Hey y'all, it's been a while hasn't it? To be honest, I planned on posing a June Wrap-up + July TBR but by the time I got around to doing it, it was halfway through June and It felt wrong. This month I plan on doing better with posting now that I have settled into the rhythm of my life.
July was a great reading month for me. By the end of June I had caught up with my reading goal, and this month I've been consistently about 1 book ahead (BTW follow me on Goodreads!)
In total, I read 5 books this month, which isn't as many as other people but I am rather proud of the progress I made as well as the quality of the books I managed to read this month. The reads this month definitely lead up to an exciting August TBR. Without further ado, let's get into it.
I read The Summer I Turned Pretty in the later weeks of June and while it certainly wasn't the greatest work of literature, it was a fun read. After scrolling through some reviews and watching videos about those who read romance/contemporary books more than I, I heard that this was the preferred Jenny Han book series. I have to say that I agree. While this book DEFINITELY read like an older YA romance novel, it was thoroughly entertaining. I think both Josh and Peter were thoroughly boring as love interests. They were just so regular. It was still entertaining to read and I had a fun time.
After seeing the trailers for the movie that came out in Mid-July I thought to myself "Ah crap, now I have to read it." I remember when this book came out and my local library deemed it a book club read. I don't know about y'all's local library, but mine tends to pick not great reads for their book club. So needless to say, My expectations were kind of low but holy crap I absolutely love this book. Not only was the writing absolutely gorgeous, but I was actually rooting for Kya and the twist I did not see coming. I had theories about it and my theory could not have been farther from what actually happened. However, now I don't want to see the movie anymore because I don't think it will live up to how I feel about the book. It came full circle and I probably won't see the movie until it becomes available on Amazon prime or something.
I saw this while scrolling through my library and internally "This looks awful, it's going in the pile." I burned through this book in about 2 days and while it entertained me it was...not good. It was fun to read, the plot was entertaining and I don't think I've seen this kind of priest/church member romance in mainstream media (not including those odd Amish romances your mom reads) besides the show Fleabag. The characters didn't feel like they had a lot of chemistry but it ended up on my "trash in a good way" shelf on Goodreads because of how entertaining it was to me.
I technically started reading this book in mid-June through the audiobook which I checked out through Libby but I returned It because I just wasn't listening to it enough. I ended up re-checking it out later in July and finally finishing it. My first comment on this book is that this isn't a great YA novel. There were very graphic descriptions of violence and gore. I am not complaining but I think that Kim Ligget would have made this an EXCELLENT adult novel. Beyond that, I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Tierney was kind of annoying to listen to (or maybe that was just the audiobook narrator) yet I still managed to root for her. I wish more of the social dynamics would have been explored and maybe some better explanations of the history of this society. The twist came out of nowhere and didn't make much sense and the ending left me guessing what happened (and not in a good way). I'm sure the author did that intentionally, but it just didn't work for me.
Technically, I finished this book just as August 1st rolled into the year but I'm still counting it as a July read. I picked this up randomly and I guess that I need to do that with books more because I absolutely adored this book. I'm not usually a thriller reader and especially not a YA thriller reader. I absolutely loved Pippa and this book kept me entertained from start to finish. In other thrillers that I have read, the first 1/3 of the novel tends to provide background information and character development/info dumping. This novel added leads, new theories and it kept me intrigued in the story. I had a few theories thanks to the plethora of details the reader gets yet I couldn't have guessed the twists, yes plural. In the last 50 pages, there was this massive twist and I thought, oh that is kind of underwhelming but then another twist came right after practically slapping me in the face. Do you know that meme of Sheldon Cooper where he says "I don't need sleep, I need answers"? that was me for the last 100 pages of this book and I can't wait to read the rest of the series (although I'm not sure how it is a series).
Edit: It was so late I forgot to sign off...
I'm so glad that July was such a great reading month for me. After the reading month that was June, I am glad that I actually enjoyed (most) of the books that I read this month. August TBR coming later this week, originally planned to put it in this post but I'd like to go to bed. Thanks for sticking with me even though I didn't post for a month or so, you mean the world to me.
Much Love,
June <3