A tentative summer (=post-exams) TBR

Hello! Today I’m sharing a rare TBR post. Basically the only time I make a TBR for myself beyond saying “I will read this one (1) book next” is in summer, usually after the exam period (so… what normal people would call an August TBR).

This is just something fun I hope to stick to because it’s stuff I really want to read (+ my eARCs, which I’m also looking forward to checking out!), but I won’t be too mad if I don’t get to actually read everything that’s on here. I also know I’m probably going to read other things that are not in this TBR but that’s okay, I only get to relax one month a year and I should read what I’m in the mood for at any given moment!

Books 

Chinese novels that twitter recommended to me

📗 Guardian by priest — you know you’ve been reading too many Chinese novels when you see one has 106 chapters and you think “oh, so a short one!” GHDSGHSDLFHS. This is an m/m romance between a ghost king and the bisexual guardian of the relationship with the underworld (?) and that’s kind of all I need to know? There’s also a show that looks really good (of course they had to censor it…) but I want to read the original novel before I get into that.
📗 My Wandering Spirit Lady by Qing Jun Mo Xiao — I don’t know much about this other than it’s by the same author of FGEP, a lesbian, and that it has lesbians. My plan in life is to read everything by her actually and I only have this one on this TBR because it was the one I was thinking about while drafting this post, but depending on things I might choose to follow her currently ongoing novel or read another one of her complete ones instead, who knows!
📗 You’ve Got Mail: A Cautionary Tale by Hei Dan Bai — I haven’t seen anyone of my mutuals talk about this actually but I found it while reading something else and it sounds juicy, it’s pitched as ancient China grindr and it promises to be hilarious?? The novel is complete but the translation is ongoing so I should actually wait until everything is translated but who knows if I can control myself.

Other novels & rereads

📕 The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons (+ possibly its sequels??) — a lot of my friends love this series and it’s one of 2-3 epic fantasy series that I want to try to read while I have more time (basically I’ve been postponing reading this for months because I can’t read such a long book + its sequels during my semester). If I like it I will have to make time to also binge the rest of the series so a lot of the rest of my TBR depends on whether or not I’ll have to read two more massive books on top of this one!
📕 The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan (reread) — I planned to reread this last summer and didn’t so I hope to do it this year (I wanted to BR with two friends so hopefully they still want to??)
📕 Tian Guan Ci Fu by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (reread) — I started this reread in January but because it’s such an emotional experience for me I had to avoid continuing it during the first weeks of lockdown and later because I was too busy with uni, and more simply put it’s one of my two-three all-time favorite books, so even (or especially?) upon reread it deserves my full attention!
📕 Mo Dao Zu Shi by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (reread) — August will be my overall MDZS anniversary (started with donghua, then manhua, then novel then CQL) so it’s only right that I reread the novel (it will be my third time) around the same time I first started it! Ideally I will read this after finishing TGCF because I can’t do two massive rereads of favorite novels at the same time, so I hope to finish TGCF before August 24th (which is my official mdzs novel anniversary)

e-ARCs

📙 Glorious Day by Skye Kilaen
📙 The Falcon’s Heart by Diana Green
📙 Depart, Depart! by Sim Kern
📙 Dangerous Remedy by Kat Dunn

📙 The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed
📙 The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis
📙 Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

So that’s it for my August/September TBR! Have you read any of these? Do you have a TBR for the rest of summer?

P.S.: it’s my birthday in a couple of weeks so I thought for the next few posts I’ll share the link to my Ko-fi so that you can choose to support me since making an e-book wishlist across different countries doesn’t seem possible, no pressure though!