My Review: You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
The first Megan Abbott book I read this month, and it left me feeling pretty okay on her in general. I didn't hate this book, but the main character (Katie) was just a bit too bland for my liking and the supposedly dysfunctional family could have been done better. But I liked the writing and the subject matter, so I left the month feeling pretty good about how this month would turn out reading wise. This book follows a family in which the daughter is a exceptional gymnast, and the lengths they take to give their daughter the best opportunities they can when murder hits.
My Review: History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
After that, I picked up History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera. I had read More Happy Than Not last year, and liked it just fine. I mean, it didn't move me or anything, but it was an enjoyable enough book and one that, while I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend, if it was on a list of books or if someone was thinking about reading it I'd recommend it. It was the same with this book. It didn't impact me greatly, but I was happy enough reading it. This was about a boy whose ex boyfriend drowned out in California and he's trying to cope with the ex's death while the ex's current boyfriend is trying to connect with the main character, if that makes any sense at all. There are some surface level similarities to Tell the Wolves I'm Home, the sleeper hit of last month, except more shallow.
My Review: Dare Me by Megan Abbott
After reading this book, I came to the conclusion that Megan Abbott doesn't really work as well for me as she works with some people. For me, her books are like a really rich chocolate cake. I like reading them in small doses, but once I actually sit down and really read them, I kind of start feeling a little sick. What started great became exhausting, and I was happy to finish this book, which was about a new cheer coach coming to whip a ragtag bunch of cheerleaders into shape, and one girl who seems hellbent on taking that coach down. Oh, and it's got a mystery somewhere, but who really cares about that, when you've basically got Heathers going on?
My Review: The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein
This was the month of new releases for me, and things did not start out very strong with Elizabeth Wein's The Pearl Thief. Billed as a Code Name Verity prequel about Queenie, the "verity" in Code Name Verity, and her attempting to find out what happened to her granddad's pearls while also befriending a family of Scottish Travellers, this book felt like it was a Code Name Verity prequel in name only. I mean, it was all right, but Wein really should have made it a standalone.
My favorite book of the month, and I didn't even write a review for it because it's a classic and I don't write reviews for classics. But I loved it. Everything about it. The writing, the characters, the setting. I loved how it took place partially at Oxford College. I loved the way Waugh showed the crumbling of the British aristocracy through the Flyte family. Overall, I just really enjoyed this book, and can't wait to pick up more Evelyn Waugh. His writing and subject matter reminds me a lot of F Scott Fitzgerald's, and I love his sense of humor. Also, I'm in love with this cover. All the covers for this book are great, but this one's my favorite.
My Review: Violet Grenade by Victoria Scott
This was the second new release of this month that I was anticipating. While I did initially pre order this book hoping for a serious dark thriller, it took a turn for the comical with me and ended up being the most fun book I read since Forbidden back in February. I mean, I can't in good faith call this book well-written or say I would recommend it to someone looking to get into thrillers, but for what it's worth it's an amusing book. Basically, it's about a girl named Dominio who is homeless and trying to make money by working at a highly competitive home for entertainers in West Texas.
My Review: Skandal by Lindsay Smith
The unnecessary sequel to Sekret, which was about Soviet teenagers with mind powers being trained by the KGB, this book ended up being just like the first, but with a change of setting. Seriously, it's America now instead of the USSR. The characters aren't the best, and the villain is still cartoonish, and the flaws I was able to overlook in the first book became more prominent in this book. I'm glad this duology is over, even if it was fun and I don't regret reading it. I'd recommend not doing what I did and instead marathoning the duology some boring weekend if you really feel compelled to read the sequel to Sekret. I still recommend Sekret, though.
My Review: The Secret Place by Tana French
This was the month I finished Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series (or, at least the 6 books out now). And of course she left me wanting more. Some dark little part of me hoped the series would go on a decline so I wouldn't have to wait until 2018 (pretty sure she publishes every two years) to get my next Murder Squad book, but alas, this series remained pretty much great throughout and now I have to continue on. I think Ms French is my favorite discovery of 2017 (okay, yes, I know I first found out about her in 2016 but I didn't fall in love with her books until In the Woods). This addition to the series followed Det Stephen Moran as he tries to figure out what exactly happened to a young boy found dead outside an all girls' boarding school, a case further complicated by the appearance of Holly Mackey, the daughter of our old friend Frank Mackey.
