Keating
- Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
- Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys
- The Madman’s Daughter trilogy by Megan Shepherd
- Black City by Elizabeth Richards
- Famous Last Words by Katie Alender
- Deep Blue Trilogy by Jennifer Donnelly
- Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon
- The Killing Woods by Lucy Christophe
- Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson
- 1st to Die by James Patterson
- Step on A Crack by James Patterson
- Monster by Frank Perretti
- House by Frank Perretti
- Into the Woods by Tana French
I’ve actually already weeded out a few. And I read two this weekend. Go me! I haven’t decided what to do with the ones I don’t want/ that just didn’t work for me personally. I was thinking about doing a giveaway for a few of them. If you guys are interested.
So what I want from you lovely people is for you to look through my list and tell me two things. 1) Is there anything on that list that really isn’t worth it. Like just don’t even bother just put in the giveaway pile. 2) Is there anything on this list that you loved and I must read it now. 3) Would you be interested in a giveaway for any of these books?
I hope you guy are having a great day! I’ll talk to you in the comments! Good Bye!
Sydney's Shelves 
I’ve only read 2 books from your list, Grave Mercy, which I don’t really remember anymore and Between Shades of Gray., which I read 2-3 years ago (I think) and I loved it! I see some books on your list that are on my TBR, too, Darkness Becomes Her, The Madman’s Daughter and Black City. But I have no idea when I’ll read them haha
Good luck with tackling your TBR and happy reading! 😀
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Instead of giving them away, split them in half and donate half to a local library and the other half to good will.
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good idea.
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I love BooksandLala in general, but I think her recent unhaul/TBR challenge thing with all of her unread books is super unique, and such a clever idea. From your list, I’ve only read Let’s Get Lost– I remember really enjoying it. Between Shades of Grey has been on my TBR for a while, too. I loved Ruta Sepetys’s other books that I’ve read, so I know I’ll pick that one up eventually. I’ve heard really good things about The Madman’s Daughter and Grave Mercy. Good luck with your TBR, Sydney! 🙂
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Thank you Madlyn. I’m glad you enjoyed Let’s Get Lost. I’ll move it up the list. 😉
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I hear you girl and I am the same.I think its a cool idea. Heck I recently read my copy of Dracula that I’d had sitting on my shelf since we lived in England eight years ago. Talk about yellow pages. But I finally read it so I could donate it #FOMO I really loved it. The writing was amazing. So that’s my own problem, what if I donate and I’m missing an awesome read? Scary. Good luck with the organization. Can’t wait to see how many you get through xxx
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Thank you so much for the encouagement. Its nice to go through my books and make my shelves more meaningful.
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This project is awesome and I should do something similar. I meed to clear out my to-read list on GR too because so many things I added 2-4 years ago. Do I still care? am I still interested? IDK, it’s hard to say.
Many of these I haven’t read either but I can comment on a few:
-Grave Mercy – I enjoyed this book in particular and the trilogy as a whole. This first boo is very political which isn’t what people expected going in but is my personal jam. Book 2 is more like the marketing described book 1 to be. Book 3 is both expected and unexpected.
– Between Shades of Grey – worth a read IMHO, I don’t think I loved it as much as some but I definitely thought it shed light on historical events I was unaware of and was well written.
– Madman’s Daughter #1 – I enjoyed this enough to say if you’re looking for that gothic-y retelling with a fascinating female lead it’s a good option that being said…
-Madman’s Daughter #2 & #3 – I didn’t read these because I liked the way #1 ended and was upset that #2 and #3 were going to walk some things back. My book twin Stephanie has read them and she basically considers them “those trash books I read for no reason.” She read both of them, she didn’t really like either, but she sort of trashily enjoyed them? IDK anyway, you can probably skip them.
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Thanks for the info and encouragement. It’s def relaxing to unload that TBR. Both on GR and your physical shelves. We get so excited for so many things then aren’t able to read them all. And If you want to read new stuff when it comes out you can’t have a TBR that’s weighing you down. 🙂 I’ve already read two books and decided to give away like 4. So that’s progress!
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I have soooo many books on my shelves to read or get rid of! It’s been annoying to update my Goodreads “owned” shelf as I get rid of things, so everything is out of whack everywhere haha.
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I really enjoyed Grave Mercy, part mystery, part romance…
Soul screamers I found kinda meh, I actually am struggling to remember the plot even though I read the first three of them
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