The Walls Around Us

Here’s a Cybils shortlister that I didn’t love. I didn’t hate it, but it just didn’t grab me the way I had hoped. From the reviews of The Walls Around Us, I might be the only person who didn’t just absolutely love it.

It’s dark, it’s ghost story-like, it’s beautifully written — it just didn’t work for me. It might, however, work for you. Try it and let me know.

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

Thank goodness for the Cybil Awards. Slasher Girls & Monster Boys is something I probably never would have picked up on my own. I like horror, but I don’t read a lot of YA horror and I certainly don’t read short story YA horror. If they’re all like this, I should change that.

This is some of the best storytelling and the best writing, PERIOD. Read it.

The Forgotten Room

Having read everything Willig has written and most of what White has written (though only a little of what Williams has written) it’s hard for me to believe that I did not know The Forgotten Room existed until I stumbled across it on the “new arrivals” shelf. WTF?

I was a little worried about it — would it be really obvious as to which author wrote each section, particularly once I realized there were three women across three time period? (It wasn’t.) Would it be jarring to move from White to Williams to Willig? (It wasn’t.)

I really enjoyed the story but admit to spending an inordinate amount of time tracking the lineage and saying, that can’t be right because INCEST and stuff like that. lol

The Southern Education of a Jersey Girl

I have no idea where I saw The Southern Education of a Jersey Girl but it caused me to reserve it at the library almost immediately.

It was ok. I didn’t hate it. Most of it. I even really, really enjoyed the pregnancy test parts. Laughed out loud, a lot. I probably would have liked it more if I had known a single thing about Jamie Primak before I read it.

Four Graphic Novels

Readathons, even #fakereadathons, mean I get to spend some time catching up on graphic novels and these four were excellent. All four of them.

Roller Girl was awesome. I loved everything about it. I hope there are more Roller Girl books.

Next, I read March Book 2 and it was good, obviously, because John Lewis, y’all.

After that, Sunny Side Up. Poor kid. This was well written and well drawn. I didn’t expect much from it and was very pleasantly surprised.

Last, but not least, Honor Girl. Loved it. And, shockingly, I loved the ending. Some people probably didn’t – those “I want a happy endinggggg.” kinds of people. Nope. It ended exactly as it should have.

Flight Patterns

It’s been awhile since I read one of Karen White’s books and I was particularly happy to read one set in Florida. Flight Patterns was good. I enjoyed it. Even if all of the coincidences that brought all of these people and all of the secrets out in the open were just a little too over the top. lol Great story. Nice beach read.

Four Non-Fiction

The #fakereadathon turned into a #fakereadathonweekend and I knocked out four non-fiction books for the occasion. Woot!

First, I finished The Bridge Ladies and really enjoyed it. I don’t know squat about bridge but when I was a kid I used to peruse the bridge column in the newspaper every Sunday and try to figure out what the heck they were talking about. Too much math for me but this memoir was pretty excellent. Moms, daughters, bridge and stuff. Go read it.

Next, I read Urban Sketching. I was overwhelmed by it. Too many words, too many sketches. I mean it’s a good book for urban sketching, I’m sure. It’s just too much. I need more white space.

More my speed, Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists. I want to own this book. Seriously. I wonder how much is is for Kindle… oh, hah. Cheaper in paperback. I’m pretty sure I will own this some day.

Last but absolutely not least, The Aunt Jemima Code. Super interesting and I was tempted to go dig through TW’s cookbooks to see just how many of the featured books were on our shelves. I’m pretty sure quite a lot. (though it’s also possible that she Kondoed a bunch, too.) Really good book.

Remember Me to Miss Louisa

Remember Me to Miss Louisa was mentioned in this post about black women and street harassment. It sounded interesting so I reserved it at my library. (Well my library didn’t have it so I ordered it from ILL and it arrived from USF pretty quickly.)

It was really interesting and I’m glad I read it.

Reading in July

It was a better month for reading but not nearly as good as I’d hoped. The RNC and DNC got in the way, darn it. Also, the social life. Goodness, the social life!

I read 9 books.

1 was an audiobook
2 were non-fiction
4 were middle grade/YA
3 were Cybils

In August, we’re doing a fake #readathon and that should help. Hopefully.

The Last Bookaneer

It took me AGES to read this book, partly because of the RNC and the DNC but also because the damn thing was SLOW. The premise was good. The characters were interesting. But good lord, it could have been about 100 pages shorter and been a much better book. By the time I got to the end, I no longer cared about The Last Bookaneer or any damn bookaneer at all. I didn’t even care about Robert Louis Stevenson.

Darn it.
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