Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli 3.5/10 (303 pg)
Oh boy, everyone's going to hate me for this one. I did not like this book. Yes, I know it's a very, very, popular YA LGBTQ book and fluffy contemporary and it's supposed to be sweet and relatable and in the past I have liked books along the same lines as this one (see Adam Silvera) but I did not like this one. Basically, this book was about a "not so out" gay teen who currently has an anonymous email relationship with another closeted gay teen, but is being blackmailed by another guy who discovered the email correspondence to help the blackmailer get with one of Simon (the gay guy)'s friends. If you think that summary sounded nuts, it's okay, because all that shit was barely in the book anyway. Well, at least the blackmail parts. In hindsight, the reason it didn't work for me is obvious, maybe so obvious I shouldn't have picked this one up in the first place, because I typically don't particularly enjoy books billed as sweet or relatable. Typically, I think "relatable" books age horribly (does anyone else think about how a book will age as much as I do? Please say yes), and, while I can take some sweet and cute books, most of them make me feel vaguely sick. I don't think Becky Albertalli is for me, so I doubt I'm even going to attempt to pick up The Upside of Unrequited (Christ, even the title makes me gag). But, again, all this is probably just me.
Blood Family by Anne Fine 6/10 (291 pg)
My Review: Blood Family by Anne Fine
An utterly forgettable impulse pick up that I had a hard time recalling even during the process of writing my review (I typically write my reviews a few hours to a day after reading so everything is still fresh in my mind- the only exception to this is when I'm on vacation). I'm sure it had a great message, but it felt very middle grade, so much so it was jarring when violent things or swearing would show up in the text. Eh, I wouldn't recommend, even if the story does sound interesting- about a boy who was essentially held prisoner in his house from the ages of four to seven and then has to cope with looking like his father, the man who held him and his brain-damaged mother prisoner.
My Review: Blood Family by Anne Fine
An utterly forgettable impulse pick up that I had a hard time recalling even during the process of writing my review (I typically write my reviews a few hours to a day after reading so everything is still fresh in my mind- the only exception to this is when I'm on vacation). I'm sure it had a great message, but it felt very middle grade, so much so it was jarring when violent things or swearing would show up in the text. Eh, I wouldn't recommend, even if the story does sound interesting- about a boy who was essentially held prisoner in his house from the ages of four to seven and then has to cope with looking like his father, the man who held him and his brain-damaged mother prisoner.
My Review: This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston
This was one of those books that the more I thought about the more I hated. Honestly, looking back this book kind of sucked, really. It was about a group of rich boys who all went on a hunting trip in which one of them ended up dead, and our heroine, who works as an assistant to one of the ADAs, wants to find out who did it. The main character had so many different angles I had a hard time keeping up with them. She wanted to find the murderer- until evidence appears that might convict her boyfriend. She wanted the guys to not get off thanks to their influential parents- until, again, her boyfriend was put on trial. You see a trend here? She also does other things like almost destroy the career of her mother's boss, who, if I have to characterize him, it would be if Atticus Finch was a prosecutor. The only reason I picked this one up in the first place is because I thought it would have more crime elements than your average YA mystery. And I love crime fiction. So naturally, I thought that I might like this one more than I usually like YA mysteries because of those crime elements. Those were the only good and original parts of that book, by the way. Everything else, pretty generic YA mystery. Would not recommend.
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle 8.5/10 (214 pg)
My Review: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
My Review: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
Universal Harvester was kind of an impulse pick up, since I wanted something that reminded me of Twin Peaks, and decided this book would do. And I'm glad I did. Basically, this book was about a guy who worked in this video store in the late 90s and discovers that some of the tapes have strange and disturbing videos taped over parts of them. And then a whole bunch of other creepy stuff happens and honestly, you just have to read this book to understand it. But hey, if you love kind of strange horror/suspense, read this.
A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman 9/10 (118 pg)
My Review: A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman
My Review: A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman
This novella is about a girl and a boy who go on a first date to this secret lake- the boy intending for it to be all romantic and shit- but instead discovers this other, more secret lake, well, more of a swamp really, and the house at the bottom of it, hence the title. The two find themselves drawn to this house more and more as time goes on, refusing to ask themselves why and how it's possible for the house to even be there in the first place. This was a really great horror-suspense novella and one I admit, I don't have much else to say about it other than the fact that I just really enjoyed it.
What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman 6/10 (370 pg)*
My Review: What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
My Review: What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
I feel like I read some of these books back in May, not June. This was one of them. I'm still surprised it's only 370 pages because it felt like it was longer than We, the Drowned, my longest book so far this year at almost 700 pages. This book was packed with drama with an annoying heroine, a pair of parents with the typical parental issues, and all kinds of other contemporary shit crowding my nice crime thriller. This book was about a woman who, in order to get out of a car accident charge, claims she's one of the Bethany sisters, a pair of girls who went missing back in the 70s. More specifically, she claims she's the younger one. However, there's something strange (and really goddamn irritating) about her that makes the police believe she isn't who she says she is. While I thought this book was rather dull, especially the parents' drama, and didn't really like anyone except two or three characters, I'm sure fans of Jodi Picoult or Gillian Flynn would enjoy it more than I did.
