June and July and August Reading

June: 

1.  The Book Eaters, Sunji Dean - Oh my, I LOVED this book!  So different, so unusual, so good!  

2.  the Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djeli Clark - Set in the same world ad Clark's A Master of Djinn, this novella was a complete delight! I'm hoping that Djeli keeps writing in this world, because it's just that much fun.  

3.  Little Thieves, Margaret Owen (audio) - It's been a long while, so I reread it before I cracked open it's sequel, Painted Devils.  It was every single bit as wonderful as I remember!  Built around the Goose Girl from the Brothers Grimm, I love how this story delves into some pretty complex issues and allows its main characters to be good, bad, and everything in between.  

4.  Painted Devils, Margaret Owen (audio) - And this book had quite the challenge in following Little Thieves.  I'm happy to say that it mostly held up - and slightly annoyed that I have to wait for book three.  

July: 

1.  The Wishing Game, Meg Schaffer (audio) - This truly is a love letter to the books and writers that sustain us when we are children.  Perhaps the ending was a bit too much of a happily ever after, but I'm going to allow it because overall it's such a nice feel-good book.  (Bonus, the author is local to me!)  The whole book just kind of felt like a hug.  

2.  Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross (audio) - I got this recommendation from a book tok account I follow, and - eh - I think I'll be careful with recommendations from her again.  I started out loving it, but by the end, I was pretty ambivalent.  When I realized that it was not the actual end of the story but that there were more books coming I was actually pretty annoyed.  The ending was even less satisfying than most books from a planned series.  Also, the age of the characters started to bug me more and more as we went through the book...which was interesting because they are similar in age to the characters from Owen's books last month, and that didn't bother me a bit.  Love the magical letters.  Always up for that.  The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy did it way, way better, though.  

3.  Ordinary Monsters, J.M. Miro - It's not often that a book completely lives up to a blurb description, but the Washington Post's blurb of, "Charles Dickens meets Joss Whedon in Miro's otherwordly Netflix-bing-like novel," is completely spot on.  Unfortunately, that binge ran out of steam about 2/3 the way through.  I skimmed the last 200 pages to find out what happened, but in no way did I want to waste the time to actually read them.  There is such a thing as too much exposition.  

4.  The Road to Rosewell, A Novel, Connie Willis - So.  Much.  Fun!!!  I've always liked Connie Willis, and this particular book is a treat.  Part road trip, part buddy movie, part alien abduction, part romance, deeply comic....if you are looking for fun and lighthearted, this is your book.  And oddly original despite being all of those things!  

5.  Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Emma Torzs (Audio) - Truth time:  I'm writing this post close to two months after I read this book, and we had a pretty massive family crisis shortly after I finished.  (Everything is ok now.)  It would seem that most of my experience of reading this book was wiped from my memory, which is a shame in the little I remember I did enjoy it.  

6.  Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield - Beautiful and oh, so sad.  This is a love story about letting go, and while I don't think it's going to be everyone's cup of tea it suited me well for where I was in time when I read it.  

7.  Slow AF Run Club, Martinus Evans - Love Evans.  This book is part memoir, part how-to guide, and my hat is off to Evans for his work in making running more accessible.  This was exactly what I needed as I struggle to get my own running habit back off the ground.  

8 The Secret Lives of Country Gentleman, K.J. Charles - Charles is my go-to for romance novels, and while this wasn't quite as enjoyable as some of the other Charles books I've read, it was still a good read.  Feels like the author is trying something new in terms of tone and story.  Curious about where the next book in the series will go.  

9. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros (audio and print) - Ok, I can clearly see some of the literary inspirations behind this book, and I will admit I was a little bit reluctant to read it because of those and because there seems to be a lot of hype behind this book.  But, I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would and I can't wait for the sequel.  Other comments:  I loved the main character a lot, rolled my eyes more than once at what was over the top, wasn't as bothered as I may have been at other times by the overall setup of our magical school, and have missed dragon books.  It's been a while since I read a good one!  

August: 

1.  The Mask of Mirrors, 2.  The Liar's Knot, 3.  Labrynth's Heart, M.A. Carrick - It has been a really, really long time since I was able to dive into a series of really long books.  The Rook and Rose series - each book of which is over 600 pages - gave me the delightful opportunity to become acquainted again with the type of deep dive reading I used to do regularly.  I've really missed this....long books, series read altogether...getting completely lost in another world for a while.  M.A. Carrick is actually the joint penname of Marie Brennan (who I adore) and Alyc Helms, and while overall the partnership was a success, there were times when I could tell that the book was being written by more than one person.  The series is a good, old-fashioned fantasy set in a place that felt a lot like Venice, with a big cast of characters and a whole lot of stuff going on.  And I was there for all of it.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I almost wish the books could have been longer becuase there were some things that could have been fleshed out a bit more.  Also, I just found out that you can order teas made in honor of the characters...and that is just fun.  

4.  Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher - Kingfisher is a delight, and one of the things I enjoy is that I never know quite what I'm going to find in the next book.  The last was Southern Gothic with some fun, this is a twisted fairy tale....and I loved every word.  I feel like I haven't had a 'what if' fairy tale in a while - what if the princess wasn't good, what if the bad fairy wasn't bad?  It's a gentle way to remind us to challenge our presumptions.  

5.  The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, Roshani Chokshi - Billed as Chokshi's first 'adult' novel, this was a really interesting mash-up of fairy tale and Gothic.  The language was a tad too flowery for me at times...wore on my patience just a little bit...but I understand why, and ultimately I felt the book worked super well.