July Books 2021

Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams 

TL; DR --- Read it. 

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain

TL: DR --- Easily the most depressing book I've read in awhile. 

Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier

TL; DR --- Read it.

Full of Beans by Jennifer L. Holm

TL; DR --- Absolutely perfect middle-grade historical fiction. She always gives background info at the back of the book too. 

The Stranger in the Mirror by Liv Constantine

TL; DR --- Ahhhh I read it in one day. 

The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm

TL; DR --- I had to force myself to finish this, just because. Kids may have a different reaction. 

Didn't finish:

A Million Reasons Why by Jessica Strawser

I loved Not That I Could Tell, but this book didn't have characters that I enjoyed. I found Sela's life to be almost too depressing to read about, Caroline's life seemed too perfect with her insisting it wasn't (and was her husband's name really Walt???), and the mother (Hannah?): she was worse than a sullen teenager. Could. not. stand. her. 

There was something about the writing...overly descriptive and unnecessarily detailed and it seemed predictable from like chapter 3. I got to maybe 25-30%.  It just didn't interest me because the characters were not for me. 

It says on the front that Jodi Picoult endorses it and, yeah, it does read like a Picoult. This just wasn't nearly as interesting as Not That I Could Tell. 

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

I also tried another book by this duo, thinking maybe I could get into it. It was compared to One Plus One by Jojo Moyes, which is one of my favorites ever. Nope. I got about 1/3 of the way into it and just scrapped it. It almost feels like a rip-off of One Plus One because the main characters even have the same name. The child was not charming. Jess lived in a little bubble. Her friend wasn't believable as her friend and, what a life: working from a coffee shop for 8 hours a day, every day. 

This is why I don't read these kinds of books. There's nothing interesting about them. They're just long Hallmark movies. 

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

Another popular book I picked up at the library because I saw it on the new release shelf and many of you had talked about it. First, I don't do horror and, while this might make a good mini-series, it just wasn't compelling to read. I don't even have deep thoughts on it; just that I didn't like it enough to read more than 40 pages. 

That puts me at 37 books for the year by the end of July. I don't exactly expect my reading to pick up the pace, so I may be going back to audiobooks. I don't know if I have a school-year strategy but last week I kind of figured I'd just table reading for a bit. I just don't feel like it right now. 

This is my current TBR list, however, so if you liked any of these, let me know which are worth it!

As usual, you can follow my reviews in real time on Instagram.