October Reading Wrap-Up

I finished October with 12 reads (not counting 3 books I gave up on). Here are my favorites of the month:

📚 The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt was unexpectedly delightful and funny. It is very short (60 pages?) so can be read in one sitting. It is better to go in blind and be pleasantly surprised

📚 Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio is a dark academia/mystery novella. It fit great with seasonal vibes and her writing is always superb

📚 The Changeling by Victor Lavalle is another perfect October horror story. This is the third book I’ve read by this author and I five-starred every single one

📚 Regrettably, I am About to Cause Trouble by Amie McNee features witches (or wisewomen) and is set in the 16th century England. If you like Anne Boleyn and Tudor England, this one is definitely worth a read. I was a bit distracted by the language choices: sometimes the author would use archaic syntax more in line with the time the book is set in, and other times, it read too modern for historical fiction. But I still really enjoyed it overall. The author’s background is also quite fascinating so please make sure to check out the author’s bio.

September 2024 Reading Wrap-Up

September was a solid reading month with 11 books totaling 3,583 pages. I also hit 100 books for the year! Favorites:

📚 This Summer Will be Different by Carley Fortune is not only a favorite for the month, it is now joining the ranks of my all time favorite books. It is not highbrow fiction, but it is heartwarming and wonderful and I loved every minute of it. I borrowed a copy from the library to read and as I was reading I had a strong urge to annotate and underline - something I NEVER do in books: So I ended up ordering a copy for myself so I can reread and highlight all my favorite passages

📚 Yellowface by RF Kuang is a compelling read about the present day publishing industry. It was a hard read but an important one. If you are going to read it, do it now. It is very much of the present day and will not age well with all its references.

📚 Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko is a great choice for dark academia lovers. It is beautifully written and I am definitely picking up the sequel soon.

📚 James by Percival Everett is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective. I really liked this book and highly recommend it.

📚 A Crane Among Wolves by Jane Hur is a historical fiction novel set in the 1500s in Korea. I had never read any historical fiction set in Korea in that time period so found it truly fascinating. 

📚 Finally I read a couple of thrillers this month. My favorite of the two was The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn - great mental health representation and an ending that I did not see coming

August 2024 Reading Wrap-up

August was another great reading month, although I did slow down towards the end of the month while on vacation. Ironically, I am one of those people who tends to read less on vacation not more. 

Overall, I read 12 books, half of them were audiobooks, and the other half - a mix of e-books and paper books. I did not finish any non-fiction this month.

I definitely have several favorites:

- Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds is a YA book written in verse that tackles the hard topic of being caught in a vicious circle of vengeance and violence with seemingly no way out. It is a short book that packs a powerful punch. I also really appreciated the author's note at the end.

- Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler provides a glimpse into an apocalyptic world filled with violence and struggle for survival. It was especially eerie to read since the events of the future described in the book happen in our present - starting in 2024 and spanning 3 more years. Kindred is still by far my favorite book of hers, but this one is definitely worth a read.

- The Book of Thorns by Hester Fox was one of my highly anticipated new releases. I read a novel by this author last year and really enjoyed it. She tends to write historical fiction but with some mystical/magical twist to them. I am definitely planning to read her backlist and follow her future releases. This one follows the story of two sisters separated in childhood and is set in England, France and Belgium in early 1800s when Napoleon makes his last attempt to recapture power.

- The Push by Ashley Audrain was a very disturbing but utterly unputdownable psychological drama/thriller. It took me a long time to pick up this book. I had heard great things about it, but was apprehensive of the subject (it tackles motherhood, death of a child and raising a difficult child). I did discover that I find thrillers much more enjoyable and less anxiety inducing if I listen to them on audio. I definitely recommend this one and will plan on listening to more thrillers this fall.

- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I finally read this classic dystopian tale and I absolutely loved it. Atwood spins a very nuanced story written in a beautiful prose that is so rare to come by these days. She is a real master and this is definitely worth a read. I don't understand why some reviewers find this boring. I absolutely loved it.

The rest of the books I read were OK. with the exception of The Veiled Kingdom and The Hunted Heir (which are part of the same series) - they were terrible (I should give up on TikTok sensations). 

