My BGPH Titas & Titos’ Valentine’s Day Exchange Gift + February Book Haul

It’s that time of the year again!

Our book club, as we fondly call ourselves the BGPH Titas and Titos, has this biannual book exchange gift that happens every Valentine’s Day and Christmas that started when we first formed our small group almost 3 years ago. It’s a well-prepared and though out event that is sometimes months in the making, and things have been getting a tad bit crazier each year – and this year was no exception. While we still have a book wishlist to guide us on what we want to give to the person we randomly picked, it’s all up to our creative minds and the event’s theme to come up with a goodies box apart from the book. Think of it as a personalized book box! For this year’s theme, we all decided on a a favorite color theme. We have to work around our chosen tita/tito’s favorite color for our gifts. I placed my favorite color pink on our list, since I love anything pink.

This year, my Secret Valentine is Diane of @backpackreads! She’s actually one of my closest friends within our group, and I was actually really surprised that she was the one who picked my name, hence my gift didn’t arrive until February 14th via same-day delivery. It was definitely even funnier because apparently the so-called South Titas Trio – namely me, Diane, and Jen @jendollente_reads – have picked out each other, so we just basically had a threeway exchange gift between ourselves and it was harder to keep it as a secret amongst us because we always talk with each other almost everyday.

One of the books I’ve listed on my wishlist was Legion by Brandon Sanderson. 2021 is the year I’ve been planning on collecting Brandon Sanderson’s non-Cosmere books, so I’m very happy to add this to my collection. Aside from the book, I also received two large amber bottles full of homeade cold brew coffee (which is absolutely delicious), and an entire box full of pink explosion.

Her other gifts include a tote bag featuring my most favorite quote ever from Will Herondale, a pink The Big Bang Theory shirt with Sheldon Cooper’s Bazinga!, a set of beautiful ar tprints from the Stormlight Archives, a pair of hypoallergenic earrings from @micarte.ph, and of course, the most gag-worthy gift – a sequined magic pillow that shows a picture of Fat Thor from The Avengers! That one was absolutely the funniest because it took me almost 10 minutes to realize that it was Thor (and not Jesus) on the pillow! Chris Hemsworth is one of my celebrity crushes, and Dee thought it might be more amusing if it wasn’t the chiseled actor that was printed on the pillow.

Aside from that highly anticipated Valentine’s Day box, I was super excited to win two giveaways from Bookstagram – both from fellow Filipino bookstagrammers. I rarely win giveaways ever (in basically anything), so I was so thrilled to received these books.

The Snow Queen & Other Tales by Hans Christian Andersen ARTFOLDS edition is from @marielovetoreads – which I absolutely love because I have a quite of a collection of Andersen’s fairytale books
And a P500 Shopee PH voucher from @lunaloveboooks which I used to buy Skyward and Starlight by Brandon Sanderson

I also bought more books even though I promised myself that I would be on an indefinite book buying ban.

A set of preloved A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin that I adopted from @reading.outside , another Filipino bookstagrammer
and a brand new copy of Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson that I got on sale for only P70 (approx $1.25) from National Bookstore.