I have a lot of reading related events going on this month, but before I get to that in this weekend's upcoming post, it's time to wrap up how things went for the month of June.
Stats
June was a really good month! I finished a total of 10 books, making it my 2nd best reading month of the year so far. (Don't let the July bar fool you...I haven't finished 3 books yet. I have 3 in progress.)
That brings my total for the year (as of June 30th) to 46. I have officially beaten out my last four years at only half way through this year! If I keep on this pace, I will have a record reading year since I started tracking almost a decade ago. I find this terribly exciting.
Those 46 reads mean that I am already 70% complete with my 2019 reading goal on Goodreads. I am contemplating changing my goal given how this year's reading has gone, but it's also quite nice to know that I can make the dang goal this year!
June also moved into the 2nd spot for the most pages I've read in a month this year with 3094. I find it quite entertaining that April and June have the highest pages read when they are only 30 days long versus May's 31. (Reading really took off in April when I added in audiobooks.)
Books Read
I started the month off with an audio read of The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher. This is a YA fantasy read (and apparently a retelling of the fairy tale Bluebeard) about a young girl (Rhea) who has been summoned for marriage to a wealthy noble. She arrives at his estate only to discover that he already has six wives, certainly not something of the norm in her regular society. The wives have all been imprisoned in Lord Crevan's mysterious estate. To avoid becoming one of them, Rhea must complete Crevan's odd and magical tasks.
I chose The Seventh Bride from my Prime Reading options over at Amazon. I was pleasantly surprised and wound up rating it 4.5 stars. I just love myself some good magical realism. This one was cute, but had a nice and fun dark streak as well. I was also a big fan of Rhea's hedgehog sidekick. This one is one I wouldn't mind owning.
Tower of Blue by Eric Losch was a YA fantasy read as well. This one I received as an ARC. Arnold Blue is an angsty and solitary teen who packs up all of his family's belongings in the middle of the night to create "The Tower". He then embarks on a journey to find happiness. What follows is strangely, but wonderfully fantastical.
This one was a 3-star read for me. I enjoyed the writing and thought that the plot was very imaginative, but it left me hanging and wanting to understand/know more. The author has indicated that it is currently meant to be a standalone work, but I would have enjoyed this book more in the end if I knew there was a series where I would be able to gain more closure. The world created by Losch has a lot to be explored. I appreciated the physical and emotional journey Arnold undertakes, I just needed more.
My second ARC of the month was Alix Ohlin's Dual Citizens. It is a contemporary story about two half-sisters and their relationship throughout their childhood and adult lives. Dual Citizens held my attention with a solid plot. There was a good flow overall, with a few oddball moments here anThe perspective remains primarily with Lark, the older of the two sisters, while allowing smaller peeks into sister Robin's life.
For me, this one was just an okay read. There wasn't anything that particularly landed strongly with me, but there also wasn't anything that I felt was necessarily wrong with it. The story was just a nicely progressing novel without anything to particularly make it gripping. The ending was comfortable and felt right given the lead-up and I rated this one as a very solid 3-star read.
The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan was my favorite read of the month. I listened to this one on audiobook after borrowing it via my local library. In it, Anthony Peardew has passed away, leaving control of his study full of found items to his longtime employee, Laura. Laura is tasked with returning as many of the items to their original owners as possible.
It sounds like something of a simple, but odd premise, but there is so much more that it becomes. I loved this book so very much. Again, there is an element of magical realism, which I very much enjoyed. The story is multi-faceted with a dual plot magnificently woven throughout. It was a great emotional read...a type of book I deem "huggable".
I gave this one a full 5-stars and will be looking to add it to my personal library.
June was a month full of ARCs. Buy or Die by Theodor Ventskevich is a piece of dystopian fiction that has been translated into English from its original Russian. In this futuristic society, advertising has become all-encompassing. I grabbed this one after reading the premise and feeling some 1984ish vibes. There is a lot packed into the novel and it could certainly spawn a series as the world created is both heavily imaginative and intriguing. There is certainly a creepy feel to it all with the intrusive nature of the advertising and the prevalence of AI.
