I am behind on everything in my life right now, including my dumb monthly book dump.

1. Invasive Species by Ellery Adams

Love the cover, and I loved that it was set on Long Island and I was reading it while also on Long Island. But it was pretty cheesy and not really the type of horror I like (honestly I wouldn’t even count it as horror). I gave it 2 stars with no words.

2. The Five-Star Weekend (Sommer in Nantucket, #1) by Elin Hilderbrand

Another 2 stars for me. I hated every broad in this book. Apparently it’s a TV series now or something? I will not be watching.

3. Take Me with You by Steven Rowley

Four stars – what a strange, quirky, and funny book! Dude’s husband literally disappears into a beam of light. How can I also literally disappear into a beam of light?

4. The Summer Fun Massacre (Slasher Season, #1) by Craig DiLouie

Well, I won’t be continuing with this series. Here was my Goodreads review, lol:

First of all: boring/lame/who cares
Second of all: soooooo many cops I couldn’t keep track of
Lastly: this book taught me that I don’t know the ranking order of cops nor do I care

5. The Open Era by Edward Schmit

Three stars but I needed so much more from this. THE COVER THOUGH. It’s like sherbet for the eyes.

6. Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho yeeun

OK I didn’t know where we were going with this for a while but it wound up being SO GOOD. I was hooked, especially as someone who always (and might still) have strong attachments to stuffed animals to the point of anthropomorphism. I would love to see this turned into a Kdrama.

7. The Exes by Leodora Darlington

2 stars. I did not like this. Kind of hard to follow. No other comments.

8. Body Count by Codie Crowley

LOVE that this was set in WILDWOOD (highkey the only reason I even picked this up). Five stars for Wildwood being the setting but weirdly hyper sexual for YA though.

9. Indie Darling by Lauren Nossett

This was pretty corny. There were tons of song lyrics in here that “held clues” but they were so cringey that I had to start skipping over them. Also, the fictional band names were terrible. If any band in this book was real, I can promise you I would not be listening to them.

10. The Unknown by Riley Sager

Riley Sager is such a crap shoot. He has some doozies but when he’s good, he’s GOOD. This one was PRETTY good. I had a decent time reading it.  I don’t love that cover though.

11. The Season of Sinking by Daphne Woolsoncroft

Pretty good mystery/thriller, 3 stars.

12. Happy Wife (Winter Park, #1) by Meredith Lavender

Pretty fun read, honestly. 3.5 stars. Not sure if I will pick up the next one SHOULD I?

13. Pool House by Mary H.K. Choi

I love Mary HK Choi and have read all of her books. This is her first adult novel but I honestly wouldn’t really consider her past books YA, though that is how they are marketed. But I’m immature then because I loved all of her other books and really got stuck on this one. It was almost TOO adult, too prose-heavy, little dialogue. I guess I never really quite knew or understood where it was going, but that it just felt like this was her platform to show the world that she can be a super sophisticated novelist with a penchant for pretentious vocabulary—AND I LOVE ME SOME PRETENTIOUS VOCAB. But the story/plot just wasn’t interesting enough for me.

On Goodreads, I said: “This was a struggle to get through. I love Choi’s books so much and her writing is exquisite but this one started to feel like a chore every time I picked it back up. I even set it aside and read another book to give myself a break.

I didn’t connect with this one at all, character-wise, but there were many times when I would say “ooh” out loud after coming across an especially well-crafted turn of phrase.

I did appreciate the use of Hangul here and there with no pronunciation or translation provided because my Korean level is JUST good enough that i could read it without struggle. *FLEX* lol”

14. Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die by Mallory Arnold

I feel like Christopher Pike would have written a better version of this in the 80s and I would have eaten it up. I absolutely hated all three female POVs and actually can’t believe this was written by a woman because they read like girls TOTALLY written by a man. (Chrisotopher Pike could have gotten away with it though!)

15. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

I LOVED THIS ONE. Not 5 stars’ worth of love, but close. It was just my style. It could have been about Henry and me, 100%. It felt so real.

 

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