Tennessee Williams is probably my favorite playwright, if not one of my favorite writers in general. His family tragedies are gripping and, well, tragic. This play was a masterpiece, and I think I liked it even more than Streetcar. I wish I could see it on Broadway.
I thought I would hate this book. Mostly because, for the first half or so, I did. I hated the main character, I hated how she was basically destroying the lives and careers of people she knew for a long time, I hated her the way I hated the main character of This Is Our Story. But then the twist, and things started to get dark and twisted and fun. And I honestly really liked how this book turned out and, looking back, I also really liked the town setting and how the characters seemed to have different from every other rural noir book. This book was about, by the way, a Seattle homicide detective who is called back to her hometown after the body of her sister, who disappeared in the 90s, is discovered. She believes that this is the perfect time to reopen her sister's investigation, starting with getting the guy off who is currently in prison for the case, as she doesn't believe he actually did it. I still don't know if I'll keep reading the Tracy Crosswhite series, but fans of crime fiction should definitely pick this one up.
Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet 8.5-9/10 (400 pg)
My Review: Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet
My Review: Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet
This book knocked it out of the park in almost every way for me. It was original, it was historical, it had likeable characters, the whole shebang. This book is billed as a historical Romeo and Juliet-esque romance following a boy from a working class background and a girl from a rich background as they fall in love over one strawberry summer with the background of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But don't be fooled by that. It's not really a romance at all- it reads like a Bill Bryson memoir, more specifically The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a nonfiction favorite of mine. It's funny, it's sad, it's all around lovely. Clem Ackroyd, the main character, has been added to my list of fictional loves, and reminds me of several Zusak heroes I have loved before. History lovers should pick this wholly original story up.
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov 9/10 (315 pg)
Anyone who has ever taken an English class in their lives would surely appreciate this one. This book was a ton of fun to read- once I figured out how to read it. Because I wasn't going to follow anything Kinbote said, I had to actually look up online the best way to read it, before deciding on reading it canto by canto. Which means I basically read one canto, and then the commentary, kept going until the book was finished. I enjoyed Kinbote's off the wall commentary and the tenuous connections he made to the history of his doomed country- one that might not even exist. And honestly, I just liked the poetry too. For some reason, the way Shade wrote reminded me of TS Eliot, though I couldn't quite put my finger on why. While I didn't love this book as much as I loved Lolita, I still want to read Pnin, the book I think is the logical next step in my new quest to read everything Nabokov has ever written, a more daunting one than my read everything F Scott Fitzgerald has ever written goal.
Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows 5.5/10 (250 pg)
My Review: Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows
My Review: Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows
I thought this book was a thriller. It was not. I thought this book was supposed to be an insight into the mind and life of a mean girl. It was not. Point is, I thought this book would be a lot of things that it didn't end up being. That being said, this book had a strangely addictive quality that made it easy to get sucked into, even if I was hating most of it thanks to the abundance of stereotypes, and the first 200 pages flew by fairly quickly with all your typical mean girl Heathers-esque drama. Except without all the murder and suicide and corn nuts. The last 50 pages tried to have a moral about never knowing who the mean girl truly is because we all just judge her anyway- a good moral, but one that was a bit too late in the story to be as impactful as it could have been. If you couldn't tell from the rather descriptive title, this book is about a girl who finds her mean-girl step sister dead in her garage, and has to deal with the idea of grieving someone who perhaps wasn't the nicest person on Earth.
Merrow by Ananda Braxton-Smith 5/10 (DNF) (106/233 pg)
I haven't DNFed a book in a few months and was actually going to keep reading this book. However, I just wasn't loving it. It wasn't what I wanted it to be at all, and I didn't know it was middle grade since it was in the YA section of my local library. Hell, the only reason I picked it up was because I like mermaids, and thought the Manx folklore in the book was interesting. But ultimately, it was a disappointment, so I ditched it. This book was about a girl who believes her mother was a merrow, this mermaid-like creature in Celtic folklore, but her aunt doesn't believe her and a bunch of other stuff happened- reminds me a lot of The Call by Peadar O'Guilin and also another book I read a long time ago called Forbidden Sea.
