What is everyone reading for June?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I started reading The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. I can't decide if I want to keep reading it or not.

yeah I had the same response

I finished it but overall, wasn’t wowed by it. I loved Station Eleven but found Glass Hotel a little disappointing.


First quoted PP here - I'm a little over a third of the way in and still feeling iffy. The writing is really good...I want to like it...but switching around among the characters (and sometimes back and forth in time) is frustrating me. Anyone out there who read the whole thing have any encouragement to keep going??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I started reading The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. I can't decide if I want to keep reading it or not.

yeah I had the same response

I finished it but overall, wasn’t wowed by it. I loved Station Eleven but found Glass Hotel a little disappointing.


First quoted PP here - I'm a little over a third of the way in and still feeling iffy. The writing is really good...I want to like it...but switching around among the characters (and sometimes back and forth in time) is frustrating me. Anyone out there who read the whole thing have any encouragement to keep going??

DP. So I liked (not loved) Glass Hotel but I’m not sure you should keep going if you’re not enjoying it. It doesn’t really build towards a denouement or something— jumping around between character studies is its main thing (and the author’s thing). So if you’re not enjoying that, I’m not sure I would stick with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I started reading The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. I can't decide if I want to keep reading it or not.

yeah I had the same response

I finished it but overall, wasn’t wowed by it. I loved Station Eleven but found Glass Hotel a little disappointing.


First quoted PP here - I'm a little over a third of the way in and still feeling iffy. The writing is really good...I want to like it...but switching around among the characters (and sometimes back and forth in time) is frustrating me. Anyone out there who read the whole thing have any encouragement to keep going??

I’d encourage you to keep reading, especially if you’ve already read (or are going to read) Sea of Tranquility.

I liked SoT the best of the three books, and I read it before GH, so maybe that’s what motivated me to finish GH, even though I didn’t enjoy it as much. There are some small links between GH and SoT - nothing that would require you to read one before the other. But still, I liked the connectedness.

Maybe see how you feel at the 60% mark? In my experience, authors often throw down something interesting/new at the halfway mark. Not sure about GH, in particular, though.

[Anonymous]

It's your ARC reviewer friend checking in! Here are the books I read that come out in June...

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear - The end of an epic series, this was a personal favorite. I don't think anyone would love it if they didn't know the Maisie Dobbs stories already, but you don't have to have read all of the past books to enjoy this. If you don't know, the series follows a woman from being a nurse in WW1 to becoming a secret agent in WW2 with lots of sweet family stories and heart-wrenching mysteries along the way. Beautiful writing.

Secrets of Rose Briar Hall by Kelsey James - a suspense story set in gilded age New York, loosely based on Gaslight. A newlywed socialite wakes up after her first big party thrown at her new home to find out that someone was poisoned at the party and she's the main suspect, but she has no memory of the party. A page-turner, for sure.

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center - a sweet romcom about a writer who has to fix a romcom written by a famous Hollywood screenwriter who specializes in action movies. Funny, but also emotional at points.

The Secret Life of a Lady by Darcy McGuire - a spy thriller with historical romance. Two people who move in society are working as secret agents, reporting to different masters who have differing ideas of justice. Fast and fun.

The Last Note of Warning by Katherine Schellman - third book in a series, but standsalone. Set in 1920s New York. A seamstrees by day/speakeasy waistress by night is the last to talk to a powerful man who dies. She's the main suspect. Because of a connection, she's given a few days before she'll be charged with murder, so she attempts to find the real killer. The speakeasy part of the story is really interesting and gives a lot of atmosphere.

Lady Scandal by Laura Lee Guhrke - A woman who plans events at the Savoy hotel in the last 1800s is caught up in an embezzling investigation. Loosely based on real events - Caesar Ritz is part of this one. A fast read, though maybe not super memorable.

The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh by Claudia Gray - part of a series that moves the characters from Jane Austen's novels forward a few years and imagines some of their children becoming friends. I'm not usually one to read this kind of fan fiction work, but this was beautifully written and entertaining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finished Yellowface. Only picked it up because people either loved it or hated it- wouldn't have picked it up out of my own interest.

Ended up loving it. What a funny, nasty, smart read.

Can anyone recommend books that are similarly engaging? Ones where the experience of reading it is fun?

It's hard to know sometimes if I have books connected in my mind due to proximity or something else, but the other book I read at the same time and really enjoyed was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finished Yellowface. Only picked it up because people either loved it or hated it- wouldn't have picked it up out of my own interest.

Ended up loving it. What a funny, nasty, smart read.

Can anyone recommend books that are similarly engaging? Ones where the experience of reading it is fun?

It's hard to know sometimes if I have books connected in my mind due to proximity or something else, but the other book I read at the same time and really enjoyed was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Excellent book.

[Anonymous]

Just finished Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

I listened to it on Audible (it was done by one of my favorite narrators)

It is definitely slow and can be a little plodding, as is his style, but I liked it way better than The Lincoln Highway (which I have DNFd twice now and will probably never go back to)

It's the flashback story to the life of a 25-year old living in NYC in the 1930s

[Anonymous]

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49950478-missed-translations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finished Yellowface. Only picked it up because people either loved it or hated it- wouldn't have picked it up out of my own interest.

Ended up loving it. What a funny, nasty, smart read.

Can anyone recommend books that are similarly engaging? Ones where the experience of reading it is fun?

