So I really like buying books, I consider myself both a book reader and a book collector, so I buy books by the dozen. But there are some things that we should all consider before running out and spending our hard earned cash on books (or anything really.)

Am I buying it just because of the hype?

You don’t want to get something just because everyone’s talking about it. You want to make sure you’re spending your money on books you will like. It’s not a bad thing to buy a book that’s talked about a lot but ask yourself if you would get it if it wasn’t.

Does this book seem to fit my turn-ons and offs of reading?

Look at your favorite and least favorite books and see if there’s a pattern. If most of the disappointing books you’ve read were disappointing because they were romance focused, maybe don’t go buying a book that sounds like it’s romance focused. And if a lot of books you’ve really enjoyed had wizards in them, maybe look a little more into buying books that you know have wizards in them. It sounds like common sense – because it is – but I feel like I forget this too often myself, so here it is.

Do I want to spend money on this book?

When you’re not sure if you’ll like a book or not, maybe don’t just go out and buy it. Like that super popular book everyone’s talking about but you don’t know much about or if you’ll like it, this is the time to use your library and if you really enjoyed it or you enjoyed it and you didn’t get to finish it before you had to take it back, you can get your own copy! And if you hated it then guess what? You didn’t waste your money on something you didn’t like and you didn’t financially support that book. Double win.

Can I find this somewhere cheaper?

Now, if you want to support the physical bookstores, that’s awesome, I like doing that too, but I would recommend that if you don’t a) have a gift card, or the book you’re getting isn’t b) a book by an author you really like or c) the next book in a series you really like, then maybe you should try to find a nice, used copy on Amazon for five bucks instead of getting it from Barnes & Noble for twenty dollars, plus tax. If it turns out the book is terrible, it’s going to sting a lot less. Fifteen dollars less.

I hope you found this post helpful and it gave you some things to think about next time you have a book in mind to get.

What was the last book you bought? Tell me in a comment.

Bye, RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWRRR

Halloween is coming up! One of my favorite holidays! This would be a wonderful time to recommend scary books… but… I don’t read that many scary books, though I have read about thirty of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, so I thought I would recommend some of those.

To me, Goosebumps is kind of a hit-or-miss series, some of them I really like and some I really dislike. So today I’m going to recommend my top three favorite Goosebumps books so far.

I know what you’re thinking, “Only three?” Yes only three. You see, there are a lot of Goosebumps books and I find them to be pretty fast reads and I usually forget whether or not I liked some of them, so yah, only three. To make up for the small number how about I give my least favorite three too? Will that work? Ok! I’ll start with the least favorites so I can end this blog on a high note later.

So, my third least favorite Goosebumps book so far is: Welcome to Camp Nightmare:                                                                                                                  It was just one of the weirder, more boring Goosebumps books. I wasn’t too happy with some of the plot points. It wasn’t necessarily bad, it just wasn’t for me. In this book you follow a boy named Billy whose summer at camp starts edging to demonic.

My second to least favorite Goosebumps book is: You Can’t Scare Me!: Mainly because the title is too accurate. This book wasn’t scary at all. It was closer to realistic fiction than horror. You’re basically following a group of friends trying to prank a girl in their class who claims to be fearless. This was really just very boring for something that’s supposed to be a horror story. (which is usually the problem with the miss side of Goosebumps.)

My number one least favorite of the Goosebumps series so far: Attack of the Mutant:
Keep in mind that I had a stomach bug when I read this and that never improves what I think about a book. This book just seemed more disturbing than scary. It was really just too weird.

Now that I have those behind me let’s move on to my favorite three.

My third favorite Goosebumps book is: The Haunted Mask:                       It was a very interesting story. And it was also a pretty scary story. I really thought that the backstory for the monster was very original, I’ve never read anything like that before. (There’s probably something exactly like it and I’m the only human who doesn’t know about it).

My second to favorite Goosebumps is: Welcome to Dead House:                I believe this is the first in the Goosebumps series and it was a wonderful way to start! It’s probably one of the most scary. The story was just awesome, I thought the characters were pretty cool too.

Now for my very favorite Goosebumps: The Ghost Next Door:            This one has such a creative plot line, it’s just so good! It’s not the scariest book in the series, it’s spooky in the most. But it’s my favorite story-wise. R. L. Stine has come up with some pretty interesting plots and so far The Ghost Next Door is the most interesting, This one really stands out. I just don’t know how to express how much I like this one without spoilers. Maybe I’ll do a booktalk on it sometime but don’t hold your breath.

So those are my favorite and least favorite Goosebumps books of the ones I’ve read so far. Please put your favorite and/or least favorite of R. L. Stine’s books in the comments. Also if you really love one of the books in my least favorites section make sure to post why you like them and why they shouldn’t be anyone’s least favorites.

I’ve used the word “favorite” 19 times in this blog post.
Bye!