Welcome to Romania. It’s 1989 and Eastern Europe is changing. However, Nicolae Ceaușescu remains in power in Romania, meaning citizens are oppressed. Cristian Florescu, a 17 year old student, just wants to be a writer and learn about the world outside Bucharest, Romania, but that dream feels impossible. Cristian is being watched by the Securitate and when they find him committing a crime, they have the chance to blackmail him into being an informer for the state.
Before we discuss our latest book club pick, we wanted to share with our readers that April 1st was out three-year blogging anniversary! Thank you to everyone who has read our blog. We adore sharing our love of YA books and our readers make it possible. I’m All Booked Up has become bigger than we ever imagined!
Readers, let us know in the comments if you have recommendations for posts or books. Also, if you ever want to collaborate or do a guest post for us, send us a message though the Contact Us page. Again, thank you all and we’re excited to see where the next year of book blogging takes us.
This is Halloween, everybody scream! October is such a fun month. The leaves are changing (at least up north), Halloween decorations start, and people get ready to read and watch something spooky. Last year we came up with a list of 31 YA Books to Read Before Halloween. This year, we created a Halloween book tag.
Get ready for some mysteries, thrillers and horrors. After all, what’s Halloween season without a spooky book. What’s your favorite October read? Let us know in the comments!
1. Favorite Scary Book
Don’t Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Samantha wakes up from a horrible accident with amnesia. She has no idea how she came to be involved in the terrible accident that led to the death of her best friend, Cassie. Before the accident, Samantha had the perfect life: the hottest boyfriend, endless wealth, and a posse of friends. After she wakes up, Samantha tries to reinvent herself and grows closer to her brother’s best friend while the two try to piece together the night of Cassie’s death. This book had a very shocking ending full of many twist and turns. It kept us up at night after finishing just thinking about it. The mystery was engaging and left you dying (pun intended) to piece together the night of Cassie’s death. Definitely snag this one if you are looking for an excellent thriller with an equally stellar romance!
Want to travel the world? Us too! Unfortunately, we don’t always have the time or money. Reading can be the best escape to travel to far away lands. To help inspire your wanderlust, we came up with a list of YA books set in countries around the world. Did we miss any countries that you can think of a YA book for? We’ll update this list if we find others. Let us know your favorites in the comments and happy travels!
Afghanistan: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
Set in the site of modern-day northwest Afghanistan known as Khorasan, The Wrath & the Dawn is a reimagining of the classic Middle Eastern folk tales, Arabian Nights. Every night that Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a bride, they die. When Shahrzad volunteers to be his next bride, she realizes that Khalid is not the monster she imagined him to be.
*We received this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Istanbul, Turkey. The year is 1937. Theodora Fox’s tutor has just quit, running off with her money and any hope of leaving this godforsaken city. To top it off, she’s alone and hasn’t heard a peep from her father in days, even though he promised to be back by now.
When she arrives back at the hotel after an unfortunate mix-up involving the Turkish authorities, a surprise is waiting in her room. A surprise named Huck Gallagher, aka Huck. The boy who left without a word last year. The boy who broke her heart. The boy she’d never thought she’d see again after a terrible event she now calls “Black Sunday.”
Following the events of Stalking Jack the Ripper, Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell leave London to attend a forensics school in a small Romanian town. Just when the two thought they were leaving all of the Jack the Ripper drama behind them, Audrey and Thomas witness a murder on a train. After the killer leaves a trail of victims– all either impaled or drained of their blood–, local townspeople believe Vlad the Impaler has returned.
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