What I Read: June

June meant the start of the library's summer reading program which I always look forward to! It was so exciting to sign up. We are tracking all of our books online through a special website the library is using. There is also a Library Bingo for every age group which we are all completing. I always enjoy trying to make a blackout and it pushes me to read books I may not normally have read. Although I'm noticing they re-use a lot of the same spaces from previous Bingos. I'm wondering when I'll run out of good books set in Oklahoma because that's a space they use frequently, haha! The kids and I are already finished with the summer reading program and our Bingo sheets. We are now working toward a blackout just for fun!

Book:

• One by One by Ruth Ware- My mom recommended In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ware to me a while back and I loved it. So when I had a gift card from Target and decided to pick out a brand new book as a special treat, I decided on this one. It reminded me a lot of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. It was so good and definitely kept me on edge and reading!
  
  
  
• Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence- I liked this book but it could have been better. I felt like there was too much time spent on the back story of Jane's ancestors and then not enough time spent on her writing life. I learned a lot and it was quite good, but the first couple chapters were a little boring. I get that he needed to explain why Jane's family was not well off, but felt like it could have been done much quicker.

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins- I know, crazy that I haven't read this series before now. I came across this book at Goodwill and decided to get it. I have now through various visits, gotten all 3 books in the trilogy. I really enjoyed this one and am excited to read the next book soon. You could definitely tell it was a young adult book, but I actually liked it more than I expected to!
  

• They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti- This was our book club pick for the month of July. We had just talked about The Tulsa Race Massacre so we felt this was a good follow-up to learn some more. It was really good and informative and did a great job of explaining how the group got started. It felt like there was a lot missing and like there could have been a lot more depth, but I think that was due to it being written for young adults and meant more for an overview and to help understand, rather than to go into a lot of depth. My favorite part of the book was the snippets shared from interviews with people who were slaves. It was crazy to think there were people alive in the 1920's and 1930's who had been slaves. That was the time period of the Tulsa Race Massacre. I am interested in reading the interviews and would like to find out more about them.

• Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kalli Fajardo-Anstine- This book was on the librarian recommendation shelf for the manager of the library right by our house. She always has books up that I've read and loved so when I see she has a book on her shelf I haven't read, I grab it. This was one of hers. It was a book of short stories which I'm usually not a huge fan of but I really liked these. They were short stories about Latinas of indigenous ancestry in the American West. They really made me think and I liked the perspective they gave.
  

eBook:

• Bravey by Alexi Pappas- This book was recommended in a different book I read, but I can't remember which one. I recognized Pappas' name but was thinking she was a famous soccer player. I was excited when I realized she was a runner. I really enjoyed this book. In my planner there's some blank space at the top of each week so when I come across a quote or segment from a book I really like, I write it at the top of one of the weeks. I enjoy going back and re-reading them when I'm writing down things for the week. I ended up writing down quite a few things from this book.
  

• The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver- This book was about a woman whose high school sweetheart turned fiancee dies in a car wreck. It was really well written but really depressing at points. I liked that the ending was uplifting, but it was tough getting there. I think I just sympathized with the character too much and hated the thought of how it would feel to lose the love of your life.

• Isabel Spellman's Guide to Etiquette: What is Wrong with You People by Lisa Lutz- The last book in the Spellman Files ended with it sounding like maybe the stories would continue but through the voice of the younger sister. I decided to search to see if there was another one and discovered this ebook existed. It was funny but definitely nothing compared to the books in the series.

• Love Your Life by Sophie Kinsella- I wanted a fun book and have never gone wrong with Kinsella so I downloaded this one when I found it in the app. I was actually quite disappointed in it and had a hard time finishing it. The female lead was just so annoying and on the verge of unlikeable. I hated her for the first half of the book and then she grew on me a bit, but her character just kind of sucked so I had a hard time getting into the book. This was by far my least favorite of her books I've read.
  

Audiobook:

• Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty- I had just finished Concrete Rose and had a big weekend of solo running coming up with 24 miles on Saturday and 14 on Sunday so I wanted a really good audiobook. I didn't want to just take a swing and hope I got something good so I decided to get a Liane Moriarty book. I hated to do this one because I bought it as a regular book from Goodwill, but it was the only downloadable audiobook by her so I went ahead with it. It was so good.
  

• The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton- Every time I thought I had the mystery figured out, a new twist was thrown in. It was an interesting concept. I think this was a book I would have enjoyed more as a regular book, because the narrator was kind of boring.

• John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father's Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial by Don Abrams and David Fisher- I enjoyed Lincoln's Last Trial with the same writers so I decided to check this one out. I really enjoyed it. I was really interesting to learn more about the Boston Massacre.

• Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior- My mom recommended this one and when I saw the audiobook was narrated by 2 different people (a favorite of mine is when main characters have separate narrators), I got it as an audiobook. It was so good. I absolutely loved it!

• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow- I was super excited about this book because the premise sounded so interesting. The writing was really good but even so I had a hard time getting into the book and I couldn't figure out why. Eventually I realized it was that the narrator spoke so slow and it was causing me to lose focus. My mind was constantly wandering off and I was missing stuff. So I went into the audiobook and sped it up to 1.25 and I enjoyed it so much more after that!