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.
Chosen Family (Madeleine Gray): I’ll start by saying that I related to this book A LOT. It dredged up a lot of feelings, in a good way. There is catharsis, but if I have a complaint about the book, it’s that she takes you past the point where you need the catharsis. Which means you read a big section of the book feeling unease instead of release. And when you get to the moment of catharsis, you take with you feelings that I don’t think she intended you to have about the characters. I am glad I read this book. I am glad I own this book and can read it again. But I wish it had been less “hurt people hurt people” and more cycle breaking.
The Shampoo Effect (Jenny Jackson): 4.5 stars rounded up. The writing is great, and I wanted to spend time with all the characters. There is not really a plot. But maybe look at it as hanging out with friends at the beach more than a cohesive story. Totally enjoyable, whether you’re reading it at home or on a beach yourself.
The Artful Anna Harris (Tracy Maton): The first half was a nice thriller but I didn’t get the big deal. People were raving about this book, but it felt pretty standard. And then the switch. The second half was a wild ride, and I totally understood the praise. Very well done.
Ungodly Rich (Katharine McGee): Fun and fluffy with all the usual Katharine McGee characters — it was Thousandth Floor or American Royals but with Greek gods. It ends with a cliffhanger, so I’m hoping there’s another book in the future. It’s a good vacation read, fast-moving and easy to keep the pantheon in your head.
Pagans (James Alistair Henry): What a great story and world. I am so bummed that it will be a year until book two, but this one was so good that I’ll pre-order it. The world took work to sort out in my brain, but I enjoyed doing that work. Entertaining, educating, and thought provoking.
Alan Opts Out (Courtney Maum): This was a joyful ride, and the ending was superb. (Lenny, obviously, but I’m talking about those last few lines.) My heart hurt sometimes for Vivian, but I loved how she grew and changed AND stayed the same. Great story.
What did you read last month?
3 comments
I re-read Fahrenheit 451 in solidarity with my daughter who was assigned to read it and truly didn’t want to. It is of course dystopian but also, right now in this political climate, not dystopian and very relevant.
I liked it better this time around because it ends hopefully and I need that. I also read Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts and really loved it. I loved the ending but there were some desperately sad parts so you may want to hold off. Cassandra in Reverse and Nora Goes Off Script were my other faves recently.
I seem to have found my reading mojo again after a bit of a slump. 😉 I got through five books during the three weeks I was at my dad’s recently… lots of interruptions there, but he also naps a lot, and there’s not much else to do there, and I can only be online so long, so… (Also, I tend to pull out a book when I’m at an airport, especially when the flight is only 2-3 hours long.) I deliberately picked mostly shorter, lighter books while I was away, which also helped.
I read four books in July, all reviewed on my blog as well as Goodreads & StoryGraph:
* “London Falling” by Patrick Radden Keefe. This was a 5-star read for me (as was “Say Nothing” by the same author), and it was soooo good! A London couple’s teenaged son dies after a fall from the balcony of a luxury condo building. Why was he there, and what happened? The more they investigate, the more they realize how little they knew about their son. An amazing piece of investigative journalism.
* “Treacle Walker” by Alan Garner. This was for a three-week slow readalong with Footnotes & Tangents. Kind of a blend of fantasy, mythology, from a young boy’s perspective. Not really my thing, made more difficult to understand with the use of local dialect and slang. I rated it 2.5-3 stars.
* “Marble Hall Murders” by Anthony Horowitz — the third book in his series featuring book editor Susan Ryeland and fictional detective Atticus Pund. I read this one in anticipation of the PBS Masterpiece Mystery TV series, coming Sept. 6th! I’ve read the previous two (and seen the TV versions of those as well, and they are so well done. 4.5-5 stars.
* “The Queen of Poisons” by Robert Thorogood (The Marlow Murder Club #3). Likewise, season 3 of the PBS Masterpiece Mystery TV series, based in part on this book, also starts Sept. 6th, and I wanted to get the book read first. The writing in these is not as good as the Horowitz books, but they’re still fun. 3 stars.
Fascinating, you find books I’ve never heard of. I do keep seeing The Shampoo Effect, and The Artful Anna Harris sounds fascinating! Although I just read a book that people RAVED about but I felt meh for the first half until a change that made me appreciate it more (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab), so I might wait on that one, ha.
July was a killer reading month because it is my DO NOTHING month of summer:
– Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill *
– The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark *
– The Children by Melissa Albert (SO GOOD)***
– Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
– Oxford Blood by Rachael Davis-Featherstone*
– On Earth as It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia
– All Boys Aren’t Blue by Goerge M. Johnson*
– Yours from the Tower by Sally Nicholls*
– Rez Ball by Byron Graves
– Rules by Cynthia Lord
– Yours Truly by Abby Jiminez
– Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao**
– The Last Flight by Julie Clark
– Quicksand by Nella Larsen
– Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James*
Kind of an eclectic list, my favorites are starred!