I completed my 100 books challenge at some point in July, so that was cool!

1. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker

This one didn’t hit as hard as her last book, for me anyway. It didn’t feel like a “horror” book to me either but more like, historical/mythological dark fantasy? Is this a genre? If so, I would not have picked this book up in the first place then.

2. The Summer of Broken Rules by K.L. Walther

I enjoyed this and it made me wish I had an extended family that convened every summer on Martha’s Vineyard. One of my friends reviewed it with “I am too old to read about 18-year-olds summer romance” but maybe I’m just super young at heart because I loved it and thought it was really sweet.

There’s an underlying storyline about the main character’s older sister dying previously in a car accident and I really felt that too. I don’t know, maybe this landed in my hands at the right time when my heart was feeling extra weak because I ate this up and didn’t roll my eyes even ONCE.

3. William by Mason Coile

This was “meh” until the end and then I felt like the Kombucha meme. I just really want to read something SCARY though and nothing is doing it for me!

4. Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blanckensee

I liked the 90s San Fran setting. The characters? Not so much.

5. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

OK most of this book is so boring, it’s like watching someone paint a portrait of pears. I almost DNF’d a few times. But then….the thing happens. And the pace finally picks up. And I am so glad I stuck with it.

6. Night Objects by Eli Raphael

This made me so sad. But I liked it 4 stars worth. Dark academia is sometimes very hit or miss with me but this one was pretty compelling—the back and forth between now and then was frustrating at times because I’d be really into it only to have to readjust to preset day or whatever. This also made me really glad that I went to regular old basic public school—isn’t high school already hard enough with regular non-secret society cliques and bullies?!

There is a whole thing with a death of a parent and that was really upsetting.

7. Somebody Worth Killing by Jessica Payne

OMG a hitwoman keeping her profession a secret from her family—you’ve read one, you’ve read ’em all.

8. Doll Parts by Penny Zang

This was billed as The Virgin Suicides meetsI Have Some Questions For You, both of which I loved. I was lied to. This book was really fucking terrible.

AND LONG. 400 pages was not doing way too much.

9. Helpless by Jessica Knoll

This was pretty fucking wild and I’m still not even sure what really happened but it was violent and hot (sometimes the intersection between the two was a bit too much). I think with this author, it’s the actual writing that I love so much. (I previously read Bright Young Women and felt the same about that too.)

10. Mansion Beach by Meg Mitchell Moore

An entertaining summer read. I kept thinking it felt like Great Gatsby a little bit and then I realized this was intentional, lol. I’m so smart!!!!11111

11. The Love Haters by Katherine Center

Bro, everyone is all qtipping their dickholes over Emily Henry when Katherine Center is RIGHT THERE. I’m not a big romance reader, but each of her books that I have read so far have been more character-focused and it’s so my style. And this one has the cutest side character in a Great Dane called George Bailey. LOVED HIM. This book was so sweet.

12. Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester

Sometimes I get audio books from Hoopla when I’m waiting on other things and need something ASAP to start listening to on my next walk and almost always they end up being so bad. This was one of those. I know I was making a really ugly face the whole time I was listening to this—-in public. Ugh.

13. We Burned So Bright by T.J. Klune

OK this guy had me wrapped around his finger while reading The House in the Cerulean Sea a few years back. I was so charmed by his writing. But the last few books of his have been so fucking annoying and cringey. He basically uses the same formula over and over and it just ISN’T WORKING FOR ME ANYMORE, GO AWAY. This is also how I feel about Emily Henry, btw. Every main character she writes is just Lorelai Gilmore in a new setting with a new love interest who was the same as the last love interest who also has Luke vibes. So I just constantly picture Luke and Lorelai every time I read one of her books now.

Anyway, the characters this guy creates are so dumb and have the most unrealistic conversations with each other. It’s half past quirky and more toward STFU.

14. Today Tonight Tomorrow (Rowan & Neil, #1) by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Hilariously, the plot of this book was almost exactly the same as the one in The Summer of Broken Rules—both books are centered around basically the same game being played. And yet, this one still felt different enough to me that I didn’t really notice and ended up liking it just as much.

Sometimes, I just want a good, fun YA book  to relive my high school years, OK!?

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And those were the books I read in July, cha cha cha.

 

 

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