What I Read: June

I had some really amazing reads this month! I had a few magical moments were I had an amazing book, an amazing ebook, and an amazing audiobook all going at once. That is really rare. There were quite a few books this month that I couldn't put down, ebooks where I couldn't stop swiping, and audiobooks where I came up with extra chores so I could keep listening. We had a week where Elise was at Girl Scout overnight camp and Carter went to a Coding Camp in the afternoon. I was able to work in my classroom, unloading boxes and organizing, for 3-4 hours each day that week. I was the only one in my area of the school, so I listened to audiobooks the entire time. Carter was shocked with how quickly I powered through a couple audiobooks that week. He likes to talk books with me and checks in on my progress with different books.

Books:

• Manslaughter Park by Tirzah Price- I had a hard time getting through the first section of the book, but it really picked up toward the end. I enjoyed the reimagining of Fanny Price. I didn’t like that it was so obvious from the start who the villain was and her being blind to it really started to annoy me! 

• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid- Having read nonfiction books about the first female astronauts at NASA, I was so excited for this book. Reid masterfully weaved astronaut training and a love story together in a way that I was equally invested in both. The perspective of a same sex couple living in a time when they couldn’t be out was so well done and really made you feel the pain along with them. I loved everything about this book and cried when it was over, not just due to the emotional ending, but also because I didn’t want it to be the end.

I started this book while watching Tulsa Tough.

• Summer in the City by Alex Aster- This was such a cute book. I enjoyed the setting and what a large role it played in the story. It really made me want to visit NYC. I'm not a fan of the breakup just for them to have the big, flashy get back together at the end of the book, but this one worked. Fake dating is always a favorite for me. The reason why they couldn't be together was a bit of a frustrating stretch, but I'll allow it because the rest of it was so fun and cute. I also loved that they went on running dates together.

• This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour- I read this for One Book, One Tulsa and I'm excited for the author event and discussion that this book will provoke. The prologue pulled me in immediately and then the book lost steam for a bit and I struggled to stay engaged. About halfway through I couldn't stop reading and I'm unsure what happens after the book ends. I love books that end not all perfectly wrapped up and keep you thinking. The imagining of invisible people and the way they are controlled was well done and interesting.

• Every Summer After by Carley Fortune- I really enjoyed this book. Going back and forth with the past and present worked out really well. At the end of each chapter I would want to know more, but then the setting shifted. That kept me hooked! It was the perfect book to devour while at the pool. At the end, the characters annoyed me but I figured that was coming with the 12 year gap in their relationship. I kept wondering what the heck took them so long!

• V for Vendetta by Alan Moore- I've seen the movie so I had expectations for this graphic novel and it wasn't what I was expecting. I had a hard time, especially with the spellings of words they used to create accents.

• Lore Olympus: Volume Eight by Rachel Smythe- So much happened in this volume and I loved it! I'm so excited to see what she does with the next installment. One of my favorite parts of this series is stumbling across the fact that a new volume has been released when I didn't realize it. Reading V for Vendetta made me wonder if a new book in this series was out, since they are both graphic novels. I searched and, low and behold, this volume had come out in May. It made my day!

• The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center- Katherine Center is one of my favorite authors, but her last two books were a bit meh for me. I've had this one for a while, but was delaying reading it because I didn't want to be disappointed again. I loved this book. It had me laughing and loving the characters the whole way through. I normally am not a fan of an epilogue, just let me imagine what happens next, that's one of the best things about reading, but this one was so good with gems like this: "People say 'marriage is hard' all the time... But I disagree. I don't think marriage is hard. I think, in fact, if you do it right, marriage makes everything else easier." Which was exactly a conversation I was recently having with my mother-in-law. And then there was this: "There are endless human stories, but they all end the same way. So it can't be where you're going that matters. It has to be how you get there... It's all about the details you notice and the joys you savor. And the hope you refuse to give up on."

• Heartwood by Amity Gaige- This story about a woman missing in the woods gripped me from the start. I loved the multiple perspectives and how each time you felt like you were about to find something out, the POV shifted and it slipped through your fingers. I could not stop reading, especially at the end.

eBooks:

• Seas and Greetings by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone- This was a Christmas Notch novella. I've read all the books so far so I was excited for this one, but it was a mess. For some reason they veered from their typical romance style and tried to add a mystery into the mix that was incredibly lame. I found myself repeatedly wondering why they chose Addison Hayes of all the Christmas Notch characters to get her own story. I liked Krysta, but one character can’t pull the weight of the whole story. I really struggled to finish this which is saying a lot because it was a novella.

• Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells- This was the 6th book in the Murderbot Diaries. Watching the series made me want to read the next book in the series. I'm enjoying the show, but reading this book made me realize the humor doesn't come through in the show quite like the books. As always, this book had me giggling at multiple points. The show has yet to do that.

• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler- This was an odd book. I enjoyed it and wanted to read it, but I'm not quite sure what the point was.

Audiobooks:

• The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon- I loved Martha Ballard’s story. I also enjoyed the love story she shared with her husband which was an added bonus Lawhon created to go with the actual journal entries of Ballard.

• The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner- I was hoping for something similar to Daisy Jones and the Six with this one and it didn’t disappoint. I loved how she went back and forth with past and present. She did it so well, I was never annoyed with the switch. This was a complex storyline that kept me wondering and invested. 

• The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan- I'm loving this series. I actually liked this book even more than the first one. I'm excited to see what is to come in book 3.

• Wicked by Gregory Maguire- This book came highly recommended to me and left me wondering why. I can't decide what didn't quite hit for me in the book. Was it that it was too long and just kept drawing out until I go to the point where I was listening just to finish, with no enjoyment? Was it all the weird sexual stuff? Was it the lack of as many nods to the Wizard of Oz as I was expecting? I'm not quite sure. I liked the first portion of the book, but disliked it more and more as it wore on. 

• Red Rising by Pierce Brown- My expectations for this book were too high and left me disappointed. I saw it compared favorably to the Hunger Games and I did not agree with that at all.

• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler- Carter read the graphic novel adaptation of this book and when he described it to me, it sounded so fascinating, I decided to find the book. I loved it from the moment I started it. There was the scifi aspect with time traveling and the very realistic view of the brutalities of slavery. She masterfully showed how descendants of slaves today may have white ancestors through rape and we saw that as the tangled web of Dana's family unfolded throughout the book.

• The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery- I loved this book. It was nonfiction but read like a narrative. I learned lots of fun little facts, not just about octopuses, but other animals as well. I think the subtitle should have been dropped from the book because it was a bit misleading. This was more of a memoir mixed with information about octopuses and other animals. I came to it wanting a book about octopuses, but if you came to it wanting to learn about consciousness, you would be left disappointed.