This is crazy, I had no idea I read so many books last month, especially it being a short month and I didn’t have much free time! Well, here they are, it was a pretty solid month!

1. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Right off the bat, a 5-star read. The synopsis didn’t compel me to pick this one up, but it kept appearing on SO MANY best of the year lists that I eventually gave in. I will say- I did the audiobook for this one and it was brilliantly done. Sybil is one of my most memorable characters I have read in a good while, and what I aspire to be like when I’m old and out of fucks. This whole book is epistolary – Sybil write letters and sends email to everyone from her brother in France, her best friend/SIL, a young boy she mentors, a customer service agent at an ancestry company. Plus, unsent letters to an unknown recipient until the end. This was compelling, engaging, captivating – all the good “ing”s! I laughed and cried.

2. How to Fake a Haunting by Christa Carmen

….and then right to a 1 star read. This was absolutely abysmal. Hokey. Not scary. Confusing. I did actually laugh at loud several times, though I can promise you that wasn’t the author’s intent.

3. Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor

So mid. Two Harvard students that I gave no shits about invent an anti-ageing drug – it was very science-y, very little action, cardboard characters. This was like a dollar store version of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow so just skip this and read that.

4. Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash

This was SO WEIRD in the best way. Very Kevin Wilson-esque, zany, strange, hilarious. I had no idea where this was going but had a ton of fun getting there. (The UK cover is so much better than whatever this terrible version is.)

5. My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney

I generally enjoy Alice Feeney, but her last book was awful – like someone else wrote it, actually. And then around this same time, Henry and I watched His & Hers on Netflix which is adapted from one of her novels that we both read and liked, but neither of us remembered a single thing from the book as we watched the series, to the point where we both had to check our phones to see if we actually read it. So, I guess we enjoy her books but they’re not memorable? I would say that this one is going in that same category. I gave it a 4, had a fun time reading it, was sufficiently tricked by the twists, but will still probably forget the plot by this time next year. I think this is where I’m leaning with thrillers in general lately though. My standards are really high.

6. Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski

I started this thinking I was going to enjoy it, but then entirely too many characters are introduced – they each get their own rambling chapter – and it just turned into a mess. No one really had their own unique voice, I was confusing teens with adults, some kid dies and that’s at the center of the whole thing but even that plot point gets lost. I just wanted this to end, also the cover is so ugly and looks like a very specific Hipstamatic filter was used on it.

7. The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi

I have enjoyed Fracassi’s horror in the past, but this was some banal Murder, She Wrote type shit.

8. If It Makes You Happy by Julie Olivia

A cozy romance set in a small town in autumn of 1997? A little bit fish-out-of-water? New beginnings? ADORABLE DOG that adds to the story? Kids that actually weren’t annoying? I am so picky with rom-coms but this one really did it for me and I expectedly sobbed my face off at the end. This was close to perfect.

9. Discontent by Beatriz Serrano

Yes. I LOL’d so much throughout this one and I will just say if my department ever forces us to go on team-building retreats, I’m out.

10. The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Too many timelines. Not scary. Someone’s Goodread’s review is the very succinct “Strongest emotion I felt reading this was ‘Girl, that’s your uncle  😭'” – CO-FUCKING-SIGN. Also, the whole time I was reading it, I thought the cover was a hand holding an umbrella. Now I see that’s not it at all.

11. Loved One by Aisha Muharrar

I REALLY ENJOYED THIS. It’s largely about grief, but there is a whole subplot where the main character is on a mission to retrieve personal items of her recently-deceased best friend at the request of his mom, so there are some genuinely light-hearted moments to help balance out the crippling agony you feel when the flashbacks happen. (I’m crying, LOL.)

12. The Ruins by Scott Smith

Why do people like this? It was so boring, stupid fucking characters. Monotonous. I didn’t enjoy even a second of this and should have DNFd it but kept thinking it was going to get better. Did NOT have to be this long, either.

13. Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen

SO UNIQUE! Historical fiction with a hilarious twist. This is set during a time when certain historical figures are back and living in present day. Harriet Tubman seeks out a hiphop producer in NYC to help her record an album, and the book is told from the producer’s POV. It was so funny but also beautiful and a very important work of fiction. The audiobook includes two tracks at the end! (My favorite character was DJ Quakes, AN ACTUAL QUAKER and his parts were so funny.)

I just wish this was a bit longer.

14. Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson

An interesting take on the vampire trope. While it didn’t become a favorite, it was still pretty entertaining. I liked that it was set in the 70s and I was really rooting for Duane Minor.

15. Coleman Hill by Kim Coleman Foote

Five stars. This was so ambitious and the author pulled it off. It’s a biomythography, my first time reading one, and it actually blows my mind when I step aside and really think about the effort and creativity that went into this. The author has essentially taken her actual family history and then embellished upon it to create a “modern myth.” It makes sense then, how these characters jumped off the pages, knowing now that they were based on actual living members of Kim Coleman Foote’s family. It’s fascinating, sad, hopeful, and inspiring to read about the two families that settle down in New Jersey in the 1910s during the Great Migration. This was extremely difficult to read at times which is why everyone SHOULD read it. Yes, it’s fiction, but there is truth and history there too, and that is the stuff that needs to be remembered.

16. Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

A very difficult read as we’re following an older woman with Parkinson’s as she tries to prove that her daughter’s recent death wasn’t a suicide. We get flashbacks to their relationship, and the stress that Elena’s illness put on her daughter, who was also her primary caregiver. It’s so much more than just a mystery though, as it tackles big issues like abortion, chronic illness, motherhood, and a toxic mother-daughter relationship. Just, very grim. If you’re looking for a feel-good read, this ain’t it, Vanessa.

17. The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey

You know, I gave this 4 stars on Goodreads but it’s closer to a 5. I went into this plot unknown and was blown away. It’s set in an orphanage in England, 1979, and follows one brother of a set of triplets, and also a mystery girl named Nancy who lives in a house with her parents but something feels off. The end goal of the children in the orphanage is to “get well” (they all think they’re in there because of a Bug) and leave for a Disney-esque place called Margate. I read it in almost one day, it was so hard to put down. Vincent forever. <3 (And Mother Night! I loved Mother Night.) (OK I just changed my review to 5 stars now that I’m thinking about this one again, it was so good.)

 

 

 

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