All things considered (KonMari and BlogHer15) this wasn’t a bad reading month. It totally could have been worse and I’m surprised it wasn’t. Yay, July!
I read 15 books.
1 was an audiobook.
6 were non-fiction.
3 were YA and those were all Cybil books.
Which is nice, I’m making a lot of progress on Cybils and am hopeful that I won’t be floundering with the list at the end of December, like I did last year.
The Boy Who Killed Demons is a creepy book. I found Henry to be maybe even creepier than the demons. But maybe you have to be kind of creepy in order to survive seeing demons… and then killing demons.
What I don’t understand is why the demons didn’t take this kid out when they realized he could see them. I don’t get that. It seemed… odd. And, the whole way through the book, I puzzled over this and found it difficult to really believe in the story, lol.
I liked the book, stayed up late to finish it, but I didn’t love it because that part just didn’t fly for me.
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I did it. I read Go Set a Watchman. I figured what the hell, TKAM is not one of my favorite books and I always found Atticus Finch to be a bit… too much and I certainly wasn’t going to be upset to find out he wasn’t who we were led to believe he was. That seemed obvious to me the first time around.
So… yea, I read it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. The writing was not always great. The story was clunky in places. There were some chapters that I loved. There were some that I hated. In the end… we just traded Atticus Finch for Scout… a color-blind southern woman surrounded by small town Alabama citizens struggling with race.
No shock here for me. No revelations, either.
I wasn’t sure what to read but remembered TW said Housewitch was surprisingly good. So, that seemed like a good choice.
A few chapters in and I thought I’d made a bad choice and that TW had gotten this book confused with something else. It was fine but not “surprisingly good” — turns out, I just needed to wait a tiny bit longer because before I knew it, I’d stayed up until after midnight to finish it. Couldn’t put it down.
I’m not even really sure why I couldn’t put it down. It was just surprisingly good. Maybe it was a spell on the book or something…
The Other Daughter is another great novel from Lauren Willig. I enjoyed it so much, I didn’t want to put it down. Rachel is a great character (and so is Vera.) I’m very glad everything turned out the way it did for Rachel and for the other characters. Except for CeCe, poor CeCe. We should have a book about CeCe, that would be fabulous.
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Last month I decided I wanted a green roof on my chicken coop, the chicken coop I don’t have right now. I spent some time surfing pinterest for green roof chicken coops for inspiration. And just about the time I’d moved on from actively thinking about green roof chicken coops, Small Green Roofs appeared on the non-fiction new arrival shelf at the library. It was a sign. Clearly.
I read it. Skimmed it, really. It was not inspirational. It was a bit intimidating. Also, there’s a lot of math involved and a lot of science, too. I obviously knew you couldn’t just throw soil and plants on a roof and that was it. I understood you’d need to think about the weight on the roof and waterproofing. I also had a vague understanding that there are special soil thingies for green roofs. And this book talks about all of that — and a lot more, in a very overwhelming way.
I didn’t hate the book. I didn’t love the book. I’m glad I read the first two chapters and skimmed the rest. I still want a green roof chicken coop and I shall have one, someday!
I totally impulse picked New York In a Dozen Dishes because, duh, #BlogHer15 is in New York. And also because I like New York pizza.
The book was interesting – a look at 12 dishes, their history and their history in New York. Bonus for including restaurant suggestions and a recipe for each one. There’s quite a bit I wouldn’t eat (brains, chowder, blech) but all of the chapters were interesting. And, I have a weird craving for a black & white cookie and I don’t really like black & white cookies.
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I’ll Give You the Sun started slowly and the chapters are really long but I got hooked really quickly and could not put it down. I love both twins and the other kids and adults in the book. Great characters. Well done, well done.
We listened to Noggin on audio and enjoyed this one, too. Poor kid. Seriously. I cannot imagine. I even mostly liked the ending, though for awhile there I was afraid it was going to be stupid. I should have known better, obviously. That whole Travis and Cate thing… gah. Also, I’ve decided I wouldn’t opt for having my head cryogenically frozen. Nope. Not doing it.
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I wasn’t sure about Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood. I was either going to love it or hate it, and I was pretty sure it would be the latter. Turns out, I loved it.
It’s a quick read and it didn’t take more than a few pages for me to fall in love with Abby and her mom and her grandparents and her friends. It took me longer to fall in love with Abby’s dad, but that’s to be expected.
I did a lot of talking out loud to the book. I gasped when Abby talked to the reporters towards the end. TW was confused by my vocal engagement with the book. I couldn’t help it, I felt compelled to talk to or commiserate with Abby.
Who would have guessed?
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I don’t know if At The Water’s Edge started slowly or if I was just tired but I had a really hard time getting through the first third of the book. I pretty much hated all of the characters in the beginning. I obviously didn’t end up loving the guys but at least I started to care about the story once they made their way to Scotland got settled in there.
After that, I really enjoyed it and ended up staying awake way too late last night to finish it.
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