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 reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at 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.

Can You Solve the Murder? (Antony Johnston): Let me start by saying that I read this when I got my shingles vaccine, so my enjoyment may have been tempered by the fact that I felt terrible. It was also high-involvement: You track the clues and what you’ve learned. It got a little tedious near the end – two hours of reading time would have been the perfect amount because you’d be more inclined to try again if you didn’t solve the crime. But very clever format and a fun read.

A Novel Murder (E.C. Nevin): Another possible literary victim of my shingles-vaccine induced mood. I thought this was going to be more of a quirky cozy (Richard Osman) but it was a solid cozy cozy. So if you’re looking for a cozy mystery, this is a good one. Lots of drinking in the pub, friends helping friends, police who include writers in solving the crime.

Bitter Sweet (Hattie Williams): This was amazing. I immediately handed it off to ChickieNob who agreed. This book will stay with me for a long time. I started crying trying to talk about it. It is a book that will profoundly impact your heart and brain, a similar effect to All Our Wrong Today’s or The Other Side of Night, but with the familiar growing pains of The Rachel Incident. So achingly beautiful and infuriating and moving. It is quite literally bitter sweet.

What a Way To Go (Bella Mackie): No one writes terrible people as well as Bella Mackie, and these are the worst. Is it a little rough in places? Yes. There were a few times that whole paragraphs repeated on two different pages (e.g., look at p. 131 and 338, and the description of Tanners), which I noted because I thought it was a clue. And there were chapters that came out of order near the end. (That was weird and also not a clue.) But even with those things, it’s a 5-star read. You’ll snicker through the book trying to figure out the ending.

Culpability (Bruce Holsinger): A solid story that asks a lot of questions. It feels like it would be a great book club book, lending itself to discussion. I’m a little surprised that the environmental impact of AI never comes up, especially because the majority of the book takes place on an enormous body of water. But it is less a story about AI and more a story about family dynamics.

The Sentence Is Death (Anthony Horowitz): This was a re-read. I love this series so much, and slipping into a re-read of it is like hanging out with old friends.

Bring the House Down (Charlotte Runcie): An amazing five star read about art and our relationship to it and to each other. About awful behaviour and the way we thoughtlessly and purposefully impact each other’s lives. I was blown away by how much this book made me think. How much the complex characters got under my skin. Cannot wait to see what else this author writes in the future. I loved every messy page.

What did you read last month?