August already! Summer always has a way of flying by, doesn't it? I've done some good summer reading for sure, but while we're still getting to the beach I want to get to some good beach read type books for August:
The Lies I Tell is a thriller (thriller-lite? I hope - that's my favorite) that seems like it might satisfy in the way of
Mother May I or
The Last Thing He Told Me - beach perfection, in my opinion - from an author I've not read before.
Very different but also excellent summer escape is YA romance with a royals + wanderlust twist, and I'm looking forward to picking up the sequel to Tokyo Ever After (loved!), Tokyo Dreaming. And though straight-up romance hasn't worked super well for me lately, I've enjoyed the others in this series that combines some of my favorite tropes + characters who put on a renaissance fair every summer (I mean, there's a contemporary romance series for EVERY interest, ha!), and I think I will enjoy the third installment, Well Matched, since I already know and like the protagonist.
I'm returning Hollowpox to the list after not getting to it in June, now that Hendrik and Peter have finished their read-aloud. This series is great, and middle grade is good for the beach if you're having to break focus frequently to watch kids...
And finally, the newest Elizabeth Strout came to me early by way of Netgalley. Though an author I adore, I wouldn't necessarily consider her top of my beach reading list - but the "by the sea" setting seems fitting for it, and I always love spending time in the world of Lucy Barton that Strout has created.
And for a quick recap of
my July reading - which unfortunately was not quite as successful of a TBR as I've had lately... Luckily there are a couple of other books I picked up in July that were great:
Marrying the Ketchups was a really enjoyable family dramedy;
Flying Solo was a rom-com with a different type of relationship focus that I found refreshing; and
Project Hail Mary was another not-my-genre success from Andy Weir - though too long, in my opinion (I'm not there for the sciencey explanations!), I was rather charmed by the plucky main character and the creativity of this space travel story.
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: this one got a lot of hype in places I look at book stuff, and I did really enjoy the story of friendship + creative collaboration, and the really interesting and varied construction of the narrative, even if it didn't quite make it to 5 stars for me. It's the type of book that focuses on a subject (video games + their design) that you really don't need to have an interest in to enjoy the overall story; I liked how she used it as a way to explore the highs and lows of a creative relationship and what success and stress do to it - even if some of the video game nostalgia didn't quite land with me personally. The writing is great, and it's a pretty good mix of character driven + some plot, but it all comes back to the life-spanning friendship/creative partnership, and I think what I didn't love about the book was how much conflict was involved in that. Realistic, perhaps, but I just got a little tired at times of Sadie and Sam being mad at each other, maybe? Really liked the flashbacks to the early parts of their relationship and the banter when they were "on", loved the depth of all of the characters, and also adored the character of their third friend and business partner, Marx, so much. This is the type of book that could be recommended to quite a range of readers, I think - pretty broad appeal and feels unique/different yet still accessible, though admittedly it is rather long and takes a little while to get into a groove/get invested. ★★★★
- Joan Is Okay: very quick review because I didn't pick it up! Just didn't end up being in the mood for (what I think is) more literary/character-driven fiction.
- The Roughest Draft: interestingly, here's another one that is about a male/female creative partnership, and all the triumph and conflict that can come along with it - but since this is a romance novel, there's sexual tension too... the problem for me here is that these writing partners clearly had such a rift (and then have to come back together after 4 years of not speaking to write the other book they're under contract for) that they spend most of the time being mad at each other and I just didn't feel any care about them getting together, or believe that there was any real spark to their relationship or depth to their characters. Definitely no banter in their bickering, so it dragged a bit for me. I love a book with a literary world connection, but I found this one disappointing; if you want something in the romance genre that centers on publishing, read Book Lovers instead for a great rom-com, or read Seven Days in June for the more serious underlying issues + writer romance. ★★.5
- The Guide: Peter Heller is great at the outdoorsy literary suspense story - really good nature writing (lots on the rivers of Colorado and fly fishing in this one), sparse and lyrical prose, and slow build to some intense happenings. I really liked The River; this is a follow-up in that it has the same protagonist and takes place after the events of that book, but I don't think you have to read them both. In this story, 25-year-old Jack, trying to get a new start after being haunted by tragedy from his last river canoeing trip, gets a job as a guide at a gated, isolated fishing lodge in Colorado that caters to the rich and famous, giving them an idyllic nature experience. But within his first couple of days he sees and hears a couple of strange and disturbing things, and quickly the idea of the idyll is broken. Jack is a great character, stoic and so experienced in the outdoors that you really get a thrill through his skills of tracking and such, even if you're a bit of an indoor cat like myself. What really intrigued me about this one was the fact that this lodge is kind of a safe haven for wealthy vacationers from a "novel virus" that has been plaguing the country for a couple of years. A very interesting backdrop because of some parallels to the Covid pandemic situation of course, but also the isolation due to the virus, the fears of the spread, and the ability of the wealthy to "escape" it all provides this undercurrent of tension that propels the story and adds to the overall slow-build suspense feeling. I'm not 100% here for pandemic books written about Covid, but explorations of it as an instigator for other happenings (like the thriller 56 Days) is really interesting. ★★★★
- I'll Show Myself Out: in this book of essays on "motherhood and midlife" Jessi Klein explores the experience of and (impossible?) cultural expectations around motherhood, particularly intersecting midlife, marriage, and life in a pandemic. I really liked how she took the literary concept of a "hero's journey" and wove it through the essays to describe how the mundane of motherhood, and the changes a person goes through in becoming/being one, are really this quest with challenges, humiliations, bittersweet moments, and of course joys. And there are some great observations about motherhood that I found myself nodding along with or highlighting - one that I feel like might be universal, but I hadn't heard spoken aloud before, is how the mother's brain can have whole and complete other trains of thought while simultaneously reading aloud books to their children (and even doing the voices and everything!). This is an amusing one - in general she is quite funny - and I appreciated these, just as much as the "big" ones that are feelings or doubts that mothers have - that are real and don't make them a bad mom to voice, and we need more permission to be able to talk about. In general the collection didn't land quite as well with me as her first book, but definitely a voice on modern woman- and motherhood that I appreciate and will keep following. ★★★
