Hey, friends! Joy from Penguin Teen here.

We’ve been venturing into Booktube over at Penguin Teen to share monthly book hauls with you, so in case you missed September’s you can find it below!

Okay, so if you couldn’t tell from the above, I’m just a lil obsessed with Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall. I need everyone to read this book. It’s not out until September 24th, but after that, there’s no excuse for missing out on this amazing, creepy, magical realism-loaded book of roads, gates, and scares.

But if that hasn’t convinced you, here are 5 reasons that I think will:

1. I was never bored. Not once.

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Where are my fellow brutally honest readers? I see you.

I’ll be honest with you. A lot of books make me bored. I’m super picky about what I read and if I get bored I tend to put books down because hey life is short, there are too many good books to read, and I’m easily distracted by pretty much anything from pastries to this cute gif of a penguin with a suitcase:

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Like honestly look how cute he is. Let’s call him Alfred.

See? Distracted. Ok.

I did not put this book down. I COULD NOT put this book down. I am a cranky old lady after 9pm and I found myself flipping through pages well past midnight. And then unable to sleep because, you know, Lucy Gallows was obviously coming to eat my soul at that point.

Too bad for Lucy I don’t have one of those.

2. I couldn’t bear reading it by myself

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Get you a buddy to read this book.

One of the fun perks about working in a publishing house is yaaaay early manuscripts! The downside? No one else has read it yet and you’re supposed to somehow keep your thoughts to yourself because spoilers.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I sent my sister the book halfway through reading it because I couldn’t take the whole not-having-someone-to-talk-to-about-it thing any longer. She also fell prey to its addictive faux-documentary style pages too.

Life footage of me telling everyone I know to read Rules for Vanishing:

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3. Magical realism out the wazoo

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The first book that comes to mind to compare Rules for Vanishing to is Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. If Ocean at the End of the Lane took place in the Blair Witch Project.

You can’t beat that combo.

4. Boy is it twisty

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The road in the book has a lot of The Upside Down from Stranger Things feels (miss you, Barb). You just never freaking know where it’s going. It’s fast-paced and weird and unpredictable. That’s just my jam.

5. It’s a ~different~ type of scary

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The cover might make you think this is the type of scary that is running into a small creepy child in the forest at night.

I’ll agree with you, that is not an ideal scenario for anyone BUT, this is a whole new level of scary.

It’s less the type of scary that is a ghost child chasing teenagers through forest and more the type of scary that is one of those teenagers disappearing from PHOTOS.

Like the EXISTENTIAL type of scary.

Have you pre-ordered it yet? I’ll wait 🙂

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Have you read about James’s pick yet? He picked Frankly in Love, and here are his 5 reasons why!