July 2024 Reading Wrap-Up

Look at me posting on time! I had a great reading month in July: 16 books, adding up to about 4,600 pages. Here are some highlights:

1. Favorites of the Month:

📚 The Saint of Bright Doors - a very unusual and creative fantasy from a Sri Lankan author (I have a full review of this book on my blog)

📚 Most Ardently - a Pride and Prejudice retelling with the main character being a trans boy

📚 The Lost Year - a hard-breaking middle grade book that shines the light on Holodomor (death by starvation) enforced by Stalin in Soviet Ukraine

📚 The Art Thief - a non-fiction book that lets the reader get a glimpse into the mind of a compulsive and the most prolific art thief

📚 Every Summer After - a great beach read about young heartbreak and second chances

📚 Slow Dance - another second chance romance that is more of a women’s fiction than your run of the mill trop-y romance novel (I have a full review of this book on my blog).

📚 Delilah Green Doesn’t Care - fun queer romcom (which also made me cry the tears of joy)

2. Disappointments:

📚 The North Wind - a fantasy romance marketed as a take on the Beauty and the Beast. I gave up reading this book at about 100 pages (so 25% in). The world building was not well executed, I had no idea what was going on in that regard. The cast of characters was very limited and thus the entire world did not feel well fleshed out. In addition, I really disliked the main female character: she was impulsive, headstrong and a drunk to boot. I have a lot of problems with our culture glamorizing drinking and promoting it in films and TV shows. I do not need to see it in my books. Or, I'd rather it be presented in a realistic way as a real bane on one's existence.

📚 The Kiss Quotient - a romcom featuring an autistic main female character. It was an enjoyable read, but I definitely do not understand all the hype surrounding it. It was ok. 

📚 Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson - has all the makings of a great Sci-Fi novel. I loved the ideas in this book, however the storytelling and the characters could really use an upgrade.

"Slow Dance" by Rainbow Rowell

Slow Dance is the third book that I've read from this author. Prior to this I read one YA and one adult novel by her.  This new release is an adult contemporary romance novel, but it is quite different tonally from what I would consider a romance novel. I think Rowell veers more towards women's fiction. Overall, I don't quite vibe with her writing style, and this is precisely why I docked one star and gave it four rather than five stars. Her novels and by extension her characters "sound" the same in the three books that I've read. I think she is trying to go for vulnerable and authentic, but the way she describes the world and the way her characters see it is so different from how I perceive or relate to things, that it is difficult for me to buy it as authentic. But I do appreciate it, and I do allow that some people might see the world as she describes it.

Ok, with that aside out of the way, let's get to the characters and the plot. Slow Dance is a second-chance romance. Shiloh and Cary were inseparable in high school. But then she moved away to college and he joined the Navy. In high school, they never dated, but it is clear that they were absolutely in love with one another. Then in college, Cary came to visit her and they gave in to physical attraction, but things somehow still did not work out between them, and they ended up completely losing touch with each other. This was the part that irked me. I really dislike miscommunication or lack of communication tropes in romance. However, Rowell did somehow manage to make this more realistic and thus more palatable for me.

Fourteen years later, Shiloh and Cary run into each other at a friend's wedding and have a second chance at happiness. What I truly liked about this book is the messiness that you can never find in a romance novel, but which abounds in our every day life. Shiloh is divorced with two kids, her ex-husband is very much in the picture and is NOT a nice guy. Cary's family is a complete mess. Adopted by his grandmother, he calls his real mother a sister, who clearly has alcohol problems. His biological sister Angel has a creep of a boyfriend and is barely making enough money to be able to support her three young children. The entire family clearly relies on his financially supporting his grandmother/mother and by extension the rest of the family with all the half and step-siblings. 

Sex in this book is definitely not the "spicy scene" from a typical romance novel. It is awkward, filled with anxiety, and for Shiloh, at least in the beginning, it is more about intimacy and connection, than passion and orgasm. It felt very human and real. I really appreciated this about this book. 

Yes, there is an HEA (happy ever after). This is the one thing I love about romance novels. It alleviates my anxiety of not knowing whether the main characters will end up together. There is however no third act break-up, which I dislike, so this this was just fine by me! So overall, Rowell managed to write my ideal romance novel: with realistic characters and life situations, realistic libidos and sex scenes, with HEA and no awkward break-up in the second half of the book.

