An Alarming April Book Haul

This should be my eleven months as a widow post, but not much has changed. I survived my 10th anniversary without my husband. We made it through Mother’s Day alone. And I’m struggling. With everything.

The ways you can tell how my anxiety is doing these days is based on how many times a week I’m eating frozen pizza and how many books I buy.

I ate frozen pizza at least once a day the last five weeks, since our move, and often more than once a day. So it’s not looking good on the pizza front.

It’s looking even worse on the book buying front. I bought or was given 88 physical books in the month of April. My previous highest purchase month was July 2019, my late husband’s first birthday after he died, and even then I only bought 48 books.

Aside from a 50 book order I placed with BookOutlet, none of the purchases felt overboard at the time. A couple of books ordered to fulfill the free shipping requirement for supplies for Pepper, A stack picked up from the free shelf at the library, A book box ordered from my local book store to help them stay open. A stack from Dollar Tree when I ran in to pick up necessities and couldn’t help but browse the books too. And then Easter gifts. But all of those “small” purchases as well as my actual book allowance of $50 and then the giant order I placed on the anniversary of the first time I met my husband (I blame grief and a good sale) means I brought a lot of books in to the house last month.

I’m sure some of these have been mentioned in My Bookish Week posts and most of them haven’t (I’m still waiting on 51 of them in the mail), so I plan to list them all here with links to Goodreads as always.

1. Legendary by Stephanie Garber
2. Finale by Stephanie Garber
3. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
5. Paper Towns by John Green
6. Midnight Sun by Trish Cook
7. Confessions of a Highschool Disaster by Emma Chastain
8. 10 Things I Can See From Here by Carrie Mac
9. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
10. Poison by Galt Niederhoffer
11. The Present Heart by Polly Young-Eisendrath
12. Mind Games by Heather W Petty
13. Sanctuary by Caryn Lix
14. The High Places by Fiona McFarlane
15. Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton
16. Summer Days and Summer Nights by Stephanie Perkins
17. Madness by Zac Brewer
18.  To Hold the Bridge by Garth Ni
19. A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler
20. Wildings by Eleanor Glewwe
21. The Great Hunt by Wendy Higgins
22. Pogue’s Basics: Life by David Pogue
23. The Emperor’s Ostrich by Julie Berry
24. You & Me & Why We Are In Love by Aurelia Alcais
25. Queen Red Riding Hood’s Guide to Royalty by Chris Colfer
26. The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
27. The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket
28. The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket
29. Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen
30. That Summer by Sarah Dessen
31. Shiver by Maggie Steifvater
32. FKA USA by Reed King
33. Mr. Spaceman by Robert Olen Butler
34. Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony
35. Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang
36. Docile by KM Szpara
37. My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me by Jason Rosenthal
38. Inferno by Dan Brown
39. A Whisper of Horses by Zillah Bethell
40. Back Talk by Danielle Lazarin
41. Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk
42. Denton Little’s Still Not Dead by Lance Rubin
43. Down With the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn
44. Free Verse by Sarah Dooley
45. Here We Are Now by Jasmine Warga
46. Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes
47. I Will Always Write Back byCaitlin Alifirenka
48. I’ll Have What She’s Having byErin Carlson
49. It Rained Warm Bread by Gloria Moskowitz Sweet
50. Leave Me by Gayle Forman
51. Letting Go of Gravity by Meg Leder
52. Life is a Fishbowl byLen Vlahos
53. Literally by Lucy Keating
54. Me & Me by Alice Kuipers
55. Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson
56. Monterey Bay by Lindsay Hatton
57. My Life With Bob by Pamela Paul
58. Nearly Normal by Cea Sunrise Person
59. Nine by Zach Hines
60. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
61. One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel
62. Poetry Will Save Your Life by Jill Bialosky
63. Saving Lucas Biggs by Marisa de los Santos
64. Sawkill Girls byClaire Legrand
65. Searching for John Hughes byJason Diamond
66. Sky Lantern by Matt Mikalatos
67. Somewhere Among by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu
68. The Art of Living Other People’s Lives byGreg Dybec
69. The First Part Last by Angela Johnson
70. The Good Son by You-jeong Jeong
71. The Loose Ends List by Carrie Firestone
72. The Way the Light Bends byCordelia Jensen
73. The Weight of Water bySarah Crossan
74. The Widower’s Notebook by Jonathan Santlofer
75. Things I’m seeing Without You by Peter Bognanni
76. The Darkness Mine by Mindy McGinnis
77. This Was Not the Plan by Cristina Alger
78. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
79. PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han
80. Always and Forever Lara Jean by Jenny Han
81. Unhinged by Barbra Leslie
82. Walking on Sunshine by Rachel Kelly
83. What They Found by Walter Dean Myers
84. What was Mine by Helen Klein Ross
85. Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanen
86. Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
87. You’ll Never Know Dear by Hallie Ephron
88. Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

Are you exhausted from just reading the list? I am. These additions brought the total number of books brought in to my collection in 2020 so far up to 142. I am aware that is a ridiculously large number. I am working on it.

I keep telling myself my addiction and coping could be way worse than buying books, but that still doesn’t mean it’s healthy or normal.  I haven’t spoken to my grief counselor since February because quarantine went in to effect in March, but I’ll be contacting him for some help with this as I clearly can’t manage it on my own.  I’m not neglecting bills and I’m not going in to debt to buy these books. But the money could obviously be put to better use then adding to my already gigantic physical TBR.

What’s the biggest book haul you’ve ever had?

Have you read any of these? Did you love them? Where should I start with this giant list being added to my TBR?