Library Loot: Feminism, Folklore and Body Positivity

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Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

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I made a point of being organised enough to take a photograph this week, though I don’t know if I will be able to keep that up when I’m back to work. Once again I have picked up quite a few books to read! (See my Library Loot from last week)

Here is what I have acquired from the library this week:

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Once again I have picked up a good selection, from the middle-grade, YA, fantasy and general adult fiction sections. A few of these were reservations which I ordered in from other branches because of hearing good things about them!

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And I Darken

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

This is a book which I keep seeing around on bookstagram etc (and is one of the few occasions where I prefer the US cover to the UK one!). It is a quasi-historical/legendary book where Vlad the Impaler is actually Lada, a girl who is constrained by what society thinks a female should be. It sounds really interesting so am hoping to read this soon!

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Things A Bright Girl Can Do

Through rallies and marches, in polite drawing rooms and freezing prison cells and the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote.

Once again, another book that I keep seeing everywhere. I regret not buying it when I saw it on offer in my local supermarket, but I went for Rebel Voices instead, which is an excellent book. There are a lot of books out at the moment about the fight for women’s suffrage in the U.K. and women’s rights around the world and I have really been enjoying reading lots of them. Books like these are so important because it is easy to think that equality has been achieved, when it has not yet.

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Piglettes

Awarded the Gold, Silver and Bronze trotters after a vote by their classmates on Facebook, Mireille, Astrid and Hakima are officially the three ugliest girls in their school, but does that mean they’re going to sit around crying about it?

Well… yes, a bit, but not for long! Climbing aboard their bikes, the trio set off on a summer roadtrip to Paris, their goal: a garden party with the French president. As news of their trip spreads they become stars of social media and television. With the eyes of the nation upon them the girls find fame, friendship and happiness, and still have time to consume an enormous amount of food along the way.

Picking this one up, mainly based on a recommendation by Lou from Book Murmuration, who often mentions this book and how great it is. I also have a weakness for books set in Paris and love reading work in translation. This sounds like a great summer read so am looking forward to getting to it!

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The Accident Season

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.

The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.

But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?

I picked this up because I am always looking to read more contemporary Irish and Northern Irish fiction and support writers from home! The concept also sounds intriguing so  can’t wait to find out more about what caused the Accident Season.

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Mirror Magic

The town of Wyse, set precisely on the border of England and Wales, is remarkable for one thing: it is the only remaining human town where magic works.

When twelve-year-old Ava and her brother return to their birthplace of Wyse, they discovers that their once magical town has been losing its charms under the control of Lord Skinner. Uncovering a working magic mirror, Ava opens an unauthorized link to the twinned town of Unwyse, where she meets Howell, one of the unlucky Fair Folk who is being pursued by the terrifying Mr Bones.

Saw this on the new releases shelf in my local library and also saw it mentioned on the blog tour over on Amy’s blog, Golden Books Girl. It sounds completely my cup of tea – a fun middle-grade adventure with plenty of magic!

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Jelly

Jelly, aged 11, is the life and soul of the classroom. She’s popular and great at doing impressions. She’s also overweight. She’s learned to deal with the put-downs by brushing them off and pretending she finds it all very funny – while making up poems and writing her private worries in a notebook.

I loved A Library of Lemons and A Storm of Strawberries from Jo Cotterill so I had to pick this up as soon as it appeared! I am pretty sure I will love it, even before having read a word…

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The Sealwoman’s Gift

In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.

In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Ásta, the pastor’s wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Ásta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head.

This sounds like a fascinating mixture of history and folklore and completely something I would love!

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What do you think of the books I have chosen?

Would you like to read any of them?

Or are there any you would recommend me moving straight to the top of the TBR list?

Do you have a library near you?

How often do you borrow books?

Do you ever buy books after having already read them?

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Thanks for reading!