Now, I do want to say that it is a slow read. Not much really happens. Right before Slow Dance I read Ever Summer After by Carley Fortune, which is also a second chance romance, but it had much more drama and tension, and had a much more emotional impact on me than Slow Dance. But then again, it might also be Rowell's writing style. I do recommend this book as a great alternative for your run of the mill "spicy" romance novels that we've been inundated with lately.

I received an e-ARC copy of this novel from NetGalley.com.

June 2024 Reading Wrap-Up

I have definitely been better this year with blogging, however my June reading update is really late. In June, I read 9 books total: one non-fiction, 4 romances, 2 fantasy novels, 1 historical fiction, and 1 mystery. 4 out of 9 books were on audio and the rest were either in paper or e-book. I normally read just around 3,000 pages per month and June was no exception at 3,263 pages.

In terms of my enjoyment/rating of what I read, it was a great month with 6 five-star reads and 3 four-stars. I also made progress on series: finished two YA fantasy series Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin and The Guilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. I have definitely lost interest in many YA series over the years, but it was good to finish these off. I also continued with one of my all time favorite mystery series featuring a time-traveling police detective by Kelley Armstrong. This newest installment called Disturbing the Dead was excellent.

For a book club I read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. It is historical fiction that traces the journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript, from its creation in the fifteenth-century Spain to present day. It was my first book by this author and I hope to read other works by her.

There is something to be said about posting a wrap-up a bit later after the end of the month: two of the books I read in June ended up being very forgettable and I hardly remember anything about them: God by Reza Aslan, and An Amiable Foe by Jennie Goutet.

I did read three excellent romances which I highly recommend:

• One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle is a very atmospheric summer read. It put me in a summer mood right away, and I flew through this novel. Definitely a new all-time favorite and I will be reading more from this author.
• Unsteady by Peyton Corinne is a new adult novel with great mental health representation. It is not an easy read as the heroine is dealing with some difficult domestic situations, and the hero is suffering from an injury PTSD.
• Finally, Dungeons & Drama by Kristy Boyce was a fun YA romance that put a huge smile on my face.

All in all, a great reading month. My only regret is that I did not make any progress on reading ARCs, but it was good to take a break from having to read something, and just reach for whatever your heart desires.

Mid-Year Reading Check-in

1. Number of books read so far this year 

62 as if today - my Goodreads goal is set at 75 for the year, so I am probably going to exceed this goal. I do have some chunky books to read in the second half of the year so it is good not be focused on the number.

2. Best book you’ve read so far in 2024 

Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson was definitely the most thought provoking book I read this year. It is non-fiction about the incarceration system in America. It really got me interested in the subject and I ended up reading another book about prisons and the concept of imprisonment. 

3. Best sequel you've read so far in 2024

Glow of the Everflame by Penn Cole. It is the second book in a fantasy romance series, and it really expanded the world and convinced me to stick with the series.

4. New release you haven't read yet, but want to

When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker. This is a very popular fantasy romance novel that a lot of readers love, and I want to see if it becomes a favorite for me also.

5. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year

I tend not to follow upcoming releases. However, there is one book I have pre-ordered and it is Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid.

6. Biggest disappointment

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria Schwab - this book is a favorite for many readers and I thought I was going to love it. The concept of a young woman who makes a deal with the devil and becomes immortal is fascinating. However, I ended up really struggling getting into this novel and found it pretty boring at times.

7. Biggest surprise

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle. I read this book very early in June and it really gave me summer vibes and renewed my desire to take another trip to Italy. I am now also very interested in checking out this author's other books.

8. Favorite new author. (Debut or new to you)

Rebecca Serle (see previous question).

9. Newest fictional crush

Luther from Spark of the Everflame series by Penn Cole (see question 3 above).

10. Newest favorite character

Probably Fetter from The Saint of Bright Doors. I just finished that book earlier today (and posted a review. here), and I really enjoyed his perspective and perseverance to forge his own path in life.

11. Book that made you cry

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza - this was a heart wrenching family saga about finding your way in the world, going against tradition, but also loving your estranged child even if reconciling is not possible in this world.

12. Book that made you happy

One Italian Summer.

13. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

I have not yet read any classics this year, so I would like to pick up at least one.