My Review: The Roses of May by Dot Hutchison
By far the most disappointing release of 2017 so far. It wasn't that this book was a bad book by any means, but it wasn't as good as I hoped it to be. While reading, I felt like Hutchison didn't really know what she wanted to do with this book, and it showed in her writing. This was meant to be a sequel to The Butterfly Garden, one of my favorite books of 2016, but instead of the Butterflies it was supposed to focus on a new killer, one who killed a new girl every spring and surrounded her body with flowers. However, the book ended up jumping around to different things- the butterflies, the life of the main character, the lives of the FBI agent- that I felt like I didn't really get a sense of the mystery at all. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.
My Review: The Cabin by Natasha Preston
Another Natasha Preston book, because she's the fun kind of bad. I spent a lot of this book sniggering at the idiotic dialogue and rolling my eyes at the decisions of the characters in this book, which is about a group of friends who go to this fairly remote (although, we're talking England here, remote in this context means like 30 minutes from civilization, big woop) cabin for the weekend. After a night of hard drinking, two of them end up dead, and our heroine must find out who did it and if whoever did it will stop the killing. This is also tied into a car accident that claimed the interchangeable lives of two of their friends about eight or so months ago. I mean, it wasn't very good, in fact it was very bad, but you really have to read her books to truly grasp just how bad they are. I mean, if there's one thing I did like, it's that the main character is actually an optimist. I'm not, but I get sick of seeing "cynical" MCs everywhere so that a Pollyanna actually feels like a breath of fresh air. Also, the covers of the three thrillers I have of hers all match, so that's a plus, right?
My Review: Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
This book was a supersweet middle grade graphic novel about a girl who moves to the Northern California coast from Southern California so that the sea air will help her little sister with her cystic fibrosis, and discovers that the foggy little town she moved to is actually a ghost haven. There's a great Mexican vibe to it, and, while a bit lacking, is still a lovely story that I'd highly recommend to ages 9-12.
My Review: Dare to Disappoint by Ozge Samanci
I wasn't nearly as in like with this graphic memoir about a girl growing up in Turkey and the pressures her father especially put on her as I was with the above or the below. Instead, I found it a bit shallow and rushed and ultimately not as successful as it could have been. Samanci, in my opinion, bit off a bit more than she could chew with this book, and I felt like she didn't really know where she wanted to go with the story, much like The Roses of May now that I think about it. I mean, some parts were better than others, but this book left me lukewarm. I didn't hate it, but I'd still recommend passing on this one.
My Review: The AIDS Generation by Perry N Halkitis
This academic study about, well the AIDS generation of HIV positive men, took me basically the entire month to read and was a bit disappointing, not going to lie. I wish the language was a bit more literary and less academic, but if you are at all interested in researching the history of the impact of AIDS on the gay community and the psyche of HIV positive men, I would definitely recommend this book. For someone who wants just a surface level look at the epidemic, or a more personal view, there's plenty of memoirs and other history books out there with what you're looking for.
My Review: Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol
I literally bought this book with the expectation I would read it in June and then, for the lack of anything else to read, read it in 2 hours. Though, like all graphic novels, it has the typical shallow problem, I think this is my favorite one that I've read in a long time. Anya's Ghost is basically about a Russian immigrant who is trying to move away from her Russian heritage and assimilate in her American high school while also dealing with crushes and the ghost she discovered after falling down a hidden well. While I wish that Brosgol would expand on the story, I'd still have no problems giving this book to someone from the ages of 11-16.
Page total: 4,324
Average rating: 6.5/10 (rounded down)
Genre breakdown: 6 mystery-thrillers
3 historical fiction
3 graphic novels (2 paranormal, 1 memoir)
1 contemporary
1 nonfiction
Of those, 6 were adult, 6 were YA, and 2 were middle grade
The total number of books I read was 14, but it's more the page number that I'm disappointed with, since it's the lowest total since I think January? Not sure. Not to mention it was a very mediocre reading month- I don't think I could bring myself to feel strongly about any book this month- even the bad books were just entertaining and not rage-inducing. Ah well. Maybe June will be better...
*e-books
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