Best Books of July
As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about doing this.
So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.
These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from July.
The Vanishing Half (Brit Bennett): This book is such a good read. I had no clue where it was going or where we’d end up, and I loved that. There were a few places where the coincidences were a bit much and one analogy Bennett drew that bothered me, but I could overlook those things because what remained was so achingly beautiful. I couldn’t wait to get back to the story every day.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Suzanne Collins): This is just squeaking by onto the side of mostly liking it. Does it recapture the magic of The Hunger Games trilogy? Not a bit. But it’s an interesting backstory of how cruelty can form. I was happy when it was over, but I was also happy that I read it.
The Guest List (Lucy Foley): I was looking forward to reading this book set in Ireland while in Ireland. Oh well. It was a completely enjoyable mystery. Like The Vanishing Half, I was okay with the mountain of coincidences because I liked everything else in the book. I especially liked the ending and all of the nods to Agatha Christie along the way.
Sex and Vanity (Kevin Kwan): I adored the Crazy Rich Asians books, and I adored this book, too. It’s not in that world, though the name Astrid pops up (and you just know that it’s the original Astrid). It is ridiculous fun with the ultra-rich. My only complaint is that Kwan sent me on such a Googling spree that it look forever to get through the book because I kept getting distracted looking up various designers and locations.
Exciting Times (Naoise Dolan): This was probably my favourite book of the month. If you like Sally Rooney, you will likely enjoy Naoise Dolan. It’s about an Irish girl teaching English in Hong Kong, and the two relationships she’s having the same time. Dolan captures relationships so beautifully, the good ones and the bad ones. She made me feel like I was there in Hong Kong, hanging out with Ava and Julian and Edith. True—that’s the word I would use to describe this book, and it’s one of my highest compliments.
What did you read last month?
3 comments
I think you would enjoy The Binding by Bridget CollinsImagine you could erase your grief. Imagine you could forget your pain. Imagine you could hide a secret. Forever. Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice – but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse. He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded. Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it. THE BINDING is an unforgettable, magical novel: a boundary-defying love story and a unique literary event.
I read 6 books in July (all reviewed on my blog):
* “Normal People” by Sally Rooney (a re-read, as I watched the BBC TV adaptation)
* “Jane of Lantern Hill” by L.M. Montgomery (part of a Facebook readathon)
* “Too Much and Never Enough” by Mary L. Trump
* “White Rage” by Carol Anderson
* “Conversations With Friends” by Sally Rooney
* “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder
All of them were good. 🙂
I didn’t read that much in July. Too much to do and read elsewhere.
But I did gobble up a couple of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander books, which are fine and easy to read but not brilliant. But maybe I needed easy reading last month, as I also gulped down a new book in a fantasy series just to keep myself amused, and forget about politics and COVID and fathers-in-law and everything else.
Lionel Shriver wrote a novella about a friendship between a man and a woman called The Standing Chandelier. I wanted to dive into it, and it was over before I knew it. Four stars for me.