what are you reading for july?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just finished Sandwich after seeing it recommended here. LOVED it for the first half, then got kind of bored. I did finish - and have some mixed feelings about the disclosures that come.

I am thinking of reading Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen next because it looks really fun. Unless folks have something else to hook me instead!

Counterfeit was very fun! It was kind of uneven (very smart in some places, a little trite in a few), overall great and fun and very worthwhile!

+1 on Counterfeit. Fun is the right word to describe it.

Thanks for the recommendation, I am flying today and just downloaded the audiobook.

I am the OP and just finished Counterfeit. I really enjoyed it! I know the reviews are mixed but I found it fast and fun, and even surprising.

And now to read... I'm not sure!

[Anonymous]

I just finished "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" by Beth Hoffman. The book came out in 2010 and had been on my bookshelf for a few years.
It is about a 12 year old girl whose mom dies and a great aunt she had never known existed takes her in.
I thought it was very good.

[Anonymous]

The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier

Re-reading King Leopold’s Ghost

About to start Stuart Neville’s The House of Ashes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker & I am dying to talk about why people rated this book almost 5 stars on Goodreads! I don’t get it & at almost 600 pages, I think it could have been so much shorter. I was really into it in the beginning & then just had to finish it out of spite.

But I loved the book One’s Company & highly recommend it!! Especially if you watched Three’s Company growing up!

I do see a lot of hype around Colors of the Dark. 600 pages is very long, that better rival how good Demon Copperhead is.

Low bar, then.
Demon Copperhead is an awful book.

This is a useless post. Please elaborate.

[Anonymous]

Just finished The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins and midway through the Menopause Manifesto. That's where I'm at...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier

Re-reading King Leopold’s Ghost

About to start Stuart Neville’s The House of Ashes

I read The Gladsmaker this weekend. I found the time conceit lazy. (This isn’t a spoiler, it’s in reviews: the conceit is time passes magically for the main characters, so the book starts in the 1400s and ends with Covid, but they live their normal lifespans over that period.) It seems the author wanted to write an epic but was too lazy to imagine multiple generations OR any fantasy framework to explain their longevity. And all the unoriginal swooning about the “magic of Venice” sounded like a student on their junior year abroad. I do not recommend!

[Anonymous]

I'm about 100 pages into Downers Grove by Michael Hornburg it's a coming of age novel but its a refreshing change from the crappy mysteries I just finished. So far I'm really liking it. I'm surprised myself.

[Anonymous]

I’m reading the bee sting per a previous dcum Rec. I’m cutting my losses and giving up. About 15% in to this very long book and don’t like it. Don’t like the characters and don’t like the plot centering around the Great Recession. I have enjoyed books that seem similar and are about family drama, but not this one. Goodbye book! On to the next.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to decide what to read next, I haven't loved the last few books I read:

The Hunter / Tana French (I love her books but this one was slow and mostly on the topic of small town culture and politics)

None of this is True / Lisa Jewell (overall good but the ending was weird and some things didn't add up for me)

The Alice Network / Kate Quinn (I liked parts of the story but parts were cheesy romcom and many, many plot points were just unbelievable)

The Glass Hotel / Emily St. John Mandel (Beautiful writing but I couldn't get into any of the characters and there was essentially no plot)

I have The Berry Pickers from the library but can't decide if I'm interested.

I loved the Berry Pickers. it was very moving.

[Anonymous]

The Little Liar by Mitch Albom (random pickup from Costco book table) - really liked this book. It is narrated by The Truth which I found interesting and appealing. Story is about an 11 year old boy who never lies and is used by nazis to convince Jewish people in Greece to board the trains using lies that they will be reunited with family, taken to a place they can work, new homes, etc. The boy is appalled when he finds out the officer tricked him and vows to never tell the truth again. The story follows his life and that of the three other main characters. Some really beautiful writing in this book, for example, "she felt intensely connected to him, the way we often feel about those we loved young, even decades later, even after they have changed dramatically" and "And so for awhile, they exchanged a rare kindness: the kindness of silence. they worked side by side in the present, and let the past sleep undisturbed." 5/5

Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza (rec from here) - enjoyed this, though by the end I was just enjoying the authors style of writing characters and didn't really care about how it ended. Wasn't super motivated to pick this book up after I had started it, but enjoyed it each time I did. Found it pretty funny - descriptions like "on the the play set splashed by the October sun", and "he hesitantly reached down and patted her head with all the warmth of a Disney animatronic" cracked me up. 4/5

The Bandit Queens (rec from here) - LOVED this book. Would eagerly accept recs for similar. Very entertaining, very true, very everything good about female friendship and the ups and downs of the real things women deal with. About a woman who loses her no-good husband but her village believes she killed him, and tries to enlist her to help them off their no-good husbands. "Look at them, they're just women, not murderers. 'Actually we are,' Geeta said. 'It's become sort of a side business. Wives who'd prefer to be widows." Just really enjoyed the writing style and the story, read this one quickly and felt I knew and connected with the characters, their motivations, and their meaning. 5/5

In progress:

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman - so far so good, about a mom who sends her daughter away to avoid nazi persecution enlisting a newly created golem as protection for the girl. I'm enjoying this book and find it as expected for an Alice Hoffman novel.

The Moment of Tenderness by Madeleine L'Engle - short story collection published after her death, interesting read so far and really brings in the human experience and how people truly do just pick up what is given to them and then seek to navigate through it. I can see why it didn't rate very well, but I'm liking it, the characters and the stories and the non resolution of carrying on anyway in less than ideal circumstances. has an endearing quality for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker & I am dying to talk about why people rated this book almost 5 stars on Goodreads! I don’t get it & at almost 600 pages, I think it could have been so much shorter. I was really into it in the beginning & then just had to finish it out of spite.

But I loved the book One’s Company & highly recommend it!! Especially if you watched Three’s Company growing up!

I do see a lot of hype around Colors of the Dark. 600 pages is very long, that better rival how good Demon Copperhead is.

Low bar, then.
Demon Copperhead is an awful book.

This is a useless post. Please elaborate.

If this book is intended to make us understand poverty and opioid crisis, it could have been accomplished without hitting us on the head with this tome.. it turns the 600 pages of suffering into entertainment. A trama porn. The characters lack agency and think of their lives as fixed and dependent upon their luck or fate in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker & I am dying to talk about why people rated this book almost 5 stars on Goodreads! I don’t get it & at almost 600 pages, I think it could have been so much shorter. I was really into it in the beginning & then just had to finish it out of spite.

But I loved the book One’s Company & highly recommend it!! Especially if you watched Three’s Company growing up!

I do see a lot of hype around Colors of the Dark. 600 pages is very long, that better rival how good Demon Copperhead is.

Low bar, then.
Demon Copperhead is an awful book.

This is a useless post. Please elaborate.

If this book is intended to make us understand poverty and opioid crisis, it could have been accomplished without hitting us on the head with this tome.. it turns the 600 pages of suffering into entertainment. A trama porn. The characters lack agency and think of their lives as fixed and dependent upon their luck or fate in life.

Do you understand it is entirely based on David Copperfield?

[Anonymous]

Just finished Outlawed by Anna North - I remember her from the glory days of Jezebel and found the book a quick, interesting beach read.

Starting The Wolf and the Woodsman.

[Anonymous]

Just finished my year of rest and relaxation (undecided) and the nightingale (no thanks). On to The Vaster Wilds which is great so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m reading the bee sting per a previous dcum Rec. I’m cutting my losses and giving up. About 15% in to this very long book and don’t like it. Don’t like the characters and don’t like the plot centering around the Great Recession. I have enjoyed books that seem similar and are about family drama, but not this one. Goodbye book! On to the next.

I can’t remember if I posted about it, but I read the Bee Sting a few months ago and really didn’t like it. Didn’t care for the story or the characters plus it was way too long (I skimmed the last third or so). So you’re definitely not the only one!