The translation seemed to prove slightly problematic in this read, so it is a shame that I can't read Russian. I have a feeling that the original would have given me even more enjoyment. I developed quite a few questions through the narrative, that weren't answered during the story and somewhat detracted from the experience for me. I definitely wanted more. I gave the book 3 1/2 stars (rounded down to 3 for Goodreads), and feel that it was well worth my reading time and could potentially lend me more understanding with a second read. I still lament the inability to read it in its original language.
And...back to the YA we go! Me, Myself & Him by Chris Tebbetts is a queer YA fiction novel that I received as an ARC. It is based on the premise that alternate realities exist...a series of parallel universes where our choices may be played out in their different possibilities. Chris Schweitzer falls and hits his head on the pavement after doing whippets in the parking lot of his employer with his best friend. Following this accident, the plot follows two separate tales...one in which Chris keeps the true nature of his injury secret, and the other wherein he tells his mother the truth of what caused his fall.
I thought this one was incredibly cute and well written. It read quickly and remained light despite the serious nature of several of the situations it deals with throughout. I felt that this could be incredibly relatable and found it very imaginative to boot. The storyline does move back and forth between the two alternate plots, so it could prove difficult for some readers, but I very much enjoyed the structure. This one was a good 4-star read for me.
I was incredibly happy to receive a copy of The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan in this month's ARCs. This is a companion book, in a way, to her The Bookshop on the Corner that I very much enjoyed and gave 4 stars back in 2017. This book follows Zoe, who winds up moving to the highlands of Scotland and working for local bookseller, Nina (of the first novel). She is also installed as the au pair for a trio of unruly children in a sprawling estate.
I really enjoyed this book and Colgan's writing continues to entertain me. Her characters are well-crafted and her plots move very smoothly. The Scottish setting is just fantastic and I still love it very much. It is a very cozy read and would be a fantastic rainy day read. The ending was a bit predictable, but I was perfectly okay with that in this case. I gave this one a nice, solid 4 stars.
Dumplin' was my final audiobook of the month. This one was a library find. I have had it on my TBR for ages and finally took the plunge. Dumplin' is a YA read, the first in a duology, that follows teenager Willowdean Dixon, daughter of a local beauty queen. She is a self-proclaimed fat girl who shuns her mother's beauty pageant lifestyle, until circumstances lead to her entering the pageant herself.
I found this one to be a fantastic read. It was honest without being overbearing and it was a good YA read. It's a light-hearted take on some emotional circumstances and teenage trials. This one is a nice casual read that still stands to make an impact. I gave this one 4 stars and I will be reading the sequel.
The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin has been on my TBR for quite a while and was my book club read for this month. The story follows the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh. This is historical fiction, so some liberties are taken with the plot, but it focuses on Anne's point of view from the time of meeting Charles until his death.
I had a lot of feelings about this book and there was a lot of discussion in book club that slightly altered my final opinion. The story is well-written overall, but there are some quirks to Benjamin's writing that drove me crazy. There was also the discussion in book club and the research that followed that revealed how much latitude the author took with regard to creating the plot. Let's just say that if I had read this as a fiction novel rather than a historical fiction based on an actual person, I would have rated it higher. However, that being said, I did enjoy the story and I liked that things were done from Anne's point of view. Historically, Anne is undersold as a historical figure, when really she should have been lauded as an aviatrix and navigator in her own right. She was also a talented author. Overall, this was a good read and I wound up settling on giving it 3.5 stars.
And...finally. My last read of June was Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky. I received this one as an ARC and was excited to get to it, as it has been somewhat hyped recently. This is a multi-faceted contemporary novel told from several different perspectives. It is set in modern day New York and Connecticut and follows characters who are all linked in a roundabout fashion. Rachel is a college student, pet-sitting peach-colored poodle, Princess for Zahid, her professor. She takes the dog to her mother, Becca's house, where she will spend the summer.
This book turned out to be quite the disappointment. This is why hype can be such an awful thing. The writing in Rachel's chapters felt choppy and uneducated and she, along with pretty much all of the other characters, just irritated me. As one other reviewer stated in a way that made me giggle: "The dog. I liked the dog." This was far too true for me. There was a sense of intellect in the writing and the story did have imaginative parts, but the overall feel of the story just rubbed me the wrong way. I slogged through it just to keep from having another DNF this year and was rewarded for doing so by a completely oddball ending. This one was (barely) a 2-star read for me.
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