July Reviews and Wrap-Up II

Ahhh, the last week of July was glorious. I was on holiday, didn’t check email once, got so much reading done and spent lots of time walking and swimming with my dogs. I couldn’t ask for anything else for a summer holiday!

THE MOTHERS (77): Brit Bennett is an author I fell in love with after reading The Vanishing Half. I didn't really read into what this one was about, so I was pleasantly surprised with this calm, slower-paced story of how one decision can follow you in varying ways for the rest of your life. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION (78): I was a bit worried starting this one because I loved Beach Read so much but if it’s even possible I loved this one even more.

🏝Perfect book to binge in a day on vacation

💛Loved the banter, chemistry, and history between Poppy & Alex (I laughed out loud a lot!)

🗓I liked the flashbacks to their previous trips, and references to all the cool places they’ve traveled. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A HOUSE IN THE SKY (79): an incredibly powerful memoir about resilience, though I was hoping the book would delve into her life when she got home. It seems, with any memoir/re-telling of a true event, there are some challenges to the truth (so this was an interesting one to Google after reading). ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CITY OF GIRLS (80): City of Girls was a delight: a historical fiction novel following young Vivian spending her early 20s in NYC working at her aunt’s theatre: exploring her sexuality, finding her place in the world and trying to be an interesting woman. This book took a few different jumps I wasn’t expecting, but I couldn’t stop reading it over the course of two days and loved Vivian’s voice. The book was fun, vivid + vibrant. I loved reading about NYC theatre life in the 1940s! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

QUIT LIKE A WOMAN (81): I enjoyed reading Quit Like a Woman; even though I can’t relate much to Whitaker’s story, I’ve liked learning about the short term (yikes) impacts of alcohol. I've been struggling with my anxiety, sleep, and general feelings of blah-ness so I immediately bought this book and felt justified in my decision to hit pause on alcohol for a bit. I found that the first quarter and last quarter of the book were most impactful to me, ⭐️⭐️⭐️

LEXICON by Max Berry (82): the first 60% was fun and mind bendy. Then it dropped off, felt 4000 pages long, and I should have DNFed it but I didn't. ⭐️⭐️

VIRGIN RIVER (83): I preferred the audio to the physical book! It's rare I read a book after seeing the TV adaptation, but really wanted to after that season 3 cliffhanger. This book is such a comfort read to me and I love that feeling so much. Shouts to Scribd for having the series on audio! ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

THE SUMMER DEAL (84): A predictable Hallmark-esque book. One of those books that was a cute summer read, that I'm glad I thrifted, and that will likely be going in my Little Free Library drop bag! ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really enjoyed the books I brought with me and only felt a bit on edge on the second last day about not having my full personal library to choose a book from. 😂