September was a bit of a hectic month for me. I didn’t realize it was over until I saw people on bookstagram posting their monthly wrap ups haha. During the last week of the month, I traveled across the country with my partner to move to our new home in the desert (Las Vegas). Since he did the driving, he got to choose the soundtrack. We listened to lots of podcasts, so I’ll talk about that in addition to the books that I read. I can’t read in the car, so most of these were read before we set out on our trip.

The Happy Place 5 is a monthly series where a few friends and I post 5 of our favorites books for a certain topic or theme. The name is from a Discord group that I am a part of. We created the space to have a positive environment for a handful of close friends. All of us are bookworms, and many of us are bookstagrammers and bloggers. So we decided to start a blog post series together! I’ll link my friends blogs and posts for this month’s topic at the end of this post.

Hello and happy September! Today for The Happy Place 5, we’re talking about book recommendations that we’ve gotten from our friends. One of my favorite things about the book community, be it bookstagram, book blogging, or Twitter, has been meeting people! Naturally, since these people all love books and have read different things than me, I’ve ended up VASTLY INCREASING MY TBR.

I’m just sad that I don’t have all the time in the world to read everything haha. So anyway, today I want to highlight a few books I’ve read because of some of my dear friends! I picked only five books, but there are actually more than five friends. This is because a couple of these books I can’t remember who recommended it first, but I know all of them were shouting at me to read it hahaha.

Welp. I’ve absolute found both a new favorite book, and a new favorite author. This book was incredible, and I cannot wait for the sequel. It had everything I could ever want. Found family, queer characters, GIANT ROBOTS?? Ancient China inspired setting, vengeance, unapologetic rage, and so much more. Wow. I’m blown away. I couldn’t stop reading it, but I also never wanted it it end!! Maybe I’ll just have to reread it many many times until the sequel comes out…haha.

I posted a couple weeks ago that I would be partaking in the #goodreadance2021 challenge. This is a challenge run by Shealea, of the blog Shut Up Shealea. The basics are that you set your own goals for cleaning up your Goodreads shelves, catching up on reviews, or whatever you feel like! I explain my goals and show the starting state of my Goodreads in my original post, which is here.

Apparently this challenge was motivating for me – I’ve already completed my goals! So I’m here to give an update on those, and set some new ones.

Thank you so much to Angry Robot for sending me a copy for review. And for including me on the tour!

Reading this right now felt particularly timely, as I am nearing a cross country roadtrip myself! However, I’m really hoping mine isn’t nearly as stressful as Julie’s haha. Most likely that will be manageable, seeing as how I’m not living in the bleak future that she is. I would classify this as a dystopian, but honestly the future Julie lives in seems more and more likely given the way our planet is going. I was afraid it would be too depressing to read, but R.W.W. Greene has infused this book with humor and good people, making it a lovely read.