It's hard to know sometimes if I have books connected in my mind due to proximity or something else, but the other book I read at the same time and really enjoyed was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

I loved Yellowface, too. Another book that's mean and brittle - and short - that I recently enjoyed is Piglet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's your ARC reviewer friend checking in! Here are the books I read that come out in June...

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear - The end of an epic series, this was a personal favorite. I don't think anyone would love it if they didn't know the Maisie Dobbs stories already, but you don't have to have read all of the past books to enjoy this. If you don't know, the series follows a woman from being a nurse in WW1 to becoming a secret agent in WW2 with lots of sweet family stories and heart-wrenching mysteries along the way. Beautiful writing.

Secrets of Rose Briar Hall by Kelsey James - a suspense story set in gilded age New York, loosely based on Gaslight. A newlywed socialite wakes up after her first big party thrown at her new home to find out that someone was poisoned at the party and she's the main suspect, but she has no memory of the party. A page-turner, for sure.

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center - a sweet romcom about a writer who has to fix a romcom written by a famous Hollywood screenwriter who specializes in action movies. Funny, but also emotional at points.

The Secret Life of a Lady by Darcy McGuire - a spy thriller with historical romance. Two people who move in society are working as secret agents, reporting to different masters who have differing ideas of justice. Fast and fun.

The Last Note of Warning by Katherine Schellman - third book in a series, but standsalone. Set in 1920s New York. A seamstrees by day/speakeasy waistress by night is the last to talk to a powerful man who dies. She's the main suspect. Because of a connection, she's given a few days before she'll be charged with murder, so she attempts to find the real killer. The speakeasy part of the story is really interesting and gives a lot of atmosphere.

Lady Scandal by Laura Lee Guhrke - A woman who plans events at the Savoy hotel in the last 1800s is caught up in an embezzling investigation. Loosely based on real events - Caesar Ritz is part of this one. A fast read, though maybe not super memorable.

The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh by Claudia Gray - part of a series that moves the characters from Jane Austen's novels forward a few years and imagines some of their children becoming friends. I'm not usually one to read this kind of fan fiction work, but this was beautifully written and entertaining.

I also read the Rom-commers (had pre-ordered since I enjoyed Katherine Center’s other books) and liked it. It was not quite as vivid to me as some of her other books but I enjoyed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are you reading this month?
What is it about?
What did you think about it?
Why did you pick that particular book to read?
How did you acquire the book?

I just finished listening to "Crazy Rich Asians".
It is about a woman who finds out her boyfriend of 2 years comes from a very wealthy family. She is Asian, but has always lived in America. He grew up in Singapore. She accompanies him on a trip back to his home country where he is the best man in a wedding for his childhood buddy.

I thought the basic story was good. However, easily one third of the book was descriptions of clothes / jewelry / furnishings / decor / purses / shoes, etc. I would have much preferred a condensed version of the book instead of all that. There are 2 sequels but I don't plan to read them.
I picked that book to read because it sounded fun.
Downloaded it from my library website.

Much better as a movie! The wedding scene in the movie is like a top 5 romcom moment for me.

[Anonymous]

Just finished “Real Americans.” Am not sure how I feel. I certainly don’t feel strongly about it (didn’t love it; didn’t dislike it; didn’t race through it; didn’t find it a slog to read).

[Anonymous]

I picked up Gone Girl from a little free library and read it over the weekend. I have never seen the movie and didn’t really know any spoilers except that it had twists. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it after sort of dutifully making it through my recent more literary reads. (The more literary reads were Biography of X, which I really did not like in the end; it is an alternative history where the South became a literal Christo- fascist separate nation, but it isn’t really about that. It is about this somewhat tedious performance artist, as described by her widow. I really was not sure of the point of it by the end. I also read Man Walks Into a Room, by Nicole Krauss, about a man who loses all his memories after age 12 and who doesn’t really mind, which was fine, but slow). Gone Girl has inspired me to celebrate summer by picking another zippy read next.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just read Happiness Falls by local author Angie Kim. I was very meh on it. I thought the opening was good - she hooked me in with the setup of a disappeared father, a non-verbal special needs son, and the voice of the sarcastic and quirky sister as narrator. But the book just moves too fast through all of these clues that pop up and wild assumptions that the family makes from them. And I thought the ending was completely unbelievable.

Next up is Enlightenment, Sarah Perry's new novel. I never love her novels, but they intrigue me enough that I keep reading them.

I read Happiness Fall when it came out and I wholeheartedly agree with your meh review.

NP. I really liked this book. It was fascinating to learn about the non speaking son with autism/angelman’s disease, particularly the parts narrated by him, and the “who done it” behind the father’s disappearance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are you reading this month?
What is it about?
What did you think about it?
Why did you pick that particular book to read?
How did you acquire the book?

The Hunter, by Tana French
It's a mystery/police novel set in Ireland. It follows with characters created in The Searcher by the same author. Small town politics, teen angst, outsider/ insider stuff.
I liked it less than The Searcher, and as soon as I realized what the plot was going to hinge on (and I thought it wasn't plausible) I was disappointed. Every otgebook by Tana French has been five stars for me-this was just four. Still great, but disappointing bc of my high expectations.
I read every y Tana French book, that's why I hose it.
Bought it new hardcover in an independent bookstore in Chicago.

I just started on The Searcher. I’ve only read one of French’s other books, Broken Harbor, which I really enjoyed.. partially because I’ve spent a fair amount of time in studying and traveling in western Ireland, where the “ghost estates” were a real and noticeable issue (not sure if they still are, that was 15+ years ago). So I really could place the scenery in that book.

So far so good with The Searcher.