This would be my favorite book of the month if it hadn't been for Life: An Exploded Diagram. And I don't even know why I loved it so much- seriously, this book is about a boy and a girl who fall in love over the course of one night while the girl is searching for an elusive graffiti artist named Shadow, who paints the city at night, and the boy, who is actually Shadow, is trying to hide the fact that he is Shadow from her because he's scared she'd be disappointed by him. There's some other couples in it that are cute as a button, and honestly, this book seems to be consisted of every cliche I profess to hate- the boy and girl hating each other at first sight. The "liar revealed" trope (because it makes me anxious). How pretentious the art talks can be. And yet, I loved it. I loved the couple and really rooted for them to stay together. I loved their conversations about art. I even loved the title, and how achingly beautiful it is to me. This book is yet another Aussie contemporary that knocks it out of the park for me, and I definitely want more Cath Crowley. It's interesting, how the Australian contemporary I thought I would love- On the Jellicoe Road- I ended up feeling pretty lukewarm about, but the one I thought I would hate or at least feel pretty much nothing about- this one- I ended up loving. Again, I want to read Crowley's latest soon. I hope I'll love it as much as I loved this one.
At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson 5/10 (485 pg)
My Review: At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson
My Review: At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson
Probably the most disappointing book of the month for me, given that I thought I would love it since I loved We Are the Ants. But this book came across like Hutchinson saw how successful We Are the Ants was and decided to do basically the exact same thing over again and bill it as a new story. But, as with all great ideas, it wasn't nearly as successful the second time around as it was the first, and was too long with too much filler. Often, I felt as if the same conversation was being repeated over and over again and wondered if one of his universe theories involved some time loop that I somehow missed. Kind of like the third installment of Submachine, an indie point and click game with a sizeable cult following I love (if you haven't played it you seriously need too). I always think of Submachine every time I read science fiction for some reason, that and that poem The End of Science Fiction by Lisel Mueller (one of my favorites). But anyway, I don't think I'd ever recommend this work over We Are the Ants, though I'm sure other more dedicated We Are the Ants fans or those new to Hutchinson's work would like this one immensely. This book, in case you're still curious even after that lukewarm recommendation, is about a boy whose boyfriend goes missing and no one else remembers him, so the boy becomes obsessed with finding him and has this idea about the universe shrinking. And there's all kinds of other drama, too, that gets pretty exhausting after awhile. It's also kind of pretentious. Just a warning.
The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost 8/10 (362 pg)
The fun I had reading this book is on par with the fun I had reading Illuminae. I'm not going to summarize it like I usually do because it's one of those books where I would only recommend if you are a fan of Twin Peaks or at least familiar with the original show. I don't think you necessarily have to watch Fire Walk With Me- I didn't and I was able to follow along pretty well- and you don't have to be in to the new series to read it, either. The new series couldn't hold my interest as well as the original show did- not to mention I kept feeling depressed every time the police station, the Bang Bang Bar, or the Double R showed up on screen- so I kind of dropped it. Though, again, if you have no idea what Twin Peaks is, don't read this book. You will end up confused and probably completely turned off by the idea of the show. I mean, the book isn't perfect and there were some strange continuity errors between the book and the show, but I'm fine with it. I only gave it an 8 out of 10 because, again, it's no work of literature, or hell, even a real book, it's a companion piece (not a fanwork, thank God, since it's written by Mark Frost so I assume everything in it is canon- if you care about stuff like that) to a show I happen to adore. Also, I couldn't stop smiling every time a character I loved showed up and it's even narrated (The Archivist, I mean, not the agent) by one of my favorite characters in the show. The Archivist, by the way, is actually pretty easy to figure out since that character has a very distinctive way of speaking and it's mimicked extremely well here. As not into aliens as I am, it was a fun, light read that occasionally made my head spin the way it does after watching too much David Lynch.
Page total: 4,288
Average rating: 7/10 (rounded up by not much)
Genre breakdown: 4 contemporaries
3 mystery-thrillers
3 horror
2 historical fiction
1 play
1 fantasy
1 science fiction
Of those, 6 were adult, 8 were YA, and 1 was middle grade
I read 15 books, my average, and honestly had a really great month. I think I gave more 9s this month than any other month before- so much so that I thought my average rating would be far higher than a 7 out of 10. But then I realized that every book I didn't give an 8 or 9 got a 4 or 5, so I guess that balances it out. Despite this being the lowest page count I read in a while, I'm still happy with this month, and looking forward to seeing how July (my birth month!) will be and the first review of the month will be out shortly.
*e-books
Page total: 4,288
Average rating: 7/10 (rounded up by not much)
Genre breakdown: 4 contemporaries
3 mystery-thrillers
3 horror
2 historical fiction
1 play
1 fantasy
1 science fiction
Of those, 6 were adult, 8 were YA, and 1 was middle grade
I read 15 books, my average, and honestly had a really great month. I think I gave more 9s this month than any other month before- so much so that I thought my average rating would be far higher than a 7 out of 10. But then I realized that every book I didn't give an 8 or 9 got a 4 or 5, so I guess that balances it out. Despite this being the lowest page count I read in a while, I'm still happy with this month, and looking forward to seeing how July (my birth month!) will be and the first review of the month will be out shortly.